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Is not "equity language" just another form of neocolonialism? How can "rich educated people" rename entire ethnic group (latinx) without their consent? Also th

Is not "equity language" just another form of neocolonialism? How can "rich educated people" rename entire ethnic group (latinx) without their consent? Also there is nothing offensive about being "poor"... Equity language is just another tool to oppress people.

mc32 4y ago
It's the new prescriptivists who want to set the rules for the commoners to follow -reminds me of the apocryphal story about a Spanish king of some sort who had a lisp and in turn, the population not wanting to offend him began speaking with a lisp so Spanish ended up with a "th" sound where other romance languages did not.
- herewulf 4y ago
  That's apocryphal. Sound change in language is constant and "s" and "th" are close sounds. This was just a natural process in Castilian Spanish.
SubiculumCode 4y ago
People want to recognize inequities and lived experiences and choose to do something about it that is within their power, change their language. As the article embraces, this is a morally driven impulse that is unimpeachable in its intent, but in aggregate, fails and sometimes, even oppresses. Interesting article.
- autodev1 4y ago
  I wonder... what is the difference between an "experience" vs a "lived experience"? If I have an experience-- such as walking through the park, this afternoon and picking a blackberry... What is a "lived experience" version of that same experience?
  - SubiculumCode 4y ago
    “lived experience” was generally first used to differentiate between a person saying “I have experience with x issue” who could be saying “I’ve studied it; I’ve worked with the population” but “lived experience” makes it specific to being an individual’s own life.
    - sanderjd 4y ago
      It's still used that way. I'm always confused why people criticize this one in particular. The distinction makes perfect sense. There's an enormous amount of stuff that I've read a bunch about or watched a lot of media about or talked about with people, but is nonetheless outside my lived experience.
      - ticviking 4y ago
        The idea of having direct first-hand contact with a thing is part of the understanding of the word "experience." Second hand contact or learning is generally some other noun or verb, depending on what we're talking about.
        pwinnski 4y ago
        My family members have experience with deafness. They've had direct first-hand contact with someone who is deaf in one ear, and have learned how to interact with that person successfully. They are familiar with the challenges of being deaf (in one ear, least), both from having interacted with the person, and because the person in question has explained the challenges they have faced. I have lived experience with deafness. I've been deaf in one ear for decades now. However well I explain myself to my family members, there is a degree to which their experience will never be the same as mine, despite their first-hand contact with me. We can either reserve the word "experience" for me, and try to police it so that nobody can say they have experience without being prepared to demonstrate the first-hand nature of their experience, or we can understand that people will use the word to mean "prolonged exposure" or similar, and add a qualifier when important to people like me: e.g. I have lived experience as a deaf person.
- jimbokun 4y ago
  That is the exact opposite of “doing something about it”.
majormajor 4y ago
The term latinx didn't come out of "rich educated people" - certainly a lot of educated folk have been pushing it in the last decade (self-identifying grad students and recent college grads, for instance) - but there's a weird sort of prejudice going on in assuming everything can only come out of "rich educated [non-latino, based on your use of "their" there] people" Some discussion here: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-01-27/op-ed-latinx-white-elites-marginalized-creators https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-01-27/op-ed-latin...
- t344344 4y ago
  Ok, two points: 1) anyone who studies in US university, is "rich educated" for South American standards 2) Quote from article bellow: > a queer Latina ... mostly from white, right-wing Latino men. > “When you’re a white Latino ... Black Latino ... transgender Latino, next to a queer Latino, next to an Indigenous Latino > understand the diversity of our community Those three paragraphs paint picture that "Latino" is some sort of community. And you can be in-group or out-group (by being right-wing-white-Latino). There is also somebody who speaks on behalf of "our community". But that is simply not true. It is an ethnic group. Its name may change over a few decades, if new name gains use in South America. Not in a few years, because some US citizens said so, and decided to rename "their community"!
  - brabel 4y ago
    There's literally no one in the actual Latin American countries that call themselves Latinos outside the USA (and perhaps some other rich countries). I would be called a Latino in the USA, being a Brazilian of brown skin. That amuses me as I have literally never thought of myself or my fellow Brazilians as Latinos... we're simply Brazilian (we may be region-specific, like carioca - from Rio, or Paulista, from Sao Paulo... but still Brazilian, obviously) and I am pretty sure Mexicans, Guatemalans, Peruvians, Colombians and others are the same... just like white Americans do the same: are you ever a white person when presenting yourself to another American, or e.g. Texan, Californian or whatever??
    - 4y ago
muyuu 4y ago
in more ways than one they have no qualms in oppressing and showing intolerance towards cultures that won't play ball with those linguistic impositions, especially when they cannot just ignore them as foreign they will impose actual systemic intolerance and litmus tests to force their cultural supremacy the people who say disagreement is invalidating someone's existence will actually deny the existence of the culture they spun from, violently so if necessary
nonethewiser 4y ago
It’s oppressive to both the group being used and those that don’t buy in.
rayiner 4y ago
I love reading this stuff to figure out what new words elite white people have for me. Apparently I’m not a “minority” or a “naturalized citizen” anymore, and my kids aren’t “second generation Americans.”
- tptacek 4y ago
  I'm involved in local politics in Oak Park, IL, also known as the People's Republic of Oak Park, 85.5% Clinton in '16, 72% college educated, median income about $15k higher than Evanston, and I have never heard any of these words in the elite white conversations I am continually dragged into. These guides get published to give The Groups something to do. Very few people in the real world --- yes, even the elite whites --- take them seriously. The only durable change I've noticed in the last few years is capitalizing Black, which is something our mutual fave John McWhorter has been advocating for some time.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    It’s definitely “in the real world” here in DC, especially in the legal profession. This is where Sierra Club is, after all.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      So, in The Groups, then, and around the headquarters city of The Groups.
    - testfoobar 4y ago
      It's also heavily pushed in high school level journalism now.
      - tptacek 4y ago
        What, and where?
        testfoobar 4y ago
undersuit 4y ago
>How can "rich educated people" rename entire ethnic group (latinx) without their consent I mean someone named them in the first place. The people of Latin America didn't ask to be called Latinos, it was assigned to them, purportedly by a French man.
DeathArrow 4y ago
>Equity language is just another tool to oppress people. And absolutely everything in this World should be about someone oppressing someone else.

