According to the Washington Times:
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid called a proposal to make English the official language "racist" on the Senate floor [Thursday].
"This amendment is racist. I think it’s directed basically to people who speak Spanish," the Democrat said during the already tense debate over immigration reform.
Moments later, the Senate approved the measure on a 63-34 vote. Virtually all Republicans were joined by 11 Democrats to approve the largely symbolic amendment. Immediately following that vote, the Senate approved a second amendment, declaring on a 58-39 vote that English is the "common and unifying language."
It comes as little surprise that as the Senate head of a party specializing in identity politics, Senator Reid would attempt to play the race card to get his way in Congress, but isn’t this particular card getting rather worn?
There was a time–in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement and the numerous injustices that it served to correct–that the accusation of racism was a potent thing, and playing the race card could be a powerful instrument for altering the state of a discussion.
But the race card has been played so often–and so inaccurately–that it’s getting rather worn and easy to spot as part of a political bluff (to keep with the card playing metaphor for a moment).
False accusations of racism have been made so frequently (as, for example, by Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney) that the potency of the racism charge is diluting. People no longer reflexivly assume that when the charge is made that it must be based on truth because those making the allegation have so over-used it that the situation has begun to resemble "The Boy Who Cried ‘Wolf!’"
Particularly noteworthy is Sen. Reid’s accusation that a move to declare English the official language of the nation to be "racist" on the grounds that it is "directed basically to people who speak Spanish."
For a speaker of contemporary, 21st century English, this may leave one scratching one’s head: "What does race have to do with language? They’re completely separate. People of any race can speak any language that they choose to learn. This charge makes no sense."
It would have made a little more sense in the 18th century, when the term "race" still had more of its original meaning, which was to refer to a family, tribe, culture, or nation, such that one could speak of "the English race" or "the French race" or "the German race" or "the Spanish [meaning: ‘from Spain’] race," but that usage has been virtually lost from contemporary English.
As a result of the history of racism in the English-speaking world, the term "race" has changed to refer in normal speech to particular genetic backgrounds associated principally with skin color.
Given that change in meaning, language simply has nothing to do with race because people of every genetic background have the same basic language genes and can speak any language they choose to learn. Saying, "In this country the official language is English (or Spanish or Mandarin or Swahili or Arabic or Hebrew or Russian or what have you)" has nothing to do with a person’s genes and thus has nothing to do with race.
People of every race can speak every language, as illustrated by the fact that there are already millions of Americans of every race who are native English speakers.
Now, you’ll note something interesting about the 18th century use of the word "race": in examples like "the English race," "the French race," "the German race," and so on the distinguishing terms ("English," "French," "German") are also the names of languages.
There’s a very good reason for that: Language is one of the most fundamental aspects of culture–arguably the most fundamental aspect of culture–and so people who are members of a common nation and its culture tend to share a common language.
It is not easy to maintain a nation that does not share a common language. If you don’t believe that, look at Canada.
If people don’t share a common language then from an important perspective they simply aren’t part of the same culture because they can’t talk to each other and thus can’t participate to any significant degree in common cultural life.
Nations that don’t have a common language thus fail to have a common culture. What they have instead are different, sharply-defined cultures within them which are separated by linguistic barriers. This leads to friction between the language communities and to identity politics.
Sen. Reid’s refusal to endorse the idea of English as the common language in America thus would have the tendency to foster more identity politics and more friction between groups in American society.
Whether you want to call that "racism" or not, it’s something that we don’t need.
