The irony of an article detailing a concerted effort of a right-wing (“anti-woke”) group of bigots to launder their ideas through policy and public opinion being published in the NYT is not lost...
The irony of an article detailing a concerted effort of a right-wing (“anti-woke”) group of bigots to launder their ideas through policy and public opinion being published in the NYT is not lost on me (literally, scroll down on the front page and you’ll find one of these pieces), but the article is pretty good on it’s own.
Imagine putting years of your life and all this energy and money into this. Not charity work, or something to make the world a better place. Not even a neutral thing where you just work on...
Imagine putting years of your life and all this energy and money into this. Not charity work, or something to make the world a better place. Not even a neutral thing where you just work on something you enjoy.
But actively working so hard just to make life worse for other people.
Not every DEI language change is good. I'm not trying to give racists credit; I just think it's worth pointing out when language changes make absolutely no difference to the material conditions of...
Not every DEI language change is good. I'm not trying to give racists credit; I just think it's worth pointing out when language changes make absolutely no difference to the material conditions of real people.
I personally hate Latinx as a term and got regularly called sexist, transphobic, etc by white liberals in college because I didn't want to participate in any Latinx groups. I'm legally Hispanic and not Latino but that's besides the point.
Latinx is wildly out of touch with Latino/Latina/Hispanic people. Latine is also fine and makes way more sense in Spanish if they have to invent a gender neutral word besides Hispanic.
I agree. I've shared my own experiences with DEI programs misapplied and discussed my thoughts on their limitations and shortcomings. And your example of Latinx is a good one of a small minority...
I agree. I've shared my own experiences with DEI programs misapplied and discussed my thoughts on their limitations and shortcomings. And your example of Latinx is a good one of a small minority speaking for a large group and somewhat reductionist attitudes.
But the people in this article are not company I would keep or "well what about." DEI can be improved, but that's not this movement.
https://elcentro.colostate.edu/about/why-latinx/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx I just want to note that Latinx (as well as Chicanx and Xicano) seem to have started in queer Latine...
I just want to note that Latinx (as well as Chicanx and Xicano) seem to have started in queer Latine communities. It was definitely used online among non-binary folks and the X seems to be a nod to Nahuatl. I'm not saying you didn't know that or that you should want to use it, I get that it's complex.
I do think it's interesting that the survey you link doesn't seem to have looked at queer people particularly trans/non-binary people as a demographic as I'd be interested to see if the opinions shift at all. (I'm also wondering if address based sampling biases the sample in newer subtler ways than telephone sampling). Maybe not, but it's odd not to ask the people who may be most likely to want a non-gendered term.
As someone that trains staff on the topic, queer language is incredibly squishy and flexible and very few words are universally agreed on in their use. I'm not Latina/e/x and so I default to the language people in those queer spaces use and always note when there are major intracommunity disagreements. Queer people don't tend to grow up in queer families and our language gets re-invented with each generation. I am not surprised that queer developed language didn't catch on as a wider population description.
I mean I'm aware of the use of "x" in Mexico (thus the name "Mexico"). It's worth noting most Spanish speakers aren't from Mexico or the US though. I just think it's silly when Latine makes...
I mean I'm aware of the use of "x" in Mexico (thus the name "Mexico"). It's worth noting most Spanish speakers aren't from Mexico or the US though. I just think it's silly when Latine makes massively more sense as a gender neutral Latino, but I also don't understand what's wrong with Hispanic as a gender neutral term. In general, I'd recommend avoiding Latinx because it's offensive to many Spanish speakers because it makes no sense in Spanish. People are still welcome to use whatever terms they want to self-identify.
I'm not the creator of the term nor am I advocating for (or against) its use. There are queer folks that use it, and others who use Latine and others who use neither of those. But the X in both...
I'm not the creator of the term nor am I advocating for (or against) its use. There are queer folks that use it, and others who use Latine and others who use neither of those. But the X in both was about Nahuatl not English, from everything I can tell. And the first documented uses of it outside of the nebulous uses online were by Puerto Rican and Chicano sources.
Hispanic gets complicated from non-spanish speaking countries as I understand it. It doesn't mean the same identity group as Latina/e/o does.
I default to Latine but if it depends on context and whether I'm teaching and who I'm around. Some of my queer peers prefer Latinx.
I know that many disagree or dislike the term, but I also want to point out that that wiki page has basically no citations or sources for the claim that Spanish speakers find the term offensive or...
