Sunday, April 12, 2009

Texas lawmaker apologizes for saying that Asians should ‘adopt a name.'

Thinkprogress:

On Tuesday, Texas State Rep. Betty Brown (R) caused a firestorm during House testimony on voter identification legislation when she said that Asian-Americans should get new names because they’re too hard to pronounce:

“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?” Brown said.

Brown later told [Organization of Chinese Americans representative Ramey] Ko:

“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 initially insisted that she didn’t say anything wrong. However, she has now put out a statement apologizing, saying that she “understands the ‘diversity of Texas’ and the ‘enrichment’ that Asian-Americans have brought to the state.”

3 comments:

airJackie said...

This is another example of the dumbing down of America. Just think if every Americans last name was Smith or Jones. If you can't pronounce a name just say so and ask the person to say it for you.

Anonymous said...

Right out of Texas, land of Bush Jr. where he clearly showed us and blamed his Texan accent for not being able to pronounce, terrorist and nuclear, amoung many other simple words.

KittyBowTie1 said...

I seriously doubt she understands the enrichment that Asian-Americans bring to Texas.