A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#121

Post by the_pwner224 » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:52 PM UTC

pram wrote: post #78

g_sch wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested (and somewhat taken aback) by the intensity of the reactions to this term. Maybe it's a generational/political thing? For my part, I know significantly more people who refer to themselves as "Latinx" than "Latino".

I don’t like being called Chicano, Latin, or Hispanic. It’s seemingly only a US thing afaict. My family is from Mexico and “Mexican” suffices. It seems like they’re just terms to lump a bunch of legitimately different people and cultures into a single, convenient demographic. That’s how I feel about it anyway. Not saying people shouldn’t identify with it, if that’s how they feel. :V

> It seems like they’re just terms to lump a bunch of legitimately different people and cultures into a single, convenient demographic.

I'm an Indian living in the US. If I see another brown skinned person who does not look Indian, what should I call them? There are many Mexicans into the US, but there are also people from other countries in South America etc. I have no idea what Hispanic actually means, but I've heard it (and Latino) commonly used to refer to that group of people in general, and those the words that I use too.

If you were in Africa and saw a white skinned person, would you call them American or White? Calling them White would "lump a bunch of legitimately different people and cultures into a single, convenient demographic," but that lumping is necessary since you can't know someone's culture just by looking at them - or even after you have known them for a while.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#122

Post by bduerst » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:52 PM UTC

polartx wrote: post #98

bduerst wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he and some of his [white male] colleagues were laid off in favor of creating a more 'diverse' management roster. No disrespect is intended with this question, but are you sure that was the real reason? I've seen people get laid off before search for reasons why they specifically were singled out, and come up with some pretty biased excuses for themselves when it was really something fairly mundane. Even when their…

there's certainty, and there's provability. Certainty may be rumors that come from colleagues in other parts of the company that play out exactly as they said it would. >Why wouldn't he sue for wrongful termination? This was many years ago in Texas, but imagine having the choice between fighting the brunt PepsiCo's legal team, possibly incurring crippling debt and losing the case to boot (read lack of provability) Or…

I'm not so sure about that - you can still sue for discrimination even if you sign a employment release waiver and/or NDA, even after accepting any severance pay. Severance packages that large are common for execs, or multi-plant managers as you put it. Likewise, signing these types of releases are common for most public corp lay-offs, and are not evidence of anything nefarious.

I would also say that rumors are not a certainty either, in fact, I would argue that the game of telephone gives rise to biases, not the opposite.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#123

Post by starpilot » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

My takeaway: there are huge potential markets in people who are not like me. The execs were probably completely unaware of this market, and it took an outsider to hold their hand and bring it to them. I love flaming hot cheetos and know tons of people who do, but there is no way I would have thought of taking the hot pepper / other spices from a traditional Mexican food (elotes, which I had in LA) and adapting them in this way. The fact that everyone I interact with forms an upper class monoculture (white/asian, college educated, 20s-40s, mostly US-born) means that I have huge blindspots. I wonder what huge businesses could be created catering toward senior citizens, for middle aged people working retail, recent Asian immigrants, working single fathers, and so on.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#124

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

pram wrote: post #78

g_sch wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested (and somewhat taken aback) by the intensity of the reactions to this term. Maybe it's a generational/political thing? For my part, I know significantly more people who refer to themselves as "Latinx" than "Latino".

I don’t like being called Chicano, Latin, or Hispanic. It’s seemingly only a US thing afaict. My family is from Mexico and “Mexican” suffices. It seems like they’re just terms to lump a bunch of legitimately different people and cultures into a single, convenient demographic. That’s how I feel about it anyway. Not saying people shouldn’t identify with it, if that’s how they feel. :V

[deleted]

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#125

Post by School-Cotton » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

CondensedBrain wrote: post #104

rosterface wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Mexican family loves Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (for real) and hates the term “latinx”. Just fyi but it’s considered racist in a lot of Mexican communities.

It's mainly used by nonbinary (enby) people of Latin descent in the US who feel like both Latino and Latina are a poor fit. These threads always have the same look as the ones where people complained about singular they. Latinx doesn't have centuries of use the way singular they does, but it doesn't really matter. It costs you nothing to respect another person's self-identification. Whether people should use it as a…

The use of it that spawned this thread had nothing to do with gender identity and is clearly not talking about “nonbinary people”.

