The Atlas Asylum of absurd/ignorant posts IX

[parochial boy]

No one is making that claim. The point is that this specific word is a very clunky attempt to de-gender the word “Latino” in English that doesn’t really make any sense in Spanish or Portuguese, and as a consequence is rarely used outside of academic/professional or activist spheres in the US. There’s a reason many in Latin America prefer the neutral “Latine” instead (in part because it’s a word that you can actually pronounce out loud).

That raises a whole host of issues besides gender (“linguistic colonialism” is a phrase I’ve seen thrown around). There's something very uncomfortable about using an English pronunciation, adopted in the US and largely used by Anglos, to refer to a US minority group that the minority group does not actually use to describe themselves (something like ~3% of US Hispanics identify with the term). On this forum, in a political context, I think it’s gotten particular attention as an easy example of the disconnect between the largely-Anglo intelligentsia that steer the ideological and cultural direction of American liberalism and the voters they rely on to hold political power.

OK, but that's fundamentally not the original point that I was making. The point was that "Latinx" is a term used to turn a generic masculin into a gender neutral term. It was not specifically about that one word, but about the fact that this is a very mainstream concern across the world. Your criticism of the term is one that seems totally reasonable and legitimate (personally I'm minded to think that anglicising the pronunciation of a loan word is completely natural and acceptable, but I come from a linguistic community that very much isn't in the dominant position that English is, so...).

That said, most criticism of the term that I see on here is along the lines that "no the word is Latino, therefore we must use Latino". As in, it's not a criticism relating to the power dynamics between linguistic communities, but a rejection of the idea of no longer using a generic masculin, or even a refusal to accept that this is actually a debate that exists in Spanish and other languages that have grammatical gender and generic masculins.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Lots of states DID pass same-sex marriage democratically though, like mine did after voting down a state constitution ban on it the same election it was targeted as a "swing state." And the Supreme Court's decision wasn't particularly controversial in 2015, the issue didn't become a new abortion one people would still be fighting to overturn decades later. As for anti-discrimination laws many US states have had those for decades and does nationally now thanks to Bostock v. Clayton County and the lack of hate speech laws is mostly attributable to the broadness of the First Amendment.

The main point though is back when that stuff was being passed and fought for virtually no one was saying "Latinx", I had never heard the term when I was working to defeat the same-sex marriage ban in 2012 so I don't think there's a direct correlation between "not saying Latinx" and being reactionary on LGBT issues. Similarly Roy Cooper has to my knowledge never said it either and he was elected North Carolina Governor promising to repeal the "bathroom bill" his predecessor passed, I doubt most North Carolina Democrats use it. Bernie Sanders doesn't and he's always been at the forefront of LGBT rights ever since he's been in Congress. I remember even Georgette Gómez, the openly lesbian Latina Justice Democrats-backed candidate for a California House seat did not use the term but did talk about "the Latino community" on her website. Very progressive Rep. Ruben Gallego has asked people to not use it, etc. These aren't conservatives or people with reactionary politics on LGBT issues.

[Donerail]

OK, but that's fundamentally not the original point that I was making. The point was that "Latinx" is a term used to turn a generic masculin into a gender neutral term. It was not specifically about that one word, but about the fact that this is a very mainstream concern across the world. Your criticism of the term is one that seems totally reasonable and legitimate (personally I'm minded to think that anglicising the pronunciation of a loan word is completely natural and acceptable, but I come from a linguistic community that very much isn't in the dominant position that English is, so...).

That said, most criticism of the term that I see on here is along the lines that "no the word is Latino, therefore we must use Latino". As in, it's not a criticism relating to the power dynamics between linguistic communities, but a rejection of the idea of no longer using a generic masculin, or even a refusal to accept that this is actually a debate that exists in Spanish and other languages that have grammatical gender and generic masculins.

I think that's a fair point, but that there's a distinction to be drawn between the reaction to Latinx and resistance to other efforts to replace generic masculines (what few we have) in English. There definitely are people who object to the replacement of gender-specific job titles — Chicago is having a bit of a controversy right now over renaming aldermen as "alderpeople" — or the replacement of words like "mankind" with more gender-neutral language, but at least some of the reaction to Latinx seems to come from a different place, and it seems a little more intense than opposition to, say, "firefighter."

