What's in a name?
Brian Jones Tamanaha has an interesting post about our database-driven society. The core of it is that English is bad at recording some names. The solution? Force people to change their official names for the convenience of the database:
During public hearings on the voter identification legislation in the House, state Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell, suggested that Asian-Americans might want to adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with” when they want to vote so their names will match what is on registration rolls.
Brown made her statements during testimony from Ramey Ko, representing the Organization of Chinese Americans….
“… do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?”
Quotes from “Lawmaker suggests Asian-descendant voters should adopt names easier for Americans to deal with’,” Houston Chronicle Texas Politics blog.
Of course, this is nothing new. Once
Or read Brian’s “Any Suggestions for My New User-Friendly Name?”
Of course if you arrived at Ellis Island during its busy times then the immigration staff would do this for you upon arrival, thereby saving you the effort later!
Even the Chinese are doing it, for the same reason.
See NYT of April 21, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/world/asia/21china.html
As I posted on the original site:
Instead of everyone getting worked up over this, why not try to understand the question a little better? I mean, I know it’s more fun to make fun of people, but isn’t it more responsible (and more adult) to try and understand the problem at hand, and try to solve it in a reasonable way?
To my understanding, Chinese names are written as a collection of pictographs. In the US, this is not a commonly understood form. Thus, when a person with a name only represented as a pictograph goes to vote, the person checking them in can’t.
One solution for fixing this is to teach everyone in the US to read and speak Chinese. Or to teach everyone checking in voters to read and speak Chinese. What are the downsides to this? How hard is Chinese to understand? How much time is necessary for an average person born and raised in China to be able to read the newspaper?
A second solution is to write the Chinese name using an alphabet more standard in the US (one which most people in the US can reasonably be expected to understand), such as the English alphabet. Reading the Texas legislator’s comments, it appears that this is already being done, but there’s inconsistency in how names are written. For example, a certain pictogram can be written as Zen, Xen, or Shen. If a voter signs in as “Zen” but the official voter roll reads “Shen”, does that mean this is a different person?
So, to correct this new problem, a standardized method of converting Chinese pictographs into phonetic English-character text would help. The legistlator’s question of “what is wrong with this?”, when looked at as an honest question of “Can we do this? What are the problems incurred? How do they balance with other problems? How would we even create such a standard – or does one exist?” is a totally reasonable question.
As I posted on the original site:
Instead of everyone getting worked up over this, why not try to understand the question a little better? I mean, I know it’s more fun to make fun of people, but isn’t it more responsible (and more adult) to try and understand the problem at hand, and try to solve it in a reasonable way?
To my understanding, Chinese names are written as a collection of pictographs. In the US, this is not a commonly understood form. Thus, when a person with a name only represented as a pictograph goes to vote, the person checking them in can’t.
One solution for fixing this is to teach everyone in the US to read and speak Chinese. Or to teach everyone checking in voters to read and speak Chinese. What are the downsides to this? How hard is Chinese to understand? How much time is necessary for an average person born and raised in China to be able to read the newspaper?
A second solution is to write the Chinese name using an alphabet more standard in the US (one which most people in the US can reasonably be expected to understand), such as the English alphabet. Reading the Texas legislator’s comments, it appears that this is already being done, but there’s inconsistency in how names are written. For example, a certain pictogram can be written as Zen, Xen, or Shen. If a voter signs in as “Zen” but the official voter roll reads “Shen”, does that mean this is a different person?
So, to correct this new problem, a standardized method of converting Chinese pictographs into phonetic English-character text would help. The legistlator’s question of “what is wrong with this?”, when looked at as an honest question of “Can we do this? What are the problems incurred? How do they balance with other problems? How would we even create such a standard – or does one exist?” is a totally reasonable question.
shoot – sorry for the double post.
Dear Anonymous, let’s try to be serious about this. They can write their names in English. Your post is likely to be picked up by some anti-immigration group as a serious comment on the subject.
beri,
I don’t understand your comment. When did I say that they couldn’t write their names in English? What is anti-immigration about my statement (that asking whether a standardized method is an acceptable solution)? What do you think makes my post not serious?
Dear Anonymous: Millions of Asians living in this country manage to write their names in English in a consistent manner and have done so for generations. Jews used to write their names in Yiddish but managed to figure out how to write them in English. Russians also use a different alphabet and have adjusted as well. So I cannot take your comments seriously, since history has shown that people are quite capable of learning how to spell their names using our current alphabet.
Beri,
You still haven’t clarified your statements. While your new post answers the legislator’s question (which would seem to validate it as reasonable, and mark the comments of those upset at the legislator as unreasonable) it does not explain your previous comment.
To reiterate: When did I say that they couldn’t write their names in English? What is anti-immigration about my statement (that asking whether a standardized method is an acceptable solution)? What do you think makes my post not serious?
