#linked to this comic on Vox in a discussion about gender-neutral language

[queerplatonicpositivity]

Hi! I like your blog. It's inclusive, helpful, and just generally has a warm vibe. And I read your essay-- to answer your question, Latinx started in the same way as Latin@ in that it was a symbolic written representation of inclusiveness and the pronunciation is not literal. Most Spanish-speaking communities that use Latinx today pronounce it with the -e suffix.

And while I love how the comic simply explains what can be complex concepts for monolingual English speakers, I do have a bone to pick with how the comic tacitly dismisses Latinx as a white-washed colonizer term. The artist uses soft language in discouraging it, so the dismissal only becomes explicit when you notice that all the linked readings are anti-Latinx with no Latinx perspectives.

Latinx's exact origins/creator is unclear. Although definitely used in and by Latin American circles, Latinx may very well have been created by a white Latinx. It may have even been created by a white Latinx with no or little understanding of Spanish. But if a term is created to describe oneself, is it self-colonizing? Where is the difference in a person refusing to use correct pronouns because it "imposes beliefs about genders" and refusing to use Latinx because it "imposes English-speaking norms on other cultures"? It's possible to be Latinx and only speak English and they deserve a right to self-identify as much as anyone else.

While anglocentrism and US imperialism in general are Problems that Spanish has to contend with globally, it's also important to remember that Spanish is a colonizer language, too. So while some may perceive it as linguistic submission to use Latinx in an English-dominated culture, for indigenous folks in a Spanish-dominated culture it can be a form of linguistic resistance. Though, at least ime, indigenous folk are just as likely to reject all disambiguations of Latinx/e/@ as its origins are a matter of recorded history (Michel Chevalier, late 1800s) which show the explicit racist and Eurocentric motivations behind its creation.

But the comic wasn't about rejecting Latin@/e. It was about rejecting Latinx. I don't care about what term gets used, but I do care that self-determined labels are respected and Latinx should not be discouraged in the same breath that Latine, Latin@, or Latino/a is.

Hi, Anon! Thank you for the kind words about my blog. :) And thank you for sharing your thoughts and perspectives about Latine and Latinx.

I was worried that the post would get circulated without the tags, but for context, here is a screen grab of the original post that has the tags pasted into the post and the continued of the "essay" in the actual tags:

[ Image Description: A screenshot of the original post. Below is a transcription of the tags involved. End Image Description ]

Aaand Tumblr ate half my tags because my tag essay was too long. D:

Here’s the original tags and the missing tags:

#when I was in undergrad in a university that was majority Latine#I was involved in some activist circles where people were using the @ symbol#to stand for o + a together#I actually have a t-shirt from a time I went to a protest#that says ‘no somos illegales no somos criminales somos trabajador@s internacionales’#which means 'we aren’t illegals we aren’t criminals we are international workers’#anyway that was the preferred way at the time in those circles for people to signal gender neutral language#after I moved out of Texas and away from the Mexican/U.S. border#I started seeing people online (here on Tumblr) use Latinx#and then I started seeing it elsewhere online#and then about 2.5 years ago someone in my guild (who is Abenaki not Latine)#linked to this comic on Vox in a discussion about gender-neutral language#and whether white Western English-speaking people are engaging in further linguistic colonization#by imposing gender-neutral terms/methods on other languages#(which incidentally was taking place between a French speaker and a Romani guildmate iirc)#and it was really interesting to me because I had long wondered how the x worked in actual words#(like 'amigx’ ??)#and using the instead seemed to make a lot of sense#and there are some very specific feelings about it

#about a year or two later the topic came up again in the guild #this time with a guildmate who is an elder in the community #and said the activist circles he's part of (largely in Arizona) use Latinx not Latine #and he feels as a Chicano (who doesn't speak Spanish because of linguistic oppression in his parents' generation) #that Latinx is the preferred term #and that doesn't even get into things like colonization #as a lot of places where Spanish is spoken are places with Indigenous populations that were colonized #and many Indigenous groups have cultural conceptions of gender that have nothing to do with European concepts of binary gender #so there's like... onion layers going on #which I think many of us in the queer community can relate to #as we have endless conversations about what we should be called and why #so I feel there's a lot of solidarity that can be had

I strongly support self-determination in labels, terms, etc. used in our communities, and I definitely support people choosing to refer to themselves as Latinx.

#asks #anon #Latinx #Latine #Latin@ #language #self determination #for clarification the elder is in his 70s #and the discussion about about white Western English-speaking people engaging in further linguistic colonization #by imposing gender-neutral terms/methods on other languages #was not about Latinx at all iirc; it was a convo about a guildmate getting frustrated with their French class #because of misgendering iirc and they made some generalized comments about all languages with gendered nouns #and some guildmates who speak languages with gendered nouns (including French and other languages) got involved in the conversation #and there was some frustration from people from cultures where there are gendered nouns about how people from outside of those cultures #sometimes try to come in and demand changes to those languages instead of listening to people from those cultures #and how best to support people who are part of a culture in their efforts to engage with language norms #and at some point the comic was shared #and I definitely agree that the sources cited by the comic are not very helpful #for the reasons anon mentioned

[crayonlead2-blog]

Links 2/25/19

All the winners at Oscars 2019 as Green Book is named Best Picture Metro.co.uk

Stanley Donen, director who filmed Gene Kelly singing in the rain, dies at 94  WaPo. Take heart, this year’s Oscar losers:

For all its later acclaim, “Singin’ in the Rain” drew favorable but not ecstatic reviews when it was released. …

“We were ignored,” Mr. Donen told his biographer. “Not that it’s such a big to-do. The year of ‘Singin’ in the Rain,’ the best picture went to ‘The Greatest Show on Earth,’ one of the worst movies ever made.”

