Someone Has To Do It: US Elections 2020

[Sporting]

No one is trying to “remove gender from language “ they are just trying to make people aware of how it’s used, and especially what the assumptions involved in using language are. In particular the use of the masculine to denote both male and female.

There has been some debate in Spain about this but generally - and I speak from a lot of experience - people don't really care. Including many women.

[Bruno]

No one is trying to “remove gender from language “ they are just trying to make people aware of how it’s used, and especially what the assumptions involved in using language are. In particular the use of the masculine to denote both male and female.

Au contraire, some people are trying to remove gender from language, and the phrase needn't mean removing it entirely.

"What the assumptions are" is more question begging. I'm not making any assumption when I say or write "the Latino vote" or similar. When I hear the word, I don't think only of men or maleness. I don't think of gender per se at all. This fact, however, does not appear good enough for the people trying to remove gender. First they want you to change how you hear the word into how they decided to hear it. Then they want to judge you for it.

But I also don't care whether the "correct" word is Latino or Latinx and will say either as anyone likes. I just don't agree with judging people who aren't inclined to relearn how they talk and write to please an agenda that's treating a hypothesis as incontestable.

[Nefertiti2]

There has been some debate in Spain about this but generally - and I speak from a lot of experience - people don't really care. Including many women.

Clearly a significant number of people in the US and in Germany do care- and are asking others to respect their views.

In the UK it would no longer be generally acceptable to use he/him and mean that to stand for everyone regardless of gender.

[Sporting]

Absolutely.

The problem in Spanish is when one says "su casa" it's not clear except from context if "su" means his, her or their.

Similar for nosotros/nosotras etc. Something neutral would be great but language doesn'y evolve as quickly as we might wish.

[ursus arctos]

So is the next step the unfaithful electors gambit?

Technically, this is a precursor to "unfaithful electors" in which they try to get a Republican-controlled entity to appoint a slate of Trump electors notwithstanding the certified state vote for Biden.

To the extent that there is a legal "plan" that has been it for some time, at least since they realised that they have no evidence of meaningful irregularities. They haven't gotten serious traction for this in any of the relevant states and there are a host of legal reasons as to why it wouldn't "work" even if they did.

That, of course, doesn't prevent them from continuing to conduct their batshit PR campaign, which is what this is all about now.

Unfaithful electors are those who vote for a candidate other than the one they have been selected to represent in January.

[anton pulisov]

Anything gendered can cause problems for people, by design or not. So ungendering - such as 'they' instead of 'he' or 'she', or Latinx - is a progressive way of undesigning it.

Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised to learn there's a movement to engender objects, too. Lu table instead of le or la. What table or chair or hat needs to be gendered?

One of the things I noticed while living in France was how many technical and technology words tend to be masculine, while kitchen-related words, for example, tend to be feminine.

And "they" is either "ils" or "elles", depending on the context. A group of men is "ils", a group of women is "elles", a mixed group is "ils", and a group of 99 women and 1 man is also "ils".

I understand the need in that point to address the gender issues in a language, especially in the above examples, but when I see e.g. "Lantinx women" used in the US media, I cringe. I mean, let's be honest, how many of the progressive writers in the US media have actually taken the time to learn Spanish, or at least be aware of its features.

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/politico/status/1328888201369497600

[Bruno]

And "they" is either "ils" or "elles", depending on the context. A group of men is "ils", a group of women is "elles", a mixed group is "ils", and a group of 99 women and 1 man is also "ils".

I understand the need in that point to address the gender issues in a language, especially in the above examples, but when I see e.g. "Lantinx women" used in the US media, I cringe. I mean, let's be honest, how many of the progressive writers in the US media have actually taken the time to learn Spanish, or at least be aware of its features.

There's a strong case for changing conventions that require choosing between gender forms in order to correctly label, especially people. Universal gender-neutral pronouns would be progress. Nouns that are technically gendered but the only conventional option for labeling something seem like less of a "problem" in most cases.

[Diable Rouge]

Interestingly, in Irish there is a non-gendered verbal form called the saorbhriathar, which is akin to the passive voice in English, i.e. the table was set, or the object was found.

[Nefertiti2]

There's a strong case for changing conventions that require choosing between gender forms in order to correctly label, especially people. Universal gender-neutral pronouns would be progress. Nouns that are technically gendered but the only conventional option for labeling something seem like less of a "problem" in most cases.

those who are included by those conventions quite often don’t find them a problem. Those who are excluded or erased by them often do.
(Also see how much better the conversation one can have if you forego gratuitous insults)

[anton pulisov]

Why not just use the English "Latin" then?

(geez, why did you write the sentence in brackets in that post, i'm out of here)

[Hot Pepsi]

Yes, it’s like UKIP becoming a huge story because they got the biggest increase in the vote. If you didn’t know, you’d think from the coverage that they’d won elections.

Vox Pops have a lot to answer for in distorting our understanding of our own societies and reinforcing stereotypes. The rise of “data journalism” is a bit overhyped but it’s a huge improvement.

Not everyone can be Nate Silver, but it’s so disappointing to see college newspapers moving in the wrong direction and writing articles based on a pile of tweets. FFS. Is that what reporting is going to be in the future?

[Bruno]

those who are included by those conventions quite often don’t find them a problem. Those who are excluded or erased by them often do.

More question begging. It's to be demonstrated that anyone is being erased by a labeling convention that doesn't mean what you're suggesting. "Latino" means all the people so designated, including females.

If some people feel erased by a label that doesn't, in everyday parlance, intend to erase them, that's unfortunate. But that feeling wasn't caused by the label; the label is being read as indicative of something more fundamental, which is the real cause. I'm skeptical that changing the labeling convention would lead to or encourage a new paradigm or make anyone's lives actually better, but if others are convinced, good on them.

