6 ms·
Nobody in Miami Says ‘Latinx’
- sublinear 4y agoNobody offline has ever said "latinx" out loud except to ask what it is. Not to diminish the very real issues these ideas attempt to resolve, but in some ways political correctness is just as much of a hallucination as anything ChatGPT spits out. That's what's so terrifying and divisive about it.
- amalgamated_inc 4y ago[dead]
- nh23423fefe 4y agoIs there a real issue? El carro is a problem? La casa is a very real issue?
- barelysapient 4y agoIt is for people who find binary gendered terms in language offensive.
- nh23423fefe 4y agoseems circular
- maximus-decimus 4y agoThis is just hilarious to me because I imagine Spanish is like French where every word and pronoun, including the sky, a windshield and a machine gun is gendered. It's basically like saying "we're going to be inclusive of you by calling your native tongue offensively sexist." Gee, I wonder why it's not popular.
- leephillips 4y agoYou imagine right. And, like French, the genders often do not reflect expected associations with sex. “Clitoris” in Spanish is masculine. It’s more to do with etymology. The “-dad” words such as universidad are feminine; but there’s nothing particularly female about a university.
- acdha 4y agoIt’s a mistake to think of this as something inflicted by outsiders. Much of the early usage around the turn of the century was by native speakers, but those were activists pushing boundaries – basically challenging continuation of an arbitrary convention. That’s a reasonable thing to do but that doesn’t say what’ll become mainstream. It has seemed like in this case the problem was that some people outside of those communities heard that debate and thought they were being accommodating by going with the loudest voices on the topic rather the most representative. In a more HN analogy, it feels like setting a corporate standard on Arch Linux without realizing that you’re hearing from a small, self-selected group because most people don’t feel strongly enough to spend time evangelizing.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- int_19h 4y agoIt can be a problem wrt occupations and other descriptions of people if there's no non-gender-neutral term to describe them - people then tend to fall back onto the whatever their cultural stereotypes are when gendering those, effectively reinforcing them. For example, when "engineer" is "el ingeniero" rather than "la ingeniera" by default. But there are certainly much better ways to solve it that don't involve bolting on things that are alien to the language phonotactics.
- kbelder 4y agoI was watching a Disney+ show (aimed at young teens) with a Latina main character and she used the term. Took me immediately out of the show, because it made me think there must not have been any Latinos on the writing staff.
- Mountain_Skies 4y agoIs Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez nobody?
- karaterobot 4y agoI heard it in an All Hands meeting only recently, while talking about our DEI and hiring processes. It confused me for a second, but then I realized what word they were saying. But, to your point, it probably confused me because it's so rare to actually hear someone say it.
- whalesalad 4y agonobody anywhere who is latin american uses this term.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoThey don’t use the term because they don’t use “latino” which is mainly an American word with a context that mainly makes sense in the US. But “woke” latinos definitely use “x” and “@“ in this way like “hola todxs” and “bienvenidxs”. This is the main thing missing from this conversation. Pointing out that a Mexican in Mexico doesn’t call themself a latino is different than claiming “x” isn’t used as a neuter token in latam. Anyone in a group chat with cosmopolitan latinos under 25 would know that “x” is in fact being used. Or just search Twitter for “todxs”.
- int_19h 4y agoHow is it pronounced in verbal communication, though?
- hombre_fatal 4y agoIt isn’t. It’s a text comms phenomenon. I suppose there’s no reason it won’t hit a critical mass where people come up with a pronunciation like how “lol” or “pwn” crossed into verbal use, but it doesn’t have to to be a real part of internet/social media culture. Another example would be “periodt”. It’s social media phenomena. That you don’t or can’t use it verbally has no bearing on whether it has or can have traction online.
- int_19h 4y agoIn US, the push for it is not constrained to text comms, though. After all, if gendering is offensive in writing, why wouldn't the same be offensive in speech? And if, say, we have something named "Latinx Community Center" or some such, at some point someone will have to figure out how to pronounce it, if only to ask people for directions.
- CyberDildonics 4y agoI don't think homeless people call themselves 'a person experiencing homelessness' either.
- nailer 4y agoIn autism land (which is a cool place you all should visit) there's a discussion about 'person first language'. I haven't made my mind up either way.
