My intellectual batteries, or at least the cells that are capable of writing, are pretty tapped out today. I spent six hours doing a rush job writing a brief, and to be frank, I’m just not that into it tonight.
But I thought I would pass this on (via Huffington Post)to anyone who might have missed it. As someone who has to spell his name countless times a day, I feel a certain sympathy with the Asians who are at the receiving end of this foolishness. It makes you wonder if having a negative IQ is a prerequisite for holding elective office in Texas, or just for being nominated as a candidate by the Republicans.
A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.”
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The exchange occurred late Tuesday as the House Elections Committee heard testimony from Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.
Ko told the committee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and other forms of identification because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on their driver’s license on school registrations.
Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible.
“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 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?”
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