How Do You Say “Discrimination” In Spanish?

Jan 23, 2009 | Filed in Life | 2 Comments

Success! Nashville’s “English Only” law failed, with 57% of voters saying “no” to this discriminatory law.

Yesterday, almost 74,000 people voted to decide whether or not English would be considered the official language of the city.

If it passed, there would no longer be translation services available for city government, police and fire departments, driver’s license, permits, deeds, and any other public services. In fact, this law would prohibit local government from using any language but English. How crazy is that?

Look, we all agree that if you live in America, you should learn to speak English. Just like if you move to France, you should learn French.

But we don’t need a law put into order to force English to be the only language here. Laws are meant to protect people, not discriminate against them. We need a diverse city government and our public services, such as police and fire, obviously need to be able to translate too. Banning it just doesn’t make sense.

So hooray for democracy! I’m very impressed that the citizens of Nashville came out and actually voted for a minority’s rights. Good for you.