At least here on the forum, though this happened before November too, it seems like a bit of an overwrought reaction to the 2020 election. I agree that there's probably more than a little cultural conservatism underlying the objection to the term, or (not sure if this is a more or less charitable interpretation) at least a desire to appease the views of a group of voters who are more culturally conservative on aggregate. But I think the racial context makes it difficult to separate out those motivations or even to determine what combination of them is motivating opposition to the term.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

No one is making that claim. The point is that this specific word is a very clunky attempt to de-gender the word “Latino” in English that doesn’t really make any sense in Spanish or Portuguese, and as a consequence is rarely used outside of academic/professional or activist spheres in the US. There’s a reason many in Latin America prefer the neutral “Latine” instead (in part because it’s a word that you can actually pronounce out loud).

That raises a whole host of issues besides gender (“linguistic colonialism” is a phrase I’ve seen thrown around). There's something very uncomfortable about using an English pronunciation, adopted in the US and largely used by Anglos, to refer to a US minority group that the minority group does not actually use to describe themselves (something like ~3% of US Hispanics identify with the term). On this forum, in a political context, I think it’s gotten particular attention as an easy example of the disconnect between the largely-Anglo intelligentsia that steer the ideological and cultural direction of American liberalism and the voters they rely on to hold political power.

OK, but that's fundamentally not the original point that I was making. The point was that "Latinx" is a term used to turn a generic masculin into a gender neutral term. It was not specifically about that one word, but about the fact that this is a very mainstream concern across the world. Your criticism of the term is one that seems totally reasonable and legitimate (personally I'm minded to think that anglicising the pronunciation of a loan word is completely natural and acceptable, but I come from a linguistic community that very much isn't in the dominant position that English is, so...).

That said, most criticism of the term that I see on here is along the lines that "no the word is Latino, therefore we must use Latino". As in, it's not a criticism relating to the power dynamics between linguistic communities, but a rejection of the idea of no longer using a generic masculin, or even a refusal to accept that this is actually a debate that exists in Spanish and other languages that have grammatical gender and generic masculins.

I think a big part of the backlash (at least for me) is that it's part of this whole "we must place a random 'x' in any word to make it more woke and inclusive" without really addressing how it does that" see ridiculous terms like "womxn" and "folx" or even "y'xll."

If it was more of a "there should be more gender neutral terms" thing and the activists listened to the actual Spanish speaking community and instead used ones that follow Spanish grammar and are pronouncable like "Latine" or simply dropping the last letter entirely and just using "Latin" (which for the record has actually been pretty common and incontrovertible for decades, "Latin music" is still the most commonly used term to describe that radio format for instance), there'd be a lot less of this backlash. But for a certain crowd that's not a good option because it's not as obviously performative so they try to keep shoehorning in this clunky and awkward term to boost their woke credibility, (see uses of "Latinx man" or "Latinx woman" which makes zero grammatical sense whatsoever or even serves the supposed purpose the word is for.)

And as noted above English has had a few cases of switching to gender neutral terms too often with little controversy like how "firefighter" instead of "fireman" is kind of universal, a female writers used to referred to as an "authoress" instead of just "author", but that term went obsolete before almost all posters here lifetimes, etc. This did provoke the occasional "political correctness gone mad" type freakout from reactionary sources like Rush Limbaugh but most people didn't care including most rank and file Republican voters. Now compare that to how any use of "Latinx" or other supposedly "inclusive" terms like the above on Twitter or in a press release causes a sh!tshow. I remember when Amnesty International put out a press release about "an epidemic of violence against womxn in South Africa" and the response and threats to cut donations was so bad they actually took it down and reuploaded it with "women" used instead and scrubbed all use of "womxn" on their website. The people who attack this stuff in such replies are usually more like Resistance-type libs than right-wingers too from my observation, something that wouldn't happen to an article using "Congressperson."

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Anyway...click for context:

There's no way it would be 9-0, but I could see 5-4.