mc32 4y ago

It's the new prescriptivists who want to set the rules for the commoners to follow -reminds me of the apocryphal story about a Spanish king of some sort who had a lisp and in turn, the population not wanting to offend him began speaking with a lisp so Spanish ended up with a "th" sound where other romance languages did not.

herewulf 4y ago
That's apocryphal. Sound change in language is constant and "s" and "th" are close sounds. This was just a natural process in Castilian Spanish.

SubiculumCode 4y ago

People want to recognize inequities and lived experiences and choose to do something about it that is within their power, change their language. As the article embraces, this is a morally driven impulse that is unimpeachable in its intent, but in aggregate, fails and sometimes, even oppresses. Interesting article.

autodev1 4y ago
I wonder... what is the difference between an "experience" vs a "lived experience"? If I have an experience-- such as walking through the park, this afternoon and picking a blackberry... What is a "lived experience" version of that same experience?
- SubiculumCode 4y ago
  “lived experience” was generally first used to differentiate between a person saying “I have experience with x issue” who could be saying “I’ve studied it; I’ve worked with the population” but “lived experience” makes it specific to being an individual’s own life.
  - sanderjd 4y ago
    It's still used that way. I'm always confused why people criticize this one in particular. The distinction makes perfect sense. There's an enormous amount of stuff that I've read a bunch about or watched a lot of media about or talked about with people, but is nonetheless outside my lived experience.
    - ticviking 4y ago
      The idea of having direct first-hand contact with a thing is part of the understanding of the word "experience." Second hand contact or learning is generally some other noun or verb, depending on what we're talking about.
      - pwinnski 4y ago
        My family members have experience with deafness. They've had direct first-hand contact with someone who is deaf in one ear, and have learned how to interact with that person successfully. They are familiar with the challenges of being deaf (in one ear, least), both from having interacted with the person, and because the person in question has explained the challenges they have faced. I have lived experience with deafness. I've been deaf in one ear for decades now. However well I explain myself to my family members, there is a degree to which their experience will never be the same as mine, despite their first-hand contact with me. We can either reserve the word "experience" for me, and try to police it so that nobody can say they have experience without being prepared to demonstrate the first-hand nature of their experience, or we can understand that people will use the word to mean "prolonged exposure" or similar, and add a qualifier when important to people like me: e.g. I have lived experience as a deaf person.
jimbokun 4y ago
That is the exact opposite of “doing something about it”.

