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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

#931

Post by mbfg »

wonderwonder wrote: post #27
mbfg wrote: post #13

if people don't want certain words associated with them, i'll do my best not to do that. I may not know, or i may fail, but i will attempt to do that which is asked of me. Because it's not a problem for me to try.

That's the thing, most of the people described by these changes are not requesting them. Small self appointed experts are coming up with the rules and attempting to force them on society.

I'm happy to read these things, as it exposes me to ideas that i might not have thought about. It will make me more sensitive to situations where words may affect people in ways i didn't see, but should have. It is no offense to me to take these ideas on board. It costs me nothing, and potentially makes other people feel more included. So win-win, from my point of view.

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

#932

Post by projektfu »

rayiner wrote: post #233

The Sierra Club guide is hilarious: https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/default/files/sce-authors/u... . > People of color” has in the past served as a collective term for people who are not white. A preferred term today is “BIPOC” referring to Black, Indigenous and people of color, which provides a unifying term for ease of use while still acknowledging the reality that Black and Indigenous people in the United States…

I find the terms BIPOC and AAPI to be quite erasing. While some black people and indigenous people share some issues and concerns, assigning a new group silences people where they do not align, and nominates spokespeople who might not have support from the community they're supposed to represent.

After all, not all black people have the same concerns and priorities, and there are diverse communities that sometimes butt heads. Combining that group into another reduces the voice even more.

It also permits ignoring the actual community in question for the beliefs of an outsider representative who identifies as BIPOC rather than as just one subgroup. And allows silencing people who disagree with being lumped together by declaring the lack of solidarity a form of racism itself.

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

#933

Post by projektfu »

brabel wrote: post #620
t344344 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

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 Pau…

In the US there's two forces at work, the racist side calling all Spanish speakers Mexican (or various slurs) and the various communities attempting to get larger power by uniting on their commonality. The polite racist (government) side chose Hispanic and the grass roots represented by La Raza and others promulgated Latin American/Latino. Meanwhile I've come across younger non-activist second-generation people referring to themselves as Spanish.

It pays a lot to actually participate in the community to know what to do. I find that people don't like being labelled in any community, but that they may use terms of art to describe their membership in different groups.

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

#934

Post by projektfu »

jimbokun wrote: post #390
QuercusMax wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There have been a few kerfuffles in soccer where a Spanish speaking person used the Spanish word for black person in an English speaking country…and were charged with making a racial slur.

Moreno is the most common word I've heard in the US by black Spanish speakers describing themselves. Is negro more common in Spain?

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

#935

Post by Name_Chawps »

DonsDiscountGas wrote: post #927
the_snooze wrote: post #17

>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…

People argue about how much of this comes from the internet/twitter; in the case of latinx it's clearly an internet phenomenon. The word is entirely unpronounceable, it could only have developed in writing.

It's pronounced "latin ex"

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

#936

Post by kelseyfrog »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #919
kelseyfrog wrote: post #918

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're saying, "At least with fascism people are united against a common enemy," but I must be reading that wrong.

I guess you could say that, it leaves room for resistance. And its become so intolerable to the vast majority of people that almost nobody seriously considers adopting it as a political system. Meanwhile, childhood suicide rates might be sky-rocketing, there might be vast sexual dissatisfaction and income inequality, not to mention the degradation of the natural world itself, but people will still say its the "best s…

This sounds like fascism apologia. But it can't be, right?

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

#937

Post by juve1996 »

docmars wrote: post #745
fleddr wrote: post #658

We should spend less time on the crazy outcomes of these institutes and more time on why they can even exist in the first place. They are somehow funded yet not accountable to anyone. Nobody asked for this, it doesn't help anyone, and it cannot survive the most basic scrutiny of the public or market. And yet it exists and even grows. Rather than playing whack-a-mole with outcomes, the underlying mechanism should be e…

Not to mention, the amount of violence committed by members of these outrage groups against whoever stands in their way - primarily towards the "offending" group or class they're prejudiced against, particularly whites, males, and straight sexual orientation. Worse, this violence often goes unaccounted for with impunity, without penalty, because people are terrified of the consequences of criticizing these groups, wh…

Can you share some examples of this violence?

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

#938

Post by [deleted] »

JenrHywy wrote: post #362

My 11yo came home from school today: "Dad! We can't get rid of any of our Roald Dahl books. They're changing the words in them. My class talked about it and we all think it's stupid". A few months back, my 16yo was telling me about a class conversation about their futures, and what everyone wanted most was a stable relationship, a job they enjoyed and to be able to afford a modest house. It's reassuring that in a see…

[deleted]

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

#939

Post by prepend »

parineum wrote: post #876
prepend wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge is when there is no single term that doesn’t offend everyone. So you can call a group “Latinx” and offend some and call a group “Latinos” and offend some and call a group “Latinos/Latinas” and offend some. I want to offend the fewest people with my speech. I would like to use opinion polling to both offend fewest as well as signal that I’m working to offend the fewest. What’s annoying and frustrating to…

I don't want to be offensive to people either but I also don't want to have to keep up on polling of what the plurality of any particular group is okay being referred to as. There are an infinite set of groups that I'd have to keep track of. I'll find out if something's offensive when I say it, with no ill intent, and someone respectfully lets me know that they'd prefer to be called something else. My language will c…

Right, I act similarly. But when people have competing preferences like latinx vs latino, what do you do?

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

#940

Post by kerpotgh »

lumb63 wrote: post #776
rayiner wrote: post #233

The Sierra Club guide is hilarious: https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/default/files/sce-authors/u... . > People of color” has in the past served as a collective term for people who are not white. A preferred term today is “BIPOC” referring to Black, Indigenous and people of color, which provides a unifying term for ease of use while still acknowledging the reality that Black and Indigenous people in the United States…

My opinion is the motivation behind “BIPOC” is to exclude Asians, who are rarely considered as minorities due to their economic and academic success.

BIPOC absolutely includes Asian- both east and south Asian. I’ve never seen it used otherwise.
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