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November 15, 2007

Speak English? You teh racist!!1@!

Isn't it time for some kind of variation of Godwin's Law vis a vis the use rhetorical cudgel of racism? No better an illustration of what ridiculous lengths people will go to refuse to deal with criticism by charging their critics with "racism" is the asshattery coming from the Los Angeles Unifed School District Parent Council

For months, parents on a Los Angeles Unified School District advisory council have disagreed over whether their meetings should be conducted in Spanish or English. Such arguments became so abusive that district officials canceled meetings for two months and brought in dispute-resolution specialists and mental-health counselors. [...]

By one vote, parents censured their own chairman for alleged bad behavior, leading to a walkout of most Spanish-speakers. The rebuked chairman, Roberto Fonseca, followed them out of the room. [...]

Friday's chaos had been building since February, when Fonseca, who is bilingual, started to give his chairman's report in Spanish. Some in the audience objected;

Heaven forfend that a public school council, where the majority of students and parents don't speak Spanish conduct official business in English!
Police have been present ever since, and on Friday, they escorted several parents outside for what one administrator termed a "timeout." [...]

The current bylaws stipulate that parent meetings across the district must be held in English. A school-district lawyer, however, concluded that this rule is illegal and impractical.

The article doesn't explain what law the lawyer was citing.
Those who walked out included Guadalupe Aguiar, one of the parents who felt that Fonseca was treated unfairly, especially because Friday was the last meeting before new elections. She added that she considers it racist when parents are told that, in America, they have to speak English.
While violent Hispanic gangs engage in "ethnic cleansing" of Los Angeles neighborhoods, specifically targeting blacks, now we witness a similar kind of cleansing by being hostile to parents who speak the language of the United States with the added irony of black parents being told they are racist for objecting to meetings conducted in a foreign language. Hispanic gangs don't want to share their turf, Hispanic parents don't want to share Federal dollars.

A diverse society is more a tossed salad then a melting pot, but a salad without a unifying dressing is nothing more than a bowl of disparate parts.

English only for official business. Period.

Posted by Darleen at November 15, 2007 06:41 AM

Comments

English only for official business. Period.

Dumb idea. The primary language should be whatever the majority of the attendees want. If there are a significant number of people who don't know that language, then there can be an interpreter. There's no reason to use one language exclusively if most of the people at the meeting don't understand it.

who speak the language of the United States

There is no "language of the United States".

Posted by: Josh at November 15, 2007 09:14 AM

Josh

The US's founding documents, laws and regulations are all written in English. English is and remains the language of the court system and legislative system from Fed to each state.

It IS the language of the US. All other languages are secondary and by necessity all official business should be conducted in English with interpreters provided as needed.

Fonseca was deliberately trying to push out the non-Spanish speaking parents. He actually should be removed from the board.

Posted by: Darleen at November 16, 2007 06:26 AM

The reason English is the predominant language used for official business is because it is and was the language spoken and understood by most people. If another language is more commonly spoken and understood in a certain community, there is nothing wrong with using that language. Local government should be flexible and pragmatic, not ideological and nativist.

Posted by: Josh at November 16, 2007 08:15 AM

Ah, nativist. Lovely. Another term for racist. Heaven forfend that we conduct our business in the actual language of the nation. Why not in Swahili, if someone wants? Let's vote on what language we're not going to be communicating with each other in before any official function.

English is the de facto language of the United States. Immigrants should be learning that language. If I moved to another country, I would not expect them to speak English for my benefit, I would expect to have to speak their language.

Posted by: Chris at November 16, 2007 06:11 PM

Josh

Trying to conduct official, especially legal, business in multiple languages is not practical. Your "flexible" mush-headedness doesn't seem to grasp that languages cannot be fully/completely translated on a one-for-one basis. So much of language is nuanced.

Have you never seen what you get by sticking in a paragraph of French or Spanish text into babelfish and see what English results???

And you've done a Godwin with the "nativist" charge. Just like the over-used "racist" charge it signals that you aren't serious about the issue.

how surprising

Posted by: Darleen at November 16, 2007 10:47 PM

Hey Darleen,
I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you can't conduct business in multiple languages. I think you mean that people are generally too lazy to learn another language. Coming from North Carolina, I am fluent in english, spanish, chinese, korean, latin and I am currently studying greek. I learn these skills in order to better communicate with those around me as do many of my other coworkers and Triangle Area workers. Even Car dealerships speak spanish these days. Someone who can conduct business in mutiple languages is, in contrary, a VERY valuable asset in today's economy so I don't know why you would say that you can't conduct business in multiple languages.

As for your earlier relativistic comment about culture, morals, and nuances not being able to be translated, the truth is, (best summed up by James Rachels in The Elements of Moral Philosophy, that in the end, even though all cultures have different superficial traditions, aspects, etc. moral values all in some aspect or another are shared between them.

The truth is, that business is global language, which has no "superior language" and to believe that one must conduct it as so, would be a very arrogant, and, shall we say, American way of viewing the rest of the world. Don't attack me on the "american" point, because there is plenty of historical evidence to show the lack of judgement and tact on the United States part, in matters of global politics, economy and affairs.

As for english, I speak it. But when I see people who need to, or would want to speak another language that I have some amount of fluency in, I don't just see it as an opportunity to help others, but also a chance for me to practice.

In response to your earlier comments about hispanic men and women where

"Hispanic gangs don't want to share their turf, Hispanic parents don't want to share Federal dollars."

I think we need to analyze what you just claimed here. Having briefed through your other posts, I will assume you are fiscally conservative. I will not use classical party groups in this discussion as I have seen that they kick up a lot of dust just for being opposing party groups. Yet, I will say, that typically, the fiscally conservative parties typically vote for tax cuts for higher-income voters, (i.e. themselves). Would you not say, that even if some of these immigrants were illegal, as they are poor, and mainly work jobs that, as the argument goes, normal americans would not so much as stoop to CONSIDER-- would you not find it completely immoral to expect them to pay federal dollars while those who are at the top don't?

I would claim that fiscal conservatives, as they generally ARE members of the top echelon in America, have a MORAL RESPONSIBILITY to be the ones who set an example for those who have less. Because those who are at the top don't have to worry at all about those problems that the middle and lower class must continue worrying about (economic situation), is it not up to those higher class citizens to be the morally upstanding and exemplary leaders?

You might agree yes.

Then I will ask, IS this the case today?

Please, don't argue for the sake of arguing. This is a rhetorical question, you know the answer.

Es una buena pregunta, no?

Posted by: terence at November 18, 2007 10:41 AM

Trying to conduct official, especially legal, business in multiple languages is not practical.

Good thing I didn't propose that, then. I said business should be conducted in the language spoken by the majority of the interested parties, with translation where appropriate.

And if you think translation is the same as sticking something into babelfish, that may explain a lot of your confusion.

Why should a town where 70% of the people speak Spanish as their first language.

And you've done a Godwin with the "nativist" charge.

Considering you scream "ANTI-SEMITE" almost as often as you breathe, I'm not particularly interested in your views on the limits of good-faith discourse.

Posted by: Josh at November 19, 2007 08:04 AM