A state representative of Texas had allegedly suggested that Asian Americans should adopt names that are easier for her western tongue to deal with.
Sounds rather inflammatory and even racist, huh?
All hell breaks loose and a city councilman in Texas (Asian, of course) demands an apology, failing that, a resignation. (The last time I encountered outrage from the Asian American community when something offended them was the Rosie O’Donnell debacle. I came down on Rosie’s side, but that’s no indication of how I feel about Rosie personally. Heh.)
Representative Betty Brown tried to walk back her statements by saying: “At 1 a.m. after we’d been through ’bout 10 hours, I probably wasn’t speaking just as I should.”
So everyone and their mother expresses outrage. I googled the topic and blog commentators in what I’d call the ‘liberal’ blogs are being offended on my behalf – the Asian half, I guess.
I’d feel the same way too if I didn’t stumble onto the video of the hearings. Some quick background: Texas is working on a voter ID bill and this is why all this is going on, to explore how to best legislate.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that the representative gravely misspoke around the 0:50 mark and people got their knickers in a wad, jumped all over that and didn’t bother to allow the second half of her statement to be included in their leftist rants about the right being racists.
As you see, quickly following the incendiary “would it behoove you and your citizens…” she did say “I’m not talking about changin’ your name – I’m talking about the transliterations, or whatever…” and that I believe was the true intention – finding a way to somehow standardize (not possible) all the non-Romanized names in roman alphabets.
Did Representative Brown put foot in mouth? Yes. Should she apologize for that? Yes, and she did. Are people making mountains out of molehills while ignoring the real issues that needs to be tackled? YES.
Forchristsakes. The reason they have these meetings is to hash out all the little tangles before they can write law. There are too many real wars to be fought and a cheap shot at trying to bring someone down like this is absolutely amateur hour.
As Napoleon Dynamite would say.. GOSH!