- philwelch 4y agoIs this the logic whereby "colored people" is an offensive slur while "people of color" is the preferred nomenclature? My primary complaint with this stuff is the same as my primary complaint with corporate/marketing/bureaucratic jargon: it's just ugly and overcomplicated language. I wish we could speak plainly instead of dressing up our language in ugly fashions.
- alvarezbjm-hn 4y agoI wish there could be black, white, yellow, red people. I wish skin color wasn't a slur. The word is not the problem, the will to be offensive is. "Colored people" and "Fair skin" do sound problematic for me.
- acdha 4y agoOne thing to remember is that there’s also a generational aspect: an older friend mentioned that basically everyone his age referred to themselves as Black, there was a middle group favoring people of color, and the younger people he knew were back to Black. My general preference is using whatever term someone prefers for themselves but that doesn’t scale to large groups of any sort.
- nailer 4y agoI get that - it sounds silly. But also people have been abused by others yelling that. I’m an Aussie. I live the UK. Nobody takes offence to people calling me Aussie. That’s because nobody was ever beaten up by anyone yelling “Aussie” at them. If I was from Pakistan that wouldn’t be true though, so the shortened version of Pakistani is considered “the P word” in the UK.
- huitzitziltzin 4y agoMy wife is a native Spanish speaker and an ardent feminist to her core. It has always really bothered her about Spanish that (for example) you refer to one million women as “ellas” but one million men OR one million women and one man as “ellos.” Despite this, she just cannot get behind -x endings in Spanish.
- datatrashfire 4y agoMy wife is 2nd generation. Her father once asked "What's Latinx?" He thought the notion that Latin grammar had become politically incorrect as absolutely insane and offensive. While well meaning, I believe a lot of the ideas in vogue with the identity movement is harmful to the cause of equity and inclusion. It just doesn't sell to working class people regardless of their cultural background. Which is an impediment to obtaining the political power needed to create actual change beyond arguing about the right words to use.
- Apofis 4y agoI think a lot of those things are extremely frivolous, a waste of time, and very silly at best. These aren't things that appeal to the working class. If some rando is using me for some weird political or social clout, I wouldn't be impressed.
- kbelder 4y agoThe trouble is, well-meaning plus controlling equals not-well-meaning.
- gus_massa 4y agoI switched to the 50% rule. If the group has more than 50% females I use "ellas" in spite of the official rule. I have a workgroup with 3 females and 2 males (including me), and I call it "La reunión con lAs chicAs."
- a_shovel 4y agoSpeculation: There may be more news articles, TV segments, and online comments complaining about "Latinx" than there are people who have ever used the term to refer to themselves or others. It's never been a popular term among any group, not even among people who want Spanish to be more gender-neutral ("Latine" and the -e suffix seems to be more popular among them, probably on account of it being pronounceable.) Plus, it's worth pointing out that there are some Latin Americans who prefer the term "Latinx" and use it to describe themselves. Not many, of course, but not zero. So accusations that it's only used by Anglophones are wrong.
- Mountain_Skies 4y agoCongresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has used her position to push use of the term so it's not exactly fringe.
- dekhn 4y agoit's not fringe, it's a subsection of progressives. I'm glad there were so many articles about this; it made clear to a lot of people who thought they had to say "latinx" to be inclusive, didn't actually need to do so (it seems like lots of people want external guidance about what they can and cannot say and somehow there was a message that latinx was inclusive).
- chitowneats 4y ago"it seems like lots of people want external guidance about what they can and cannot say" Could this be because they've seen others socially ostracized or persecuted at work for unknowingly, innocently, violating whatever taboo progressives invented 5 minutes ago? They're afraid. I don't blame them.
- dekhn 4y agoYes, exactly. It was a lot worse about 5 years ago, at least now you can push back politely and not get insta-cancelled.