And if we want to respect self-identification, we should reserve “Latinx” for the people who actually want to be called that way, not for whole communities 99% of whose members have never even heard the term.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#126

Post by oh_sigh » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

CondensedBrain wrote: post #104

rosterface wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Mexican family loves Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (for real) and hates the term “latinx”. Just fyi but it’s considered racist in a lot of Mexican communities.

It's mainly used by nonbinary (enby) people of Latin descent in the US who feel like both Latino and Latina are a poor fit. These threads always have the same look as the ones where people complained about singular they. Latinx doesn't have centuries of use the way singular they does, but it doesn't really matter. It costs you nothing to respect another person's self-identification. Whether people should use it as a…

not to go too far off topic but singular they does have a history of use for hundreds of years, but the current usage as demanded by some non-binary folk is different than the historical uses. It was historically used to either refer to a person of unknown gender, or to optionally refer to a person of a known gender. so your options for singular pronouns might be either he or they, or she or they. But historically (as far as I can tell) no one has ever demanded to be referred to solely by singular they.

If you couldn't tell, I don't like demanded singular they prnouns very much. I have no problem calling a transgender person by their expressed gender, and I will refer to a person with they pronouns if they ask but I will secretly think that they are a jerk for requesting people do this thing.

And finally, no, expanding latinx to people who don't want to be labeled as such is exactly the point of this thread because latinx was brought up just talking generally about the Latinos.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#127

Post by tylerhou » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

rosterface wrote: post #108

CondensedBrain wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mainly used by nonbinary (enby) people of Latin descent in the US who feel like both Latino and Latina are a poor fit. These threads always have the same look as the ones where people complained about singular they. Latinx doesn't have centuries of use the way singular they does, but it doesn't really matter. It costs you nothing to respect another person's self-identification. Whether people should use it as a…

I agree. I’m talking about applying the term to people who don’t identify as non-binary. They are the people I know (myself included) who don’t like the term. I could see how it would be much more acceptable to non-binary people if they came up with the term to describe themselves.

I think it is more commonly used among younger people. For example, here is the 50th anniversary celebration for the Afro-Latinx Society at my high school: https://www.exonians.exeter.edu/s/1682/index.aspx?sid=1682&g...

But I'm sorry if I offended anyone. I've edited my comment to say Latino instead.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#128

Post by School-Cotton » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

pesmhey wrote: post #110

rosterface wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Mexican family loves Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (for real) and hates the term “latinx”. Just fyi but it’s considered racist in a lot of Mexican communities.

Is there a particular historical reason why it isn’t just ‘Latin’?

“Latin” in English usually includes Latin Europe as well as Latin America. “Latino” refers specifically to the latter.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#129

Post by coupdejarnac » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

throwawaycanuck wrote: post #48

tylerhou wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the end of the day, revenue-per-share is pretty indifferent to age, race, or gender. Except, as the article shows, diversity often does increase revenue share. Flamin' hot cheetos were invented by a Mexican immigrant who realized that Frito-Lay didn't have any products which appealed to Latino people. EDIT: Changed Latinx to Latino.

>Latinx There is no faster way to discredit your argument than using absurd language like latinx. I've yet to meet a latino person who referred to themselves as anything else.

Is this a West coast thing? I have never heard latinx, and I spend a significant amount of time with my Latino soccer buddies. Perhaps it's because they are all first generation and not super interested in being PC.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#130

Post by davidw » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

pram wrote: post #78

g_sch wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested (and somewhat taken aback) by the intensity of the reactions to this term. Maybe it's a generational/political thing? For my part, I know significantly more people who refer to themselves as "Latinx" than "Latino".

I don’t like being called Chicano, Latin, or Hispanic. It’s seemingly only a US thing afaict. My family is from Mexico and “Mexican” suffices. It seems like they’re just terms to lump a bunch of legitimately different people and cultures into a single, convenient demographic. That’s how I feel about it anyway. Not saying people shouldn’t identify with it, if that’s how they feel. :V

If I go to a party and there's a bunch of people from Germany, Italy, Spain, Norway, and a few other places, I might say "yeah, I went to this party, and there were a bunch of Europeans there". It might be similarly be convenient to have a broad term for (mostly) Spanish speaking people from a somewhat ill-defined area of the Americas as a matter of convenience...?

If I'm talking about someone like my friend from Guadalajara, yes, then 'Mexican' is more specific.