[John Dule]

LA county swung right by 5 points likely due to their large Asian and Latinx population shifting right. White voters in California shifted more left from 2016 and it balanced out almost evenly.

> Latinx

I'm always a bit bemused by the way that a huge majority of even left wing posters on here are so freaked out by that term.

I'm torn between thinking this is more a sheer obstinate refusal to even try and understand the sorts of issues that are  significant outside of the English speaking world (which works the other way round too - see the "how would Belgium vote if it was a US state" type threads, where people try to calque US issues onto a context where they aren't especially relevant); or that it is simply down to the US being much more conservative on issues related to gender and LGBT equality. Nevertheless, it's remarkably different to how I see the issue being discussed by left wingers in French or German.

This isn't really true though. The US got same-sex marriage before a ton of European countries including yours that doesn't even have it yet (though that'll almost certainly change in the fall.)

Polls much higher support here than in the USA (~80% in favour here, which is about normal for W Europe), whereas there was a thread on here celebrating 70% support in the USA just a couple of weeks ago. Or, more to the point, it will be legal here by the end of the year, the reason is an extremely slow political process, and at least we'll have introduced it democratically. There are also some concrete areas where we are even ahead - eg anti discrimination and hate speech laws or conversion therapy being illegal; and of course, no bizarre hate campaigns against transpeople's right to use the toilet or access medical treatment.

Anti-hate speech laws place you decidedly behind us.

[Hammy]

Really his whole posting history should be here, even only a few posts in.

I wonder what will qualify as extremist thinking? Perhaps simply recognizing the 2020 USA election for the sham it was will put you on the list, in which case i think you will also see people overseas being listed eventually as it is a worldwide phenomenon to recognize who truly won 2020

[Donald Wilders]

Hammy i have been reading this forum for months before making an account and remember you are one of the Democrat supporters cyber bullied by other posters for not being optimistic enough? Or do I incorrectly remember? If so I would appreciate if you did not try cyber bullying me please but at the same time I recognize the importance of free speech so if you really want to you can stay at the same path

[The Dowager Mod]

What's the point of reporting a post then reposting it here?
If I delete and infract it there I'm going to infract and delete it here too.

[Hammy]

Hammy i have been reading this forum for months before making an account and remember you are one of the Democrat supporters cyber bullied by other posters for not being optimistic enough? Or do I incorrectly remember? If so I would appreciate if you did not try cyber bullying me please but at the same time I recognize the importance of free speech so if you really want to you can stay at the same path

I was one of the pessimists.

[Santander]

LA county swung right by 5 points likely due to their large Asian and Latinx population shifting right. White voters in California shifted more left from 2016 and it balanced out almost evenly.

> Latinx

I'm always a bit bemused by the way that a huge majority of even left wing posters on here are so freaked out by that term.

I'm torn between thinking this is more a sheer obstinate refusal to even try and understand the sorts of issues that are  significant outside of the English speaking world (which works the other way round too - see the "how would Belgium vote if it was a US state" type threads, where people try to calque US issues onto a context where they aren't especially relevant); or that it is simply down to the US being much more conservative on issues related to gender and LGBT equality. Nevertheless, it's remarkably different to how I see the issue being discussed by left wingers in French or German.

This isn't really true though. The US got same-sex marriage before a ton of European countries including yours that doesn't even have it yet (though that'll almost certainly change in the fall.)

Not because of changing attitudes, though. America was still deeply divided on the issue when Anthony Koch-ennedy decided he wanted a legacy other than his lifetime of gift-wrapped corporate decisions before he retired to hand an appointment over to Trump.   

You are the best poster.

[Pro-Israel, anti-Bibi]

LA county swung right by 5 points likely due to their large Asian and Latinx population shifting right. White voters in California shifted more left from 2016 and it balanced out almost evenly.

> Latinx

I'm always a bit bemused by the way that a huge majority of even left wing posters on here are so freaked out by that term.

I'm torn between thinking this is more a sheer obstinate refusal to even try and understand the sorts of issues that are  significant outside of the English speaking world (which works the other way round too - see the "how would Belgium vote if it was a US state" type threads, where people try to calque US issues onto a context where they aren't especially relevant); or that it is simply down to the US being much more conservative on issues related to gender and LGBT equality. Nevertheless, it's remarkably different to how I see the issue being discussed by left wingers in French or German.