- eesmith 4y agoWho should I believe, an editorial in the WSJ, where all I can read is the headline and some introductory text, before I hit a paywall? Or a search of the Miami New Times web site at miaminewtimes.com where I can read about: "Latinx Art Sessions Explores What It Means to Be Latinx in the Art World " - https://www.miaminewtimes.com/arts/things-to-do-in-miami-latinx-art-sessions-january-24-and-25-11052174 https://www.miaminewtimes.com/arts/things-to-do-in-miami-lat... and here's that museum using "Latinx" at https://www.pamm.org/en/collection/?term_id=1347 https://www.pamm.org/en/collection/?term_id=1347 . "Latinx Playwright, Cast, and Director of GableStage's Fade Recognize Themselves in Story" - https://www.miaminewtimes.com/arts/things-to-do-in-miami-fade-at-gablestage-august-19-september-18-2022-15095756 https://www.miaminewtimes.com/arts/things-to-do-in-miami-fad... (Teo Castellanos is quoted as using 'Latinx' twice. He lives in Miami.) "Gay8. Celebrating the intersectionality of being Latinx and queer, Gay8 takes over Calle Ocho on February 19. Expect everything from drag shows to live music and dance parties as you celebrate every color of the rainbow." - https://www.miaminewtimes.com/arts/things-to-do-in-miami-cultural-events-2022-and-2023-15367289 https://www.miaminewtimes.com/arts/things-to-do-in-miami-cul... . Or a search of that event's web site, where https://www.gay8festival.com/news/gay8-festival-weekend-returns-for-the-fifth-year-this-presidents-day-weekend/ https://www.gay8festival.com/news/gay8-festival-weekend-retu... says "The festival is set to attract over 80,000 guests and 70 vendors, making it the largest Hispanic/Latino/Latinx LGBTQ hosted festival in the nation." To be clear, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx highlights the various controversies in using the term, and how only "2% of US residents of Latin American descent in the US use Latinx", and how it's mostly a US term, with Latine more common in the Spanish-speaking world. But 2% is not "Nobody", and I easily found counter-examples of people in Miami using it, making me distrust the editorial I am unable to read.
- leephillips 4y agoI live in Central America and the only time I hear or see this monstrosity is in NPR reports. Use this word if you want to remove any shred of remaining doubt about what a tool you are.
- nilmask 4y ago"Filipinx" introduces non-gendered terminology in an already ungendered language, using letters not even in the Tagalog language. I don't know any Filipinos who use it. Not only is it ignorant, it's literally racist white cultural and linguistic imperialism. Wasn't the enslavement, rape and murder of my ancestors over centuries enough for you all already?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cultofmetatron 4y agoI'm currently in Colombia and have been here many times for several months at a time. I too have never heard of "latinX" outside of online diatribes from Americans
- andrewmg 4y agoIn Washington, D.C., I haven't heard anyone say it in conversation. Perhaps the reason is that, once you hear it's pronounced "luh-tinks," you can't read or think of it any other way.
- basch 4y agoThat pronunciation is for lack of a better word, the minority. https://twitter.com/REMEZCLA/status/958714776615620609?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E958714776615620609%7Ctwgr%5E33fcf3e1bf0fb4dbb4062decd0cc769dbea4518a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fremezcla.com%2Fculture%2Fright-way-to-pronounce-latinx%2F https://twitter.com/REMEZCLA/status/958714776615620609?ref_s... In other news, x is supposed to be pronounced either sh or h(j). Don Quishote or Mehico (originally Meshicl.) Latinish still gets my vote. Regardless of your opinion of the word, a descriptivist will acknowledge that a subset of people ARE using the word, and that its use should be documented. And thus, needs a pronunciation. Even if at the moment it appears to be mostly tribal signaling.
- philwelch 4y agoTwo thoughts here: 1. If the English language needed a gender-neutral term for Latino, we could have just used "Latin", which has the triple benefit of already being an English word, already being gender neutral, and already having the desired meaning. 2. While I'm grateful for the pushback against renaming other ethnic groups without their input or consent, this is the exact same origin story as the term "Native American".
- diggernet 4y agoI haven't looked into the history personally, but heard once that the original term used (by outsiders, of course) was "Latin". But because it doesn't fit well into the gendered Spanish language, it was disliked by native speakers, who went on to organically derive Latino/Latina as replacements. If true, that makes the English-speaking movement to replace Latino/Latina with Latinx doubly ridiculous.
- poisonarena 4y agosolo los pinches pochos usan este gonorrea
- diggernet 4y agohttps://archive.today/OgHaO https://archive.today/OgHaO
- diggernet 4y ago> ‘Latinx’ has failed to gain buy-in from the people it’s supposed to empower. The hubris... We have assigned a new name to some other group, whether they want it or not, in order to empower them. Why don't they feel empowered by us imposing a name on them?
- GoodJokes 4y ago[dead]