majormajor 4y ago

The term latinx didn't come out of "rich educated people" - certainly a lot of educated folk have been pushing it in the last decade (self-identifying grad students and recent college grads, for instance) - but there's a weird sort of prejudice going on in assuming everything can only come out of "rich educated [non-latino, based on your use of "their" there] people" Some discussion here: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-01-27/op-ed-latinx-white-elites-marginalized-creators https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-01-27/op-ed-latin...

t344344 4y ago
Ok, two points: 1) anyone who studies in US university, is "rich educated" for South American standards 2) Quote from article bellow: > a queer Latina ... mostly from white, right-wing Latino men. > “When you’re a white Latino ... Black Latino ... transgender Latino, next to a queer Latino, next to an Indigenous Latino > understand the diversity of our community Those three paragraphs paint picture that "Latino" is some sort of community. And you can be in-group or out-group (by being right-wing-white-Latino). There is also somebody who speaks on behalf of "our community". But that is simply not true. It is an ethnic group. Its name may change over a few decades, if new name gains use in South America. Not in a few years, because some US citizens said so, and decided to rename "their community"!
- brabel 4y ago
  There's literally no one in the actual Latin American countries that call themselves Latinos outside the USA (and perhaps some other rich countries). I would be called a Latino in the USA, being a Brazilian of brown skin. That amuses me as I have literally never thought of myself or my fellow Brazilians as Latinos... we're simply Brazilian (we may be region-specific, like carioca - from Rio, or Paulista, from Sao Paulo... but still Brazilian, obviously) and I am pretty sure Mexicans, Guatemalans, Peruvians, Colombians and others are the same... just like white Americans do the same: are you ever a white person when presenting yourself to another American, or e.g. Texan, Californian or whatever??
  - 4y ago

muyuu 4y ago

in more ways than one they have no qualms in oppressing and showing intolerance towards cultures that won't play ball with those linguistic impositions, especially when they cannot just ignore them as foreign they will impose actual systemic intolerance and litmus tests to force their cultural supremacy the people who say disagreement is invalidating someone's existence will actually deny the existence of the culture they spun from, violently so if necessary

nonethewiser 4y ago

It’s oppressive to both the group being used and those that don’t buy in.

rayiner 4y ago

I love reading this stuff to figure out what new words elite white people have for me. Apparently I’m not a “minority” or a “naturalized citizen” anymore, and my kids aren’t “second generation Americans.”

tptacek 4y ago
I'm involved in local politics in Oak Park, IL, also known as the People's Republic of Oak Park, 85.5% Clinton in '16, 72% college educated, median income about $15k higher than Evanston, and I have never heard any of these words in the elite white conversations I am continually dragged into. These guides get published to give The Groups something to do. Very few people in the real world --- yes, even the elite whites --- take them seriously. The only durable change I've noticed in the last few years is capitalizing Black, which is something our mutual fave John McWhorter has been advocating for some time.
- rayiner 4y ago
  It’s definitely “in the real world” here in DC, especially in the legal profession. This is where Sierra Club is, after all.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    So, in The Groups, then, and around the headquarters city of The Groups.
  - testfoobar 4y ago
    It's also heavily pushed in high school level journalism now.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      What, and where?
      - testfoobar 4y ago

undersuit 4y ago

>How can "rich educated people" rename entire ethnic group (latinx) without their consent I mean someone named them in the first place. The people of Latin America didn't ask to be called Latinos, it was assigned to them, purportedly by a French man.

DeathArrow 4y ago

>Equity language is just another tool to oppress people. And absolutely everything in this World should be about someone oppressing someone else.