This isn't really true though. The US got same-sex marriage before a ton of European countries including yours that doesn't even have it yet (though that'll almost certainly change in the fall.)

Not because of changing attitudes, though. America was still deeply divided on the issue when Anthony Koch-ennedy decided he wanted a legacy other than his lifetime of gift-wrapped corporate decisions before he retired to hand an appointment over to Trump.   

You are the best poster.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

It would be bluer than DC. What many Americans don't realize is that their country is uniquely right-wing.

[OSR stands with Israel]

It is beyond deranged to call them a bigger threat than the CCP

There's not much difference in those two nowadays, with Republicans trying to ban any academic subject that doesn't conform to their worldview.

[beesley]

It would be bluer than DC. What many Americans don't realize is that their country is uniquely right-wing.

good grief

[S019]

FF. He is not a troll, he is someone who is merely sharing his real opinions and I think they're very persuasive. I'm glad to see we are swapping MT Treasurer out for this guy, he brings a perspective that is sorely underrepresented on this site. He reminds me of this poster we had from NYC some time ago who had a lot of brilliant insights to share that were unfairly excoriated by users who repeatedly were proven wrong.

[Stuart98]

Guys posting bad sock puppets in this thread is cheating.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Court should have gone a step further and declared the entire existence of either amateur or professional sports (take your pick as to which one) unconstitutional.

Wut?

Personally, if I were on the court, I would have written a dissent arguing that the concept of amateur sports violates the thirteenth amendment. It's basically slavery in another form.

[S019]

Forgot to add AK

[Badger]

LA county swung right by 5 points likely due to their large Asian and Latinx population shifting right. White voters in California shifted more left from 2016 and it balanced out almost evenly.

> Latinx

I'm always a bit bemused by the way that a huge majority of even left wing posters on here are so freaked out by that term.

I'm torn between thinking this is more a sheer obstinate refusal to even try and understand the sorts of issues that are  significant outside of the English speaking world (which works the other way round too - see the "how would Belgium vote if it was a US state" type threads, where people try to calque US issues onto a context where they aren't especially relevant); or that it is simply down to the US being much more conservative on issues related to gender and LGBT equality. Nevertheless, it's remarkably different to how I see the issue being discussed by left wingers in French or German.

This isn't really true though. The US got same-sex marriage before a ton of European countries including yours that doesn't even have it yet (though that'll almost certainly change in the fall.)

Polls much higher support here than in the USA (~80% in favour here, which is about normal for W Europe), whereas there was a thread on here celebrating 70% support in the USA just a couple of weeks ago. Or, more to the point, it will be legal here by the end of the year, the reason is an extremely slow political process, and at least we'll have introduced it democratically. There are also some concrete areas where we are even ahead - eg anti discrimination and hate speech laws or conversion therapy being illegal; and of course, no bizarre hate campaigns against transpeople's right to use the toilet or access medical treatment.

It's widely popular and accepted because a fortunately undemocratic Court ruling saying the Constitution required legalization of gay marriage thus made gay marriage popular and acceptable as the de facto status quo. Other country still requiring unpopular legislation to legalize gay marriage haven't gone through that transition yet. This country was obviously nowhere near that level of support for gay marriage until the oberfell decision made it a fait accompli

The Civil Rights Act did the same thing for desegregation, BTW. Amazing how laws can change perceptions

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

LA county swung right by 5 points likely due to their large Asian and Latinx population shifting right. White voters in California shifted more left from 2016 and it balanced out almost evenly.

> Latinx

I'm always a bit bemused by the way that a huge majority of even left wing posters on here are so freaked out by that term.

I'm torn between thinking this is more a sheer obstinate refusal to even try and understand the sorts of issues that are  significant outside of the English speaking world (which works the other way round too - see the "how would Belgium vote if it was a US state" type threads, where people try to calque US issues onto a context where they aren't especially relevant); or that it is simply down to the US being much more conservative on issues related to gender and LGBT equality. Nevertheless, it's remarkably different to how I see the issue being discussed by left wingers in French or German.