I know that many disagree or dislike the term, but I also want to point out that that wiki page has basically no citations or sources for the claim that Spanish speakers find the term offensive or racist, as the first sentence says. Anecdotally, I know many Latinos who find it silly or roll their eyes at it, but don't know any who would claim it is racist.
Obviously just another anecdote, but I linked a Reddit post in this comment that discusses why some Latino people view Latinx as racist whitewashing:...
Sure, but like… isn’t that kinda just language? We get new words (or at least, new uses of existing words) all the time. The ones that are relevant to people stick around, the others don’t, like...
Sure, but like… isn’t that kinda just language? We get new words (or at least, new uses of existing words) all the time. The ones that are relevant to people stick around, the others don’t, like womyn with a y.
I just think it's worth pointing out that literally the second sentence on the Spanish Wikipedia page mentions that many people in Latin America find Latinx offensive. People are more than welcome...
I just think it's worth pointing out that literally the second sentence on the Spanish Wikipedia page mentions that many people in Latin America find Latinx offensive. People are more than welcome to invent new words; they should expect pushback when English speakers tell Spanish speakers to use an English gender neutral term. There is no natural way to pronounce Latinx in Spanish; that's why Latine is more common in the region.
Without any citation or reference. It also remarks that around three quarters of Latin people in the US do not know the term. To be honest, I am under the impression that all this pushback is due...
Without any citation or reference.
It also remarks that around three quarters of Latin people in the US do not know the term.
To be honest, I am under the impression that all this pushback is due to the fact that it stems from feminist / queer academics and, anecdotally judging by my experiences in Latin America, I have no problem imagining the catholic, conservative majority to by against anything close to non-binary gender issues.
Latinx is impossible to pronounce in Spanish; Latine is fine and definitely accepted amongst some younger people in Latin America. Grammatical gender just widely isn't considered a problem....
Latinx is impossible to pronounce in Spanish; Latine is fine and definitely accepted amongst some younger people in Latin America. Grammatical gender just widely isn't considered a problem. Languages are gendered coincidentally and most native speakers don't give it much thought. It's like sock is pronounced "sock" instead of "sack"; the vowel at the end of the word is just how the word is pronounced.
Sure, grammatical gender usually isn’t an issue as long as you’re one of the two binary options. It’s telling that ideas and proposals to change/adapt our language to accommodate others comes from...
Sure, grammatical gender usually isn’t an issue as long as you’re one of the two binary options. It’s telling that ideas and proposals to change/adapt our language to accommodate others comes from those affected and pushback usually from those that are asked to accommodate them.
I get your point with the pronunciation, but I think that it’s beside the point. The point is to describe more than two genders and nothing more.
And to be clear, I am not saying that this term is the way to go or not. It doesn’t describe me (white NorthWestern European cis-male), but I think that the motivation behind the term deserves some recognition and support.
What I don’t get is on the one hand, it is said that a lot of Latin people are against the term and at the same time, most haven’t even heard of it. That does seem to cancel the first part out, or?
Another question that I have is, the Wikipedia article says that it is a racist term and I would like to understand, what about the term is racist. (This is a sincere question, not trying to bait or argue. Just want to understand the reasoning behind the claim.)
Spanish speakers already have a gender neutral option that's becoming more popular. Some words like Presidente end in "e" and are genderless. This English Wikipedia article discusses this:...
Spanish speakers already have a gender neutral option that's becoming more popular. Some words like Presidente end in "e" and are genderless. This English Wikipedia article discusses this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_Spanish
Many Spanish speakers see Latinx or Latin@ as an English imperialism from the US. You can understand exactly why many countries in South America are sensitive to Americans telling them what to do and how to speak. At least in some cases, it's not dissimilar from mothers that get offended by the term "birthing parent".
Not even that. They're trying to make things more comfortable for such people. The very idea that things can get better is anathema to them. The idea behind diversity, equity and inclusion is that...
Not even that. They're trying to make things more comfortable for such people. The very idea that things can get better is anathema to them.
The idea behind diversity, equity and inclusion is that we can't really know from where the next revolutionary thought that will improve the lives of every member of humanity might spring. The hope is to facilitate the development of such thoughts by at least attempting to give everyone an equitable footing in higher education and other spheres.
These asshats don't believe progress is real. They believe the opposite in fact: that things were better back in an imagined past, or worse, in the real past, when black folks were harshly punished for getting above their stations, when those icky queers were forced to hide their identifies away out of fear, when women had no choices at all but what the men who owned them deigned to grant them.