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I think folk are missing the real purpose of such suggestions which is to advertise the speaker as a racist so that racist voters will be encouraged to vote for them.
It is the same game being played with the ‘Birther’ nonsense. None of he birthers have shown the slightest concern about the acknowledged fact that John McCain was born in Panama. Since Obama’s mother was a US citizen and had lived in the US for three times the qualification period when Obama was born, the question of birth place is irrelevant to his citizenship. The birthers know this, but birtherism is just a convenient way to signal racist principles (Obama is black if you hadn’t noticed).
The short term result of these tactics has been to boost the Republican vote in Texas. Now the longer term effect is being felt as Latino voters refuse to vote for the racist-friendly Republican party no matter what the other issues are.
It is a code, and a not particularly effective one. But it does allow those who choose to ignore the racism of the proposers to treat them as if they were not.
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PHB,
That’s an interesting theory, but I don’t see very conclusive evidence that (a) the legislator currently in question is racist, (b) statements made by the legislator currently in questions are easily interpreted as racist.
Do we need to prove beyond an absence of doubt before pointing out that these statements are crypto-racist?
There is an abundance of evidence that Republicans have payed the race card ever since Nixon’s racist ‘southern strategy’. Can anyone prove beyond all doubt that an organization like the ‘concerned conservative citizens’ is intentionally named after the Klu Klux Klan? Of course not, but only a fool, an idiot or another crypto-racist would seriously doubt that that was the case.
Sure there is a possibility that Betty Brown was merely being an idiot. But if you have spent as much time with politicians as I have you know that when they make statements of that type they know what they are up to.
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PHB,
If there’s an abundance of evidence about this person, and I obviously don’t know it, why aren’t you pointing any of it out?
Anonymous
I wrote that there is an abundance of evidence that the Republican party has intentionally played the race card over the years. You demand the ‘abundance of evidence’ that Betty Brown is a racist.
That is a pretty slick move there, you deftly move from a position where you know that there is an abundance of evidence to one where there is only one reported incident and merely a very high probability that Betty Brown is a racist.
Now I really have no idea if whether Bettey Brown is personally racist, is merely cynically pandering to racists or only a member of a political party with a long history of both. But nor do I make any moral distinction between those three explanations. anyone who joins a party that has a long history of playing the race card is a racist until proven otherwise in my opini9on.
If you want to be a Republican and not be considered racist then you have to come out and publicly condem the race card when it is played.
While we can keep an open mind on the basis of a single incident like this, can we at least agree that the vile hatred Lou Dobbs spews out on his talk radio show is racist? that Rush Limbaugh is a racist? that Glenn Beck is either a cynical manipulator or completely insane?
PHB,
The topic at hand seems to be whether Betty Brown, or the words that she said, are racist or not. That either means that (a) the republican party having a history of racism is irrelevant, or (b) such proclaimed history is meant to encompass Betty Brown. Assuming the first would mean that your comment was off topic, so I chose to assume the second. Did you instead mean the first?
Similarly, my personal party allegiances (which, FYI, are not Republican) are not relevant, nor are Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, nor Glenn Beck. Since they are not relevant to the conversation (and since I don’t listen to any of the three and have no knowledge of anything they’ve said) I cannot agree or disagree as to whether they’re racist.
Back to the question at hand, though. You claim that there’s “merely a very high probability that Betty Brown is a racist.” I simply don’t see why you believe that there’s such a high probability. Are you indicting her on the behavior of others? Or on the contents of this single news report in which there is no clear indication of racism? Or have you followed her legislative, campaign, and personal histories in sufficient detail that a clear pattern has emerged?
As a reasonable person, and as a trained scientist, I maintain an open mind about claims that people make. When an accusation is thrown around, I require proof to believe the accusation. Thus far, no proof of anything has been presented. I see lots of accusations, and lots of deflections, but I see no proof.
Do you have any evidence to offer regarding the alleged racism of Betty Brown, or not?
No, the history of the Republican party is entirely relevant when judging the likelihood that Brown is a racist. If Brown was a member of the Klu Klux Klan we could say with 100% certainty that she is a racist, on the other hand if she was a member of Southern Poverty Law center it would be evidence that she opposed racism.
Membership of a political party that has been making coded appeals to racist voters is corroborating but not conclusive evidence that she is a racist.
And if it comes to comparing science degrees, mine is a doctorate from the Nuclear Physics Department at Oxford University.
Based on the evidence at hand, there’s a logical flaw in your argument. The KKK and the Southern Poverty Law Center are centered around race. Neither the republican party has not been demonstrably shown to be centered around race, nor has any relevant subset of the republican party.
Again, I ask for proof: what is your evidence that race is a core component of the republican party?