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Who Said the Days of Class are Over? How’s a Bit of Racism to Classy Things Up?

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Sen. Yee (D-SF) recently passed SB 242, which would prohibit businesses denying services based on the language the customer spoke, with some exceptions for business transactions that require spoken language.  The law grew out of a controversial decision by the Ladies’ Professional Golf Association (LPGA) to require that the pro golfers speak English, despite the fact that golf doesn’t really require spoken language.  But, don’t worry, California still has some of those super classy folk! This is from an email received by Sen. Yee’s office:

You communist!  If you live in this country, learn English, or get the hell out!  Go live in China or Cuba and see row much you can yap your freaking gums about Chinese or Spanish.  It’s a**holes like you who keep English from being our official language.  The LPGA had it right!  I don’t give a shit how many Asians are in the LPGA.  Tell your fellow yellow folk to learn English or GET OUT!!!”

I wonder if this guy feels the same about the Navajo language?

5 thoughts on “Who Said the Days of Class are Over? How’s a Bit of Racism to Classy Things Up?”

  1. A bunch of Anglos and Spanish-speaking Californios sat down to write a state constitution that made CA officially bilingual and guaranteed language rights of Spanish speakers.

    That was stripped by the nativist 1879 constitution, but the principle stands.

    I’ll bet the author of that email had ancestors who not only spoke another language when they came to America, but did so for much of their lives on these shores, and probably lived in neighborhoods where English was not the dominant language.

  2. I hadn’t heard of this bill. I have one question though – what if a business doesn’t have anyone on hand that speaks someone’s language? I.e. I don’t speak Chinese, but if I ran a store and someone only spoke Chinese, how would I be able to comply with the law? Were there any provisions for helping a customer via non verbal communications or something?

    I’m not being a nativist or anything – I can see the point of this law – but I just wonder how people would be able to comply if they only spoke English (or only spoke Spanish, or some other language) and owned a business.

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