04.01.07
Newt Gingrich – Abolish bilingual education
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich equated bilingual education Saturday with “the language of living in a ghetto” and mocked requirements that ballots be printed in multiple languages.
It’s clear where he’s coming from. He’s convinced that Hispanics live in ghettos, where we teach them a pidgin similar to ‘ebonics’, but somehow more ‘debased’.
According to Peter Zamora, co-chair of the Washington-based Hispanic Education Coalition, which supports bilingual education, “In 1995, for example, he said bilingualism poses “long-term dangers to the fabric of our nation” and that “allowing bilingualism to continue to grow is very dangerous.”
So he’s opposed to the learning of foreign languages in general. The ability to speak a foreign language is a threat to the very fabric of our society. The only explanation I can think of is that he thinks xenophobia is the glue that holds our society together.
What Gingrich has to say is wrong on just so many levels that it’s hard to respond. Suffice it for me to make the observation that he’s starting to look like Ted Kennedy.
Coincidence? I think not.
