how now, Betty Brown?

[glass_icarus]

Oh, Texas. Sometimes I don't even know what to say about you. I am having some trouble with this link today, so here are the relevant pieces of information (the topic of discussion was voter identification legislation) in case it doesn't work for you guys.

O RLY:

"Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?"
-- Texas Representative Betty Brown (R), on Tuesday.

YA RLY:

“Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”
-- Brown, to Organization of Chinese Americans representative Ramey Ko.

NO WAI:

Her spokesman said that Democrats “want this to just be about race.”

I've spent the last couple of days trying to decide if this is funnier or more insulting. Republican Party, when are you going to realize that minorities do, in fact, exist?

... Anyway! I'm tired of ending things on a depressing note, so have an old favorite of mine for Poetry Month:

as freedom is a breakfastfood
or truth can live with right and wrong
or molehills are from mountains made
-long enough and just so long
will being pay the rent of seem
and genius please the talentgang
and water most encourage flame

as hatracks into peachtrees grow
or hopes dance best on bald men's hair
and every finger is a toe
and any courage is a fear
-long enough and just so long
will the impure think all things pure
and hornets wail by children stung

or as the seeing are the blind
and robins never welcome spring
nor flatfolk prove their world is round
nor dingsters die at break of dong
and common's rare and millstones float
-long enough and just so long
tomorrow will not be too late

worms are the words but joy's the voice
down shall go which and up come who
breasts will be breasts and thighs will be thighs
deeds cannot dream what dreams can do
-time is a tree (this life one leaf)
but love is the sky and i am for you
just so long and long enough

-- e.e. cummings

Comments

[rudhampaiel.livejournal.com]

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I didn't realize one had to learn Chinese in order to be able to say a person's name? (Never mind the fact that you seem to be handling all of the German/French/Italian etc. names just fine.)

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

like, okay, i get that multisyllabic Asian names (see: Thai, Indian, etc.) might be difficult to pronounce, but you are talking to Chinese people. we don't even have multisyllabic words! WTF, lady. -.-;; plus, if we're talking multisyllabic problems here, you ought to include the Russians and Finns or whatever as well, jeez. *shakes head*

[rudhampaiel.livejournal.com]

And I mean, last names? How many times have you botched somebody else's last name? Last names are SO complicated. So, I mean, maybe we should just assign people numbers or something.

English numbers, obviously. I don't want to hear about any of this 'let's respect the languages of others' crap.

[a-mael.livejournal.com]

I...I...I...just don't even know what to say to that. It's stunning. Just.

*gives up* People... *shakes head*

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

i laughed until i cried (in FURY, not sadness) until i laughed again... yeah, sometimes i despair of humanity.

[such_heights]

oh my GOD. It's totally petty of me, but it's one of the things I hate most the bigotry - the complete lack of any sort of Earth logic! D: And the fact she's addressing someone whose name is all of seven letters long is made of preposterous amounts of fail.

But! I have not read that cummings poem before, and it is of course gorgeous.

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

I KNOW! "Ramey Ko." granted, Ramey is an unusual name, but Ko? K, O... that's so damn difficult to spell, is it?? as are names like Wong and Lee and Chang- god forbid! it has five whole letters! (kind of like, oh, JONES, but let's not go there, shall we?) the logic fail is just icing on the top.

hee, i do like that cummings poem quite a lot! his words are always gorgeous, but i find it's the rhythm that keeps me coming back so often; i am a sucker for the song-like. *g*

[magnetic-pole.livejournal.com]

Wow. I don't even know what to say about this, except that in the US we seem to tolerate racism cloaked in xenophobia (when we're feeling a bit picky about overt racism). This is the kind of thing folks should have to apologize publicly for. M.

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

i think she may have apologized by now, but frankly i am still disinclined to care- or to be mollified, for that matter. Asians do exist in Texas; quite a lot of them, actually- a fact that surprised me, as a coastal girl, but which shouldn't surprise her, as she LIVES THERE.

[woldy]

The link doesn't seem to work for me, but is she suggesting people should have appropriately anglophone names in order to vote for the sake of administrative convenience? *blinks* Really? In a country where millions of people (and disproportionately people of colour) are already disenfranchised by felony convictions as part of a racially-biased criminal justice system. Wow. Did she consider hiring more competent and diverse people as poll administrators, instead?

In high school we used to deliberately elect as prefects the people with the hardest to pronounce names in order to chortle at the headmistress' attempt to say them. Usually she did a pretty good job, but she didn't even attempt the name of our Eastern European fencing teacher which had js and ks but no vowels at all.

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

...... this woman, i just. idek. and why solely target the Chinese people here anyway? our names are actually much easier to pronounce than the multisyllabic crazy/awesome of all those Russians, Poles, Indians, Thais, etc.

that is a particularly WIN strategy, i think! xD

[vanishing-cake.livejournal.com]

*points and giggles*

Wait, they're actually serious?

*facedesk*