Say my name

This issue hit the media late last week, but I wanted to address the topic today you guys and gals.

Last week during a House testimony over voter registration legislation Republican Texas state representative Betty Brown suggested that Asian Americans adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.”

The comments were made 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 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.

In response to Brown’s statements the Texas Democratic Party demanded she apologize as did New York City Councilman John Liu who in a letter to her wrote: “It’s outrageous and insulting for you to suggest it would ‘behoove’ us to adopt another name, to give up our birthright and a part of our own identity, in order to exercise our right to vote.”

A spokesman for Brown, however, said her comments were not racially motivated and were only an attempt to overcome problems with identifying Asian names for voting purposes.

Check out a video of Brown and Ko’s exchange and tell me what you think.