This is the first article in a category I call DAKWIGO: Does Anybody Know What Is Going On? And the first article to kick off the community blog.

Last week, State Rep. Betty Brown (R) said that Asian Americans should change their names because they are too hard to pronounce and would make it easier for them and poll workers:

Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese - I understand it’s a rather difficult language - do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Brown later told [Organization of Chinese Americans representative Ramey] Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

As of Saturday, April 11, the Houston Chronicle article, the original source of the article with over 1000 comments, is no longer accessible!

A government official asking citizens, in this day and age, to change their names to make things easier for clerical staff is absurd, shocking and frightening.

Many times, we get so isolated in our own world that we lose touch and consideration of others who may not look or sound exactly like us. Do you think State Rep. Betty Brown could have been more sensitive to the Asian culture if she had more interaction with Asian people? Or is her self-absorption so deep that she cannot see pass her nose to consider the full implications of her request?

One of the goals of ToolzDo is to create a melting pot of communities around the world where commonalities are discovered through opportunities to interact and learn more about each other (locally and globally) and where diversity is embraced to help build stronger local communities and a better world. It is natural for us to be drawn to our own likeness. It is our comfort zone, but it creates separation in our neighborhoods, in the work place and anywhere community exists. The cultural separation creates results like State Rep. Betty Brown. Our commonalities give us the opportunity to connect. But it is our diversity that actually offers more to talk about, discover, learn and make us stronger.

It takes effort to be considerate of others. What a different world we would be in if everyone would put to practice the golden rule.

[via: Think Progress]

[original Source: Houston Chronicles]