Giant Tortoise Feared Extinct Reappears After 113 Years Motherboard

‘DUTCH OVEN LADY’ PROMOTES A NEW — OLD — COOKING STAPLE Daily Yonder

The White Earth Band of Ojibwe Legally Recognized the Rights of Wild Rice. Here’s Why Yes Magazine (martha r)

Is Drilling and Fracking Waste on Your Sidewalk or in Your Pool? ProPublica

Half glitzy, half dowdy Times Literary Supplement. On comedy double acts.

Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? BBC

Could we soon be able to detect cancer in 10 minutes? Guardian

‘Stop Funding Climate Change!’: Jamie Dimon Interrupted for Important Planetary Message Common Dreams

Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth Guardian

New Cold War

How Politics Trump Intel in the US-Russia Nuke Treaty Pullout American Conservative. Scott Ritter.

Women at State Dept. fear incentive program contributes to gender pay gap The Hill

Nessel reversing 16 years of GOP ideology in Attorney General’s Office Detroit Free Press (marla r)

AOC

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Depicted as Superhero in New Comic Book Breitbart

GND

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez delivers impassioned response to critics: ‘I’m the boss. How about that?’ Independent

2020

The Political Playbook of a Bankrupt California Utility NYT (Cal2) Hoisted from comments.

Will 2020 Democrats Help Trump By Destroying Each Other? New York magazine. Ahem. I’m posting this to allow members of the commentariat to exercise critical thinking skills.

Kamala Harris dismisses concerns about Green New Deal price tag: ‘It’s not about a cost’ Fox News. Yet another opportunity  to deploy  those critical thinking skills.

As Ex-Enron CEO Exits Prison, Some of Company’s Old Businesses Thrive WSJ. Seems like a different world, although it was only a dozen years ago when CEOs were  prosecuted and sent to jail for their crimes.

Health Care

After Vox story, California lawmakers introduce plan to end surprise ER bills Vox

US HEALTHCARE DISGRACE: GOFUNDME-CARE SYMPTOMATIC OF EXTREME INEQUALITY Who What Why

‘A dark and elaborate art’: How pharma executives are training to avoid disaster at Tuesday’s congressional grilling Stat

Big Brother IS Watching You Watch

Popular Apps Cease Sharing Data With Facebook WSJ

The snow patrol drones saving skiers from an icy death BBC

North Korea

Why North Korea won’t be the next Vietnam Asia Times

China

Donald Trump to delay extra tariffs on Chinese imports SCMP

India

Most People Trust ‘Neutral Media’, Says New Report on Fake News The Wire

Pulwama attack: Imran Khan urges Narendra Modi to ‘give peace a chance’, repeats promise of action Scroll.in

India toughens Kashmir crackdown; 5 dead in battle with militants, more detained Reuters

Brexit

Jerri-Lynn here: I’ve deliberately gone light on Brexit links today, so as to steer interested readers to Yves’s post today – and thus concentrate the discussion there rather than here on the Links thread.

Big banks divided on defaults strategy after Brexit FT

BlackRock CEO unhappy with UK’s handling of Brexit — report Financial News

BMW and Daimler put aside rivalry to take on Google and Uber Handelsblatt

Class Warfare

Our Twisted DNA New York Review of Books

After Superstorm Sandy’s Rain, Cooperatives Sprang Up Like Mushrooms TruthOut (martha r)

‘Austerity, That’s What I Know’: The Making of a U.K. Millennial Socialist NYT

Helicopter parents: the real reason British teenagers are so unhappy The Conversation

Syraqistan

As US withdraws troops from Syria, France and UK remain in the back seat France 24

Trump Transition

Lower refunds amplify calls to restore key tax deduction The Hill

Wary of Trump’s Approach, Governors Seek to Forge Own Trade Agreements Governing.com

Cuba sees high turnout at polls for constitutional referendum Reuters

Venezuela

Psychopathic US Senator Openly Calls For Maduro To Suffer Gaddafi’s Fate Caitlin Johnstone

Warning ‘Every Option Is On the Table,’ Pompeo Stokes Fears of Military Force in Venezuela Common Dreams

Venezuela in crisis: All the latest updates Al Jazeera

Thomas Friedman Is Right: Pie Doesn’t Grow on Trees Rolling Stone. Matt Taibbi– latest in a long series, the first of which ran in New York Press aeons ago IIRC, on Friedman’s crimes against the English language. No need to have read any of those to enjoy the latest.

Antidote du Jour (via):

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.

This entry was posted in Guest Post, Links on February 25, 2019 by Jerri-Lynn Scofield.

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Source: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/02/links-2-25-19.html