Harry Reid, Insufferable Dickhead
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada called the Senate’s efforts to declare English our official language “racist”.
“I really believe this amendment is racist. I think it’s directed basically to people who speak Spanish.”
Reid’s own understanding of the English word racism is inexcusably poor. Are Mexicans a race? Well, some of them seem to think that they are representatives of la raza, but others seem to be preoccupied with all the outward characteristics of race. Preoccupied to the point that they judge each other by their respective skin tones and other features. Preoccupied to the point that they idealize certain qualities and denigrate others. That is racism. The question of whether they speak the Queen’s English is separate. Reid is a dickhead to misunderstand that.
The expectation that immigrants to the United States speak our primary language is reasonable —and has nothing to do with one’s racial background. If the idea is that this country should be unified —and not balkanized— then language will be a crucial element of that. Indeed, it is one of the only criteria I think should even be suggested.
Reid’s observation —at a time when we are faced with very few reasonable options on the issue of immigration— is irresponsible. It’s like John Kerry rejecting our development of bunker-buster nuclear weapons —in an age when countries like Iran have resorted to subterranean facilities as a means of evading our ability to stop the manufacture of their own nuclear weapons.