The hell of the thing is, they may get their fucking Gilead because the average American is too lazy, ignorant and scared to do anything to stop them. The rest of us–those of us left alive at any rate–well just have to spend the rest of our lives wondering if there was anything more we could have done.
Honestly, all of this is just the swinging of the social pendulum. Change is scary for people, especially when it seems to correlate to lost economic opportunity, or other negative life outcomes....
Honestly, all of this is just the swinging of the social pendulum. Change is scary for people, especially when it seems to correlate to lost economic opportunity, or other negative life outcomes. When you are so focused on trying to get a bigger slice of the pie, rather than growing the pie for everyone, it feels like a zero sum game.
So these people rushing to fight DEI are a reactionary response to progress, and selectively taking the minority of fringe extremes and blowing them up into bigger problems. That and exploiting the fears of their base to get funding or notoriety.
Society will move on, and the skirmishes and issues will ebb and flow.
I think this attitude is complacency, and is a mistake. You're positing an essentially stable social order, maybe with a gradual upward trend. There's nothing to support that hypothesis. I'd argue...
I think this attitude is complacency, and is a mistake. You're positing an essentially stable social order, maybe with a gradual upward trend. There's nothing to support that hypothesis. I'd argue that history actually suggests that fanaticism and authoritarianism precede upheaval and massive social change, and never for the better, to my knowledge.
Never before in my life, nor in at least the six decades before it, has a mainstream political party in the US openly used genocidal rhetoric. For most of the 20th century the American public wouldn't abide it. Things appear to be different now. The confluence of gun fetishization, religious fanaticism, and a finely tuned propaganda machine directed toward the erasure of entire demographics of Americans is something we haven't seen since the rise of the second Klan. The Klan's incompetence and corruption and the start of the Great Depression put an end to that; I don't know what will put the brakes to this current wave of blinkered bigots, but it certainly isn't guaranteed to be good
Well, no one can see the future. And I wouldn't say I'm complacent. I work in higher ed, research, and public service and fight the good fight. I'm not saying that things will fix themselves. I'm...
Well, no one can see the future. And I wouldn't say I'm complacent. I work in higher ed, research, and public service and fight the good fight. I'm not saying that things will fix themselves. I'm saying that through sustained effort, progress will continue, and not to lose heart in the oscillations of the trend lines. There are many problems in the world, but if we go to 11 on all of them we will waste our effort and distract from more impactful changes.
I would also say that Stephen Pinker does outline a strong academic argument for the long arc of progress in The Better Angels of our Nature. That said, the world does change, and we shouldn't stop pressing for progress or assume someone else will do the work for us.
But to be blunt, you replied to my tongue in cheek response to another posters casual observation with an alarmist take not congruent with either of the comments. If your are looking for a thorough and nuanced discussion, I suggest advancing your thesis for discussion as its own top comment.
If I come across as alarmist, it's because I'm alarmed. I wouldn't bother saying anything if I didn't think there was anything we could do to avert disaster. The worst is possible, and while I...
If I come across as alarmist, it's because I'm alarmed. I wouldn't bother saying anything if I didn't think there was anything we could do to avert disaster. The worst is possible, and while I agree that the general trend of history is toward progress (I do consider myself progressive), history is not fractal; the specific doesn't always resemble the general.
The irony of an article detailing a concerted effort of a right-wing (“anti-woke”) group of bigots to launder their ideas through policy and public opinion being published in the NYT is not lost on me (literally, scroll down on the front page and you’ll find one of these pieces), but the article is pretty good on it’s own.
I mostly prefer the title from TechDirt
Imagine putting years of your life and all this energy and money into this. Not charity work, or something to make the world a better place. Not even a neutral thing where you just work on something you enjoy.
But actively working so hard just to make life worse for other people.
They are trying to make the world better for people whose feelings are hurt by inclusive language.
Not every DEI language change is good. I'm not trying to give racists credit; I just think it's worth pointing out when language changes make absolutely no difference to the material conditions of real people.
I personally hate Latinx as a term and got regularly called sexist, transphobic, etc by white liberals in college because I didn't want to participate in any Latinx groups. I'm legally Hispanic and not Latino but that's besides the point.
Latinx is wildly out of touch with Latino/Latina/Hispanic people. Latine is also fine and makes way more sense in Spanish if they have to invent a gender neutral word besides Hispanic.
