Great.  Awesome.  Fantastic.  Just when I think this country is making progress in the realm of the racial divide, Texas Representative Betty Brown opens her big, rich, white mouth and craps all over the progress made by the election of President Barack Obama.  (Click here for the story)  In a nutshell, Rep. Brown was hearing testimony regarding voter identification legislation and voters of Asian descent, testimony from Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.  Essentially, some Asian-descent voters had trouble voting because of their transliterated names and their forms of identification.  Rep. Brown proceeds to say the following to Ko: “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?”  Rep. Brown shoved her foot even farther down her mouth when she continued, saying, “I see a need here for young people like you, who are obviously very bright, to come up with something that would work for you and then let us see if we can’t make it work for us.”

(Now, before I go on my tirade, allow me set the record straight and say that I don’t believe in turning every little quote or statement into a racial issue.  I’m not that sensitive.  Further, I believe that racism is often a two-way street and that reverse racism is much more rampant that is openly acknowledged.  Therefore, the only way to eliminate such insensitivity is for EVERYONE — regardless of skin color, political affiliation, ethnic heritage, sexual orientation, economic standing — to stop all this “us vs. them” nonsense.  How about instead of “versus,” we change it to a “with” or an “and.”  “Us and them;” “you with me.”  It may sound trite and idealistic, but the way I see it, a little idealism, a little hope, is never a bad thing.  Differences will abound, there’s no denying that.  But part of what has made America great is that we have embraced our differences and made those individualities work for the common good, not against it.)

OK, back to the regularly scheduled rant.  (Also check out Rachel Farris’ editorial about the story here.)

First of all, “you and your citizens?”  Thanks for separating “you” from us.  Translated: you = minorities, us = the white majority in position of political power.  Ugh.  Wake up, Mrs. Brown, it’s 2009!!  Your “us” and “them” statement, no matter how it was meant, is soooo 1950’s.  (Then again, so is your haircut…yup, it’s gettin’ personal.)

Secondly, last I checked, no one is “behooved” to changed their name in this country.  EVER.  If that were the case, Mrs. Brown, we’d all have Native American names, or have you forgotten the fact that European settlers weren’t the first ones here?

And then Brown’s spokesperson, Jordan Berry, had the gall to say that Democrats are blowing the statement out of proportion.  Um, excuse me, Mr. Berry, I don’t really see how else to interpret Mrs. Brown’s statement other than as racially insensitive.  And what’s even more disturbing is that your saying just the Democrats are blowing this out of proportion.  What about other Republicans?  Aren’t they upset about this?  If not, they should be.  But politicall party affiliation is clouding the real issue here; it has nothing to do with Republicans vs. Democrats.  EVERYONE should be incensed by Mrs. Brown’s remarks.  It’s unacceptable for someone in public office, someone who was elected by the very people she just insulted, to even think about saying what she did, much less openly suggest it on the floor of the Texas House.  Brown’s remarks represent such a myopic, closed-minded view of how American society functions.  Don’t like all the diversity, Mrs. Brown?  Then America isn’t the place for you.  I hear Iceland is nice and homogeneous (nothing against Iceland).

Granted, some Asian names are tough to pronounce.  Then again, names like Neugebauer, Luetkemeyer, and Sensenbrenner (these are all real names of HoR members; look ’em up here) — clearly names of European descent (read: white) — don’t exactly roll off the tongue.  Sorry, Mrs. Brown, was “Ko” a little to difficult to pronounce?  I have an idea, ma’am.  Since you are the representative, why don’t you change your name to something more familiar to your constituents.  “Bigot” sounds about right.

Angry?  You’re damn right I am.