This isn't really true though. The US got same-sex marriage before a ton of European countries including yours that doesn't even have it yet (though that'll almost certainly change in the fall.)

Polls much higher support here than in the USA (~80% in favour here, which is about normal for W Europe), whereas there was a thread on here celebrating 70% support in the USA just a couple of weeks ago. Or, more to the point, it will be legal here by the end of the year, the reason is an extremely slow political process, and at least we'll have introduced it democratically. There are also some concrete areas where we are even ahead - eg anti discrimination and hate speech laws or conversion therapy being illegal; and of course, no bizarre hate campaigns against transpeople's right to use the toilet or access medical treatment.

It's widely popular and accepted because a fortunately undemocratic Court ruling saying the Constitution required legalization of gay marriage thus made gay marriage popular and acceptable as the de facto status quo. Other country still requiring unpopular legislation to legalize gay marriage haven't gone through that transition yet. This country was obviously nowhere near that level of support for gay marriage until the oberfell decision made it a fait accompli

The Civil Rights Act did the same thing for desegregation, BTW. Amazing how laws can change perceptions

The implication is that same-sex marriage was universally unpopular before the court ruling, which is incorrect, quite a few states had already passed same-sex marriage via the democratic process prior to that or voted down bans on it (like the one I worked against!) and it was supported by almost every notable Democratic politician at that point. Also abortion is still a contentious and controversial issue almost 50 years after its relevant court ruling, so this isn't some sort of magic pill.

Above that though: if this is a reflection of the US being that much more conservative on such issues, then why isn't "Latinx" so widespread and universal in other Anglophone countries? You could point out they don't have as high Latino populations so it's less of a thing to come up, which is true, but it's blatantly incorrect and erasure of quite a few people to say they don't exist at all. The notion that a country like Australia wouldn't have as much if not significantly more backlash against "Latinx" if it was more of a thing there that described a much higher portion of their population is simply laughable.

[OSR stands with Israel]

The fact that he came so close to re-election, and is still eligible for 2024, scares the hell out of me.

I agree. I am pretty sure Donald Trump wins in 2024 (either through chicanery or legitimately) and that he will become such a vile dictator that will make Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Francisco Franco, Benito Mussolini, Vladimir Putin, and Mohammed bin Salman look like some of the most enlightened world leaders in history. Likewise with Josh Hawley or Donald Trump’s children.

[parochial boy]

The implication is that same-sex marriage was universally unpopular before the court ruling, which is incorrect, quite a few states had already passed same-sex marriage via the democratic process prior to that or voted down bans on it (like the one I worked against!) and it was supported by almost every notable Democratic politician at that point. Also abortion is still a contentious and controversial issue almost 50 years after its relevant court ruling, so this isn't some sort of magic pill.

Above that though: if this is a reflection of the US being that much more conservative on such issues, then why isn't "Latinx" so widespread and universal in other Anglophone countries? You could point out they don't have as high Latino populations so it's less of a thing to come up, which is true, but it's blatantly incorrect and erasure of quite a few people to say they don't exist at all. The notion that a country like Australia wouldn't have as much if not significantly more backlash against "Latinx" if it was more of a thing there that described a much higher portion of their population is simply laughable.

Let me put it this way, on a French forum or discord server whose membership had broadly the same political outlook as this site's usership, gender neutral language would be, actually is, pretty much the normal way of writing. Whereas, on this forum, most of the time it feels like I am reading the most predictable outposts of the reactionary right wing French press. So for me that is actually very surprising, because France is for the most part a very reactionary, racist country; and yet this apparently left wing forum mostly takes a position that even by French standards would be considered right wing on this one particular issue.

As for gender equality - the US has a worse pay gap; doesn't even have maternity leave, let alone paternity leave; has never had a women head of state (and we all know how the last woman to stand for that position got treated); and has fewer women in its parliament than basically every western european country. These are all pretty concrete things that I think you have to accept suggest that the US is a broadly more conservative country when it comes to gender equality. (and you know, the fact that Switzerland, which was until recently incredibly bad on this issue is now ahead on every one of these measures is perhaps something that is worth paying attention to)

[Alcibiades]

The implication is that same-sex marriage was universally unpopular before the court ruling, which is incorrect, quite a few states had already passed same-sex marriage via the democratic process prior to that or voted down bans on it (like the one I worked against!) and it was supported by almost every notable Democratic politician at that point. Also abortion is still a contentious and controversial issue almost 50 years after its relevant court ruling, so this isn't some sort of magic pill.