(Also see how much better the conversation one can have if you forego gratuitous insults)

Me calling a hypothetical person a tool wasn't a gratuitous insult. You calling me a Jordan Peterson fan and a bigot was.

[Hot Pepsi]

Why not just use the English "Latin" then?

(geez, why did you write the sentence in brackets in that post, i'm out of here)

I’ve wondered that too. Latin doesn’t seem quite right - these people do not, for the most part, speak Latin - but Latinx doesn’t fix the problem. “Central American” digs up the issue of why USians are called “Americans.”

Whenever possible, I just try to be specific. If somebody’s family came from Honduras, they are Hounduran-American, for example.


I’m afraid that there is some truth to left wing people constantly changing the PC language to show off that they’re in the “in crowd.”

There is a lot of that “woker than thou” shit going on, especially on Twitter. But I think it is a small vocal group. I suspect, for the most part, that all of these new terms are well-intentioned efforts to not exclude anyone, in this case people from Central and South America who do not identify as strictly female or male.

But we’re probably going to need to find a better way to do that than constantly adding new categories and inventing spellings like “folkx” (which to me sounds too much like “Volk” which has fascist connotations).

It’s just too unwieldy. I don’t want to erase anybody, but whatever list of categories we could up with isn’t going to fully capture the lived experience of every person. That’s the nature of language and, as it turns out, people’s experiences of gender and sexuality are more diverse and complicated than most of us imagined 100 years ago.

But I don’t know what the answer is. Some young people seem to like “queer” as an all-purpose term for people who don’t conform to traditional gender norms, but a lot of older people feel that as the equivalent of the N-word, and I can understand that.

And “non-conforming” is a bit broad and unhelpful. I do not, in many significant ways, conform to broad societal expectations for my gender, but I would not call myself queer or feel like I am part of that “community.” Not everyone wants a special identity nor do we really “deserve” it insofar as we are not actually oppressed. Some of us just want other people to mind their own business. That should be ok too.

And “we’re all just American” is a right-wing way of saying “let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who.” That won’t do.

So I don’t know, but I’ll use Latinx if the AP style guide says we should.

[Bruno]

The US is still depressingly patriarchal despite English being a mostly gender-neutral language.

[Hot Pepsi]

I recall that the first paper we all wrote in the first philosophy class I ever took was about an essay explaining why using “man” to refer to all of humanity (as in the expressions “all men are created equal” or “one step for man*, one giant leap for mankind.”) is not actually gender-neutral. I don’t recall the specifics, but it was convincing.


*IIRC, he meant to say “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

[Nefertiti2]

More question begging. It's to be demonstrated that anyone is being erased by a labeling convention that doesn't mean what you're suggesting. "Latino" means all the people so designated, including females.

If some people feel erased by a label that doesn't, in everyday parlance, intend to erase them, that's unfortunate. But that feeling wasn't caused by the label; the label is being read as indicative of something more fundamental, which is the real cause. I'm skeptical that changing the labeling convention would lead to or encourage a new paradigm or make anyone's lives actually better, but if others are convinced, good on them.
.

Latino uses the male form to denote everyone.

You find it acceptable. Many other don't

You repeatedly asserting something doesn't make it so

[caja-dglh]

Vox Pops have a lot to answer for in distorting our understanding of our own societies and reinforcing stereotypes. The rise of “data journalism” is a bit overhyped but it’s a huge improvement.

Not everyone can be Nate Silver, but it’s so disappointing to see college newspapers moving in the wrong direction and writing articles based on a pile of tweets. FFS. Is that what reporting is going to be in the future?

When the President and his allies celebrate "record breaking growth" in the third quarter because the economy basically died the quarter prior, you know that there is a decision to embrace bullshit rather than contest it.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Why not just use the English "Latin" then?

My guess is that the Latinx people who came up with the word for themselves didn't want to use any existing words, but wanted to come up with something new, to express an idea in a new way.

[anton pulisov]

I'm going to use the Italian plural Latini then. Grammatically correct woke

[DCI Harry Batt]

*sigh*

[Nefertiti2]

Except the Latinx people don't see themselves as Italians. Just as Irish people don't like being called English

[San Bernardhinault]

https://twitter.com/politico/status/1328888201369497600

This actually seems to be a very interesting point. The “surge” in Trump support amongst latinx/Hispanic people seems to be overstated. There was some rise, but really there are only two regions that saw a really strong swing to Trump (actually, there was a third region/group which was among Mormons but nobody seems interested in why they hated his immorality in 2016 but were totally cool with it in 2020, perhaps because them being white works against it being a conveniently reductive narrative).\

Trump did not appeal to Latinx. It appears that the Trump campaign worked to appeal to old community Tejanos in the Rio Grande Valley and to Cuban and Venezuelan communities in southern Florida. (My guess is that they did that to create the “hey look at this spanish speaking group who supports us, we aren’t racist” narrative to actually make their white supporters feel better about themselves, than because they actually gave a toss about these groups - much like Ben Carson and Nikki Haley appointments were designed to do).

[San Bernardhinault]

As for Latinx, I find it an awkward construction and it’s difficult to read because I don’t know how to pronounce it, but - frankly - its deeply unimportant how I react to it If Latinx people prefer it, then it’s not my business to tell them they’re wrong.

[My Name Is Ian]

My MIL is Cuban-American and lives in Fort Lauderdale. She voted Biden (I think she's still a registered Republican, though her politics have skewed left/centre-wards in recent years), but I'm pretty certain she was in a minority of two (I think her dad, who's Cuban, was the other one) amongst her entire family and social circle.