Check out this thiry-second TV ad, called “Language”, from Tim James, a Republican running for Albama governor. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
Can you believe this mess?
Tim James is honestly campaigning on a platform of language discrimination. One of his campaign promises is actually to disenfranchise American citizen who don’t speak English by eliminating non-English government documents.
It’s probably unnecessary for me to point out, but a full 20% of Americans speak primarily a language other than English at home. Of those, roughly 20% speak an Asian language. So, we’re talking about a good chunk of Americans, including a sizeable portion of the Asian American community, who may rely on non-English government documents to function. Further, most of the other 80% of Americans who speak a non-English language at home are Spanish-speaking. Thus, eliminating non-English government documents will overwhelmingly affect members of the Asian and Latino communities — who collectively make up about 4% of Alabama’s population.
Clearly, James isn’t counting on those votes to elect him governor. Although, perhaps he should — a recent poll shows James polling at only 8 points in the Republican Gubernatorial primary in Alabama, behind fellow Republicans Bradley Byrne and Roy Moore. Although, then again, James may also be the joke of the race: not only did his campaign release a whiny press release disputing the numbers of the aforementioned poll (because it shows their candidate doing really badly amongst all segments of Republican voters), but Tim James’ campaign website has to have the single worst example of header image Photoshopping I have ever seen. I mean really — go check out his campaign website. What is up with that header image? Not only are James’ ear and sleeve fading into ghostly non-existence, but that left-over beige background around his neck makes it look like he’s engulfed in a form-fitting plume of desert sand. I guess none of those all-American, English-speaking campaign staff James hired know how to work a background filter, huh?
Oh, and Gawker points out the irony that Tim James, who just hates them foreign languages, is the son of former Alabama Governor Fob James. That’s right — “Fob“.
i,won,t spend my tourist money in this racist state.
I’ll move to Alabama just to help vote this guy in.
What other country do you know has multiple language signage, loud speaker announcements, ect in public areas. Our founding fathers choose English as this countries language. If you need a refresher course watch:
AMERICA “THE STORY OF US”
ON SUNDAY, THE HISTORY CHANNEL
background makes him look more Jesus-y. Can’t ever have enough religion in politics down here.
And what John doesn’t know is that their were to versions of the constitution originally written, one in English and one in Spanish.
Korean is spoken in this home. Our children both learned Korean and they are better off for it…bi-lingual and more is better. But, we don’t do our taxes in Korean and when we go do official business we don’t expect be “served in Korean”. But we enjoy and encourage speaking Korean among friends and in home.
We attend a intercultural church…primarily Korean and white, but included with the white and Korean pastors (1 white, 1 Korean male and his wife is a minister too), we have a female Indian pastor. Our congregation is made up of folks from India, Ethiopia, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Guatemala, Mexico, Truk, Philippines, and Ukraine. The bulletin is in English, Korean, Spanish, and Mandarin. Our children learn songs in English, Spanish, French, and really want to move into learning songs in Ethiopian and Mandarin. Our children are primarily Korean, white, and mixed Korean white but we have some interesting mixes…Mexican and Trukese, Mexican/Korean/white, Trukese/black, Chinese/Korean, Chinese/white, Thai/white.
I have in-laws who speak virtually no English and they get along fine. It is personal matter…but their children do English. It is a time thing…a the following generation is completely fluent in English. Then the challenge becomes how to keep the Korean language alive in the family.
We should encourage multiple languages at the personal level and provide services for those who don’t. It is merely just about time and will all come out in the wash.