I agree. I've shared my own experiences with DEI programs misapplied and discussed my thoughts on their limitations and shortcomings. And your example of Latinx is a good one of a small minority speaking for a large group and somewhat reductionist attitudes.
But the people in this article are not company I would keep or "well what about." DEI can be improved, but that's not this movement.
https://elcentro.colostate.edu/about/why-latinx/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx
I just want to note that Latinx (as well as Chicanx and Xicano) seem to have started in queer Latine communities. It was definitely used online among non-binary folks and the X seems to be a nod to Nahuatl. I'm not saying you didn't know that or that you should want to use it, I get that it's complex.
I do think it's interesting that the survey you link doesn't seem to have looked at queer people particularly trans/non-binary people as a demographic as I'd be interested to see if the opinions shift at all. (I'm also wondering if address based sampling biases the sample in newer subtler ways than telephone sampling). Maybe not, but it's odd not to ask the people who may be most likely to want a non-gendered term.
As someone that trains staff on the topic, queer language is incredibly squishy and flexible and very few words are universally agreed on in their use. I'm not Latina/e/x and so I default to the language people in those queer spaces use and always note when there are major intracommunity disagreements. Queer people don't tend to grow up in queer families and our language gets re-invented with each generation. I am not surprised that queer developed language didn't catch on as a wider population description.
I mean I'm aware of the use of "x" in Mexico (thus the name "Mexico"). It's worth noting most Spanish speakers aren't from Mexico or the US though. I just think it's silly when Latine makes massively more sense as a gender neutral Latino, but I also don't understand what's wrong with Hispanic as a gender neutral term. In general, I'd recommend avoiding Latinx because it's offensive to many Spanish speakers because it makes no sense in Spanish. People are still welcome to use whatever terms they want to self-identify.
I'm not the creator of the term nor am I advocating for (or against) its use. There are queer folks that use it, and others who use Latine and others who use neither of those. But the X in both was about Nahuatl not English, from everything I can tell. And the first documented uses of it outside of the nebulous uses online were by Puerto Rican and Chicano sources.
Hispanic gets complicated from non-spanish speaking countries as I understand it. It doesn't mean the same identity group as Latina/e/o does.
I default to Latine but if it depends on context and whether I'm teaching and who I'm around. Some of my queer peers prefer Latinx.
I know that many disagree or dislike the term, but I also want to point out that that wiki page has basically no citations or sources for the claim that Spanish speakers find the term offensive or racist, as the first sentence says. Anecdotally, I know many Latinos who find it silly or roll their eyes at it, but don't know any who would claim it is racist.
Obviously just another anecdote, but I linked a Reddit post in this comment that discusses why some Latino people view Latinx as racist whitewashing: https://tildes.net/~life/1ds0/america_is_under_attack_inside_the_anti_d_e_i_crusade_gifted_link#comment-bv9t
Sure, but like… isn’t that kinda just language? We get new words (or at least, new uses of existing words) all the time. The ones that are relevant to people stick around, the others don’t, like womyn with a y.
I just think it's worth pointing out that literally the second sentence on the Spanish Wikipedia page mentions that many people in Latin America find Latinx offensive. People are more than welcome to invent new words; they should expect pushback when English speakers tell Spanish speakers to use an English gender neutral term. There is no natural way to pronounce Latinx in Spanish; that's why Latine is more common in the region.
Without any citation or reference.
It also remarks that around three quarters of Latin people in the US do not know the term.
To be honest, I am under the impression that all this pushback is due to the fact that it stems from feminist / queer academics and, anecdotally judging by my experiences in Latin America, I have no problem imagining the catholic, conservative majority to by against anything close to non-binary gender issues.
Latinx is impossible to pronounce in Spanish; Latine is fine and definitely accepted amongst some younger people in Latin America. Grammatical gender just widely isn't considered a problem. Languages are gendered coincidentally and most native speakers don't give it much thought. It's like sock is pronounced "sock" instead of "sack"; the vowel at the end of the word is just how the word is pronounced.
The claim that 3/4 of Hispanic people in the US haven't heard the term is supported by this Pew Poll: https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in-four-u-s-hispanics-have-heard-of-latinx-but-just-3-use-it/
Sure, grammatical gender usually isn’t an issue as long as you’re one of the two binary options. It’s telling that ideas and proposals to change/adapt our language to accommodate others comes from those affected and pushback usually from those that are asked to accommodate them.
I get your point with the pronunciation, but I think that it’s beside the point. The point is to describe more than two genders and nothing more.
