The Era of Jose Crow Will Have to Wait

In my ballgame, Nashville has two strikes against it. By voting down the English-only amendment, Music City saved itself from an embarrassing out.

To put it country simple, the amendment would have required all city business to be conducted in English. I shudder to think what that would have done for restaurant inspections.

The backer’s rationale was that other countries don’t give language exemptions; when he served in the military, the Japanese expected him to know the language. OK, fair enough – he married a Japanese woman, so he doesn’t deserve the racist label.

The problem is every dirt-eating redneck racist saw it as an opportunity to punish immigrants legal or otherwise. The Southern stereotypes - the hillbilly who thinks anyone with a remotely foreign surname entered this country via the Arizona desert – appeared ready to rear their heads.

If English-only passed, I recommended calling it the Jose Crow Law. Let's face it - for most, this wasn't about Nashville's big Kurdish population, Pakistanis or the East Africans. This was all about Hispanics, and punishing them for daring to bring their culture to ours without assimilating.

Luckily, the cretinous shut-ins who comment on the Tennessean message board stayed home (really, these message boards must come with a “Your IQ cannot exceed 60” disclaimer).

My great-grandmother never spoke more than rudimentary English, and she died just 15 years ago at age 95. My grandmother never spoke a word of English until she went to school – well, maybe one word (their last name, English, was the Anglicized version or Inglizi).

I went into the polling place as one local genius explained to the people in line the importance of the second amendment that prevented Metro Council from changing any voter-approved amendment for at least four years. The people are sheep, easily flocked when an issue is portrayed as an assault on their (supposed) morals or their wallets.

It also made it easier to place initiatives on the ballot. If you’ve looked at a recent general election ballot in Colorado, Ohio or any other state with easy access to the ballot, you know why this is a bad idea. Anyone with a cockamamie policy thought and the money to pay an army of homeless guys to collect signatures can put crazy laws before the voters.

So, Nashville, where does that leave us? You don’t get either strike back yet, Nashville, but I’ll save my airing of grievances for another week.

We've been spared from an idiotic law. To know rednecks across Davidson County are seething about the loss is worth the wait.