There is a certain strain (stain?) of Democrats that misses no opportunity — indeed, creates opportunities when none exist — to accuse opponents of being racists. The Senate, for example, just passed a toothless amendment declaring English the “national” (not “official”) language of the United States. The amendment explicitly stated that it would have no effect on “current laws that require some government documents and services be provided in other languages.”
The ever-reliable Democratic Minority Leader, Senator Reid, commented on cue that this amendment was “racist.” Senator Salazar (D, Colo) added that it was “divisive and un-American.”
I always impressed that Democrats who defend distributing all sorts of government goodies on the basis of race and ethnicity, favoring some and disfavoring others, are quick to spot “divisiveness” in programs others see as unifying.
Notably, after passing the English as national language amendment,
the Senate voted 58 to 39 to approve a competing amendment by Salazar. It declared English the “common unifying language of the United States,” but mandated that nothing in that declaration “shall diminish or expand any existing rights” regarding multilingual services.
Presumably because Sen. Salazar is a Democrat, Sen. Reid has not been heard calling this amendment racist.
UPDATE [25 May]
As George Will points out, Sen. Reid’s charges of “racism!” are as incompetent as they are ubiquitous.
…. During Senate debate last week on a measure to declare English the national language, he said: “While the intent may not be there, I really believe this amendment is racist.’’
Questions crowd upon one another. Was his opaque idea — well, perhaps it is not opaque to liberals — of unintentional racism merely a bow to Senate rules against personal slurs? What “race’’ does Reid think is being victimized? Are Spanish speakers members of a single race? Evidently Reid thinks something like that because his next sentence was: “I think it is directed basically to people who speak Spanish.’’ Indeed, it is, but what has that to do with racism?
If the amendment is “toothless”, then what purpose does it serve?
Could this be another attempt, in addition to secret gay marriage ban amendments to rally support among the predominantly white religious fundamentalist base in lieu of disastrous polling numbers heading into the mid-terms?
If it’s NOT, then I’d love to hear a good reason for a “toothless” amendment.
–Cobra
The gay marriage amendments aren’t secret. They’ll undoubtedly win. I hope so.
This is a religious issue that the religious must attend to.
They disagree with you. This does not make them “fundamentalists.” It means they have common sense. Actually subscribing to the tenets of Christianity is not evidence of a sinister plot.
The ban on gay marriages are not addressed to predominantly white groups. They are very popular among Black religious groups.
As far as the amendment being toothless, you can ask that of Salazar’s amendment as well.
It would be foolish for any political party not to try to appeal to its base, whatever that might be.
Is there some race of human beings that can’t speak or understand Engish?
People on the left may accuse people on the right of racism too often (kind of like how people on the Right accuse people on the Left of “America hatred” too often). But, this celebration of language ignorance seems really stupid to me (regardless of racial animus).
Why are people celebrating the fact that they only know one language??? It reminds me of President Bush proudly stating that, prior to his presidency, he’d never been outside of the United States. Is that something to be proud of???
Yes, there should be an official language of the United States, but we should also know other languages, so that we can, like, you know, communicate with other people?!?!
To me this reads like someone proudly proclaiming that they didn’t graduate from high school. Maybe instead of celebrating ignorance, we should push learing other languages (Spanish for those who already speak English; English for those who already speak Spanish), so that we can be smarter/better informed people. I don’t have data to back this up, but I suspect that the U.S. is one of a very few industrialized countries where most residents only speak one language. That’s pathetic. Given our history (and our future) and our proximity to Central and South America; English AND Spanish should be taught to all students.
Hull, if we are to learn the languages of the Americas, we really ought to throw in French and Portuguese.
Of course Americans should know more languages than they do. Of course the more you know, the better. I can read Spanish and Italian and German with difficulty and with a dictionary. I’d be the last to complain if I could suddenly do it without effort; still less if I could speak fluently as well as read fluently. And, yes, many countries put us to shame in this matter, though I rather think it’s the other side of the same coin: they need our business; we don’t speak their languages; therefore, they learn ours — sparing us the need to learn theirs. Rinse, repeat.
I took three years of Spanish more or less by default (alternatives were French and Latin; I wanted Latin, but my parents vetoed that, and I was scared of French because I’d had some in nursery school and couldn’t pronounce squat). It’s a great language with a fine literature, but I don’t buy this “lots of people speak it nearby, so it should be compulsory” business. I think a range of world languages ought to be taught in the public schools (emphatically including Arabic), and I think it would be ridiculous to ask students to become fluent in English and Spanish even if they wanted to tackle a third language, which is obviously what you’d need if two languages were compulsory.
“Why are people celebrating the fact that they only know one language??? ”
Who are you refering to? Hispanics who only speak Spanish?
In charging racism, Senator Ried was pointing out that language is one facet of how race is socially produced. Thus, u create a hierarchy of lang by making one the national lang, and voila…racism. There is no one group to speak of as the racism is highly contextual.