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Banning words won’t make the world more just

theatlantic.com

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Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Hispanic American, I very regularly tell people I am Latino and that Latinx is incredibly offensive to my heritage. I'm in my 30s and the younger people I know also find it offensive.

[flagged]

White people colonizing another language to virtue signal isn't inflammatory to you?

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#42
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I personally think we need to introduce Latin-American-American to the lexicon.

I just had a realization:

"Latin" already includes "la" at the beginning of the word-- which is the feminine infinitive. Therefore, LatinA and LatinX are redundant.

Or, perhaps we as arbitors of global culture, should enforce our new inventin:

ElTin and LaTin ...and maybe a LeTin. or LxTin

Actually let's go with all of the above. And any other creations as well. because who cares-- throw in the kitchen sink!

/more silliness

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#43

>When Latinx began to be used in advanced milieus, a poll found that a large majority of Latinos and Hispanics continued to go by the familiar terms and hadn’t heard of the newly coined, nearly unpronounceable one. There's also a practical case: these terms make you sound like a damn space alien. Unless your audience already agrees completely with you, you lose credibility by using this language. Posturing for your o…

Here is the poll, which has been repeated for a few years:

https://thinknow.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/thin...

It is not that large, but the tiny number of respondents who identify as Latinx has been stable. It's crazy that this label is still being pushed.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#44
post #31
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. You missed a couple at the beginning of your list. A really significant one in particular.

Including it would distract from the main point (though IIRC there was no point at which it wasn't a slur; replacing non-slurs with novel non-slurs is a different category). That said, I think it supports my point. How effective has tabooing that slur been at eliminating racism in the USA?

I'm the furthest thing from N-word apologist, but it's pronounced the same as the Latin word meaning "black" (modulo vowel pronunciation shifts), and spelled nearly the same. It's clearly derived from a word which did not originally have any meaning as a slur, and I bet you could find early usages in English which were merely descriptive.

There's no reason to use it now, but understanding the fact that was originally a descriptive word is useful for the history of it.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Hispanic American, I very regularly tell people I am Latino and that Latinx is incredibly offensive to my heritage. I'm in my 30s and the younger people I know also find it offensive.

[flagged]

How would you feel if people of another race, especially one that has historically oppressed yours decided they knew better than you and decided to change the rules as to how you were referred and if you objected told you it was for your protection?

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#46
post #11

> The guide also rejects the disabled in favor of people living with disabilities, for the same reason that enslaved person has generally replaced slave : to affirm, by the tenets of what’s called “people-first language,” that “everyone is first and foremost a person, not their disability or other identity.” The reason people first language fails is because there's some subjects of this language that find the origina…

The tenet assumes that people are in the large just dense. Following it, you have no airline pilots, mothers, mentors, judges, felons, idiots, and maybe not even proper names. Just "person who is female and has borne living children", "person who judges others in court", "person named Judy", etc.

There might be a worthwhile transition to a new framing that makes sense. I've heard people rip on using the metric system because supposedly its proponents wanted 10-hour days and 10 days a week, etc, which was taking tenets to ridiculous points. The problem now is trying to frame some changes in grander terms because you might well get ridiculous outcomes ( and in current society definitely will).

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Hispanic American, I very regularly tell people I am Latino and that Latinx is incredibly offensive to my heritage. I'm in my 30s and the younger people I know also find it offensive.

[flagged]

Far from it, the term disregards the history and linguistic heritage of my mother tongue for the sensibilities of white people, who for whatever reason have problems accepting feminine and masculine word pronunciations.

Just because white people like rewriting their history and language doesn't mean they have a right to rewrite mine.

If you find that inflammatory or offensive, now you know how I feel.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#48
post #31
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. You missed a couple at the beginning of your list. A really significant one in particular.

Including it would distract from the main point (though IIRC there was no point at which it wasn't a slur; replacing non-slurs with novel non-slurs is a different category). That said, I think it supports my point. How effective has tabooing that slur been at eliminating racism in the USA?

Why does a taboo have to "eliminate racism" to be considered useful or effective instead of just "reduce the amount of times people have to put up with hearing others call them that"?

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#49

"The American Cancer Society advises that Latinx, along with the equally gender-neutral Latine, Latin@, and Latinu, “may or may not be fully embraced by older generations and may need additional explanation.” Cool cool, I look forward as a white guy to explaining to a group of Spanish people why they are wrong and are really LatinX and I'm doing it for their protection. Imagine being an immigrant and having to learn…

It’s about class. Not in the usual American sense of how much money you make, but in the older sense of people thinking they are better sorts of people because they have the correct diction, education, religious views, professions, and so on.

Indeed, and someone with money and a desire to prevent actual class conflict can get a lot of mileage out of encouraging tensions in the narrow, purely expressive sense you describe

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#50
They're right to drop "American" but not for the reasons outlined.

An "American" is by definition is someone from the American continents (North and South America). Further a "North American" is someone from Mexico, USA, and Canada.

It gets worse when people have "Black Americans", "Italian Americans", "Asian Americans" because that means that "Americans" is only referring to one group of people from the USA.

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