Above that though: if this is a reflection of the US being that much more conservative on such issues, then why isn't "Latinx" so widespread and universal in other Anglophone countries? You could point out they don't have as high Latino populations so it's less of a thing to come up, which is true, but it's blatantly incorrect and erasure of quite a few people to say they don't exist at all. The notion that a country like Australia wouldn't have as much if not significantly more backlash against "Latinx" if it was more of a thing there that described a much higher portion of their population is simply laughable.

Let me put it this way, on a French forum or discord server whose membership had broadly the same political outlook as this site's usership, gender neutral language would be, actually is, pretty much the normal way of writing. Whereas, on this forum, most of the time it feels like I am reading the most predictable outposts of the reactionary right wing French press. So for me that is actually very surprising, because France is for the most part a very reactionary, racist country; and yet this apparently left wing forum mostly takes a position that even by French standards would be considered right wing on this one particular issue.

As for gender equality - the US has a worse pay gap; doesn't even have maternity leave, let alone paternity leave; has never had a women head of state (and we all know how the last woman to stand for that position got treated); and has fewer women in its parliament than basically every western european country. These are all pretty concrete things that I think you have to accept suggest that the US is a broadly more conservative country when it comes to gender equality. (and you know, the fact that Switzerland, which was until recently incredibly bad on this issue is now ahead on every one of these measures is perhaps something that is worth paying attention to)

Quite a few American progressives on this site, in trying to (reasonably justifiably, especially in terms of an IRL political perspective for the American liberal-left) move past Bush-era reflexive self-hating anti-Americanism, have gone too far in the opposite direction, appropriating conservative rhetoric on American exceptionalism to formulate America’s founding values as making it more tolerant and socially liberal than Western Europe. While this may be true in some cases (e.g. arguably immigration, although I would still argue that Western Europe is far less structurally racist than America when it comes to colour rather than national origin), more often than not, for instance in the various examples you have given, it is not.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

The implication is that same-sex marriage was universally unpopular before the court ruling, which is incorrect, quite a few states had already passed same-sex marriage via the democratic process prior to that or voted down bans on it (like the one I worked against!) and it was supported by almost every notable Democratic politician at that point. Also abortion is still a contentious and controversial issue almost 50 years after its relevant court ruling, so this isn't some sort of magic pill.

Above that though: if this is a reflection of the US being that much more conservative on such issues, then why isn't "Latinx" so widespread and universal in other Anglophone countries? You could point out they don't have as high Latino populations so it's less of a thing to come up, which is true, but it's blatantly incorrect and erasure of quite a few people to say they don't exist at all. The notion that a country like Australia wouldn't have as much if not significantly more backlash against "Latinx" if it was more of a thing there that described a much higher portion of their population is simply laughable.

Let me put it this way, on a French forum or discord server whose membership had broadly the same political outlook as this site's usership, gender neutral language would be, actually is, pretty much the normal way of writing. Whereas, on this forum, most of the time it feels like I am reading the most predictable outposts of the reactionary right wing French press. So for me that is actually very surprising, because France is for the most part a very reactionary, racist country; and yet this apparently left wing forum mostly takes a position that even by French standards would be considered right wing on this one particular issue.

As for gender equality - the US has a worse pay gap; doesn't even have maternity leave, let alone paternity leave; has never had a women head of state (and we all know how the last woman to stand for that position got treated); and has fewer women in its parliament than basically every western european country. These are all pretty concrete things that I think you have to accept suggest that the US is a broadly more conservative country when it comes to gender equality. (and you know, the fact that Switzerland, which was until recently incredibly bad on this issue is now ahead on every one of these measures is perhaps something that is worth paying attention to)

I wasn't aware the French even had gender neutral language.  What singular definite article do you use in that case?