And to be clear, I am not saying that this term is the way to go or not. It doesn’t describe me (white NorthWestern European cis-male), but I think that the motivation behind the term deserves some recognition and support.
What I don’t get is on the one hand, it is said that a lot of Latin people are against the term and at the same time, most haven’t even heard of it. That does seem to cancel the first part out, or?
Another question that I have is, the Wikipedia article says that it is a racist term and I would like to understand, what about the term is racist. (This is a sincere question, not trying to bait or argue. Just want to understand the reasoning behind the claim.)
Spanish speakers already have a gender neutral option that's becoming more popular. Some words like Presidente end in "e" and are genderless. This English Wikipedia article discusses this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_Spanish
Many Spanish speakers see Latinx or Latin@ as an English imperialism from the US. You can understand exactly why many countries in South America are sensitive to Americans telling them what to do and how to speak. At least in some cases, it's not dissimilar from mothers that get offended by the term "birthing parent".
This Reddit post discusses why some Latinos feel that it's racist whitewashing that erases their identity: https://old.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/9wyuik/latinx_is_racist_and_the_white_progressives_who/
Not even that. They're trying to make things more comfortable for such people. The very idea that things can get better is anathema to them.
The idea behind diversity, equity and inclusion is that we can't really know from where the next revolutionary thought that will improve the lives of every member of humanity might spring. The hope is to facilitate the development of such thoughts by at least attempting to give everyone an equitable footing in higher education and other spheres.
These asshats don't believe progress is real. They believe the opposite in fact: that things were better back in an imagined past, or worse, in the real past, when black folks were harshly punished for getting above their stations, when those icky queers were forced to hide their identifies away out of fear, when women had no choices at all but what the men who owned them deigned to grant them.
The hell of the thing is, they may get their fucking Gilead because the average American is too lazy, ignorant and scared to do anything to stop them. The rest of us–those of us left alive at any rate–well just have to spend the rest of our lives wondering if there was anything more we could have done.
Honestly, all of this is just the swinging of the social pendulum. Change is scary for people, especially when it seems to correlate to lost economic opportunity, or other negative life outcomes. When you are so focused on trying to get a bigger slice of the pie, rather than growing the pie for everyone, it feels like a zero sum game.
So these people rushing to fight DEI are a reactionary response to progress, and selectively taking the minority of fringe extremes and blowing them up into bigger problems. That and exploiting the fears of their base to get funding or notoriety.
Society will move on, and the skirmishes and issues will ebb and flow.
I think this attitude is complacency, and is a mistake. You're positing an essentially stable social order, maybe with a gradual upward trend. There's nothing to support that hypothesis. I'd argue that history actually suggests that fanaticism and authoritarianism precede upheaval and massive social change, and never for the better, to my knowledge.
Never before in my life, nor in at least the six decades before it, has a mainstream political party in the US openly used genocidal rhetoric. For most of the 20th century the American public wouldn't abide it. Things appear to be different now. The confluence of gun fetishization, religious fanaticism, and a finely tuned propaganda machine directed toward the erasure of entire demographics of Americans is something we haven't seen since the rise of the second Klan. The Klan's incompetence and corruption and the start of the Great Depression put an end to that; I don't know what will put the brakes to this current wave of blinkered bigots, but it certainly isn't guaranteed to be good
Well, no one can see the future. And I wouldn't say I'm complacent. I work in higher ed, research, and public service and fight the good fight. I'm not saying that things will fix themselves. I'm saying that through sustained effort, progress will continue, and not to lose heart in the oscillations of the trend lines. There are many problems in the world, but if we go to 11 on all of them we will waste our effort and distract from more impactful changes.
I would also say that Stephen Pinker does outline a strong academic argument for the long arc of progress in The Better Angels of our Nature. That said, the world does change, and we shouldn't stop pressing for progress or assume someone else will do the work for us.
But to be blunt, you replied to my tongue in cheek response to another posters casual observation with an alarmist take not congruent with either of the comments. If your are looking for a thorough and nuanced discussion, I suggest advancing your thesis for discussion as its own top comment.
If I come across as alarmist, it's because I'm alarmed. I wouldn't bother saying anything if I didn't think there was anything we could do to avert disaster. The worst is possible, and while I agree that the general trend of history is toward progress (I do consider myself progressive), history is not fractal; the specific doesn't always resemble the general.
Anyhow, if you aren't interested, I'll mosey on.