This sounds like something out of The Onion, but sadly, it’s true. This disgusting piece of news comes to us from The Houston Chronicle, and it makes me fear a trip back home to Texas: a Texas legislator, one Rep. Betty Brown (R-Terrell) suggests that voters of Asian heritage change their names to make them “easier for Americans to deal with.” Take a deep breath before reading the following:

Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible.
“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Brown later told Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

You can watch a video above of the House Elections Committee where this went down. Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans, testified to the difficulties that Asian Americans often face when attempting to vote.

The Texas Democratic Party has demanded an apology from Brown, while the Republican party says Democrats “want this to be about race”.

If it isn’t about race, then what is it about?

Via / Chron.com