What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[Valmy]

I think you're wildly overstating the importance and influence of that kind of activism.

If your talking to me I wildly disagree. While this is one small issue of a large whole, granted, the culture war is huge here and ruins and taints every damn thing. I wish it was not the case.

[Sheilbh]

It reminds me of basically this exchange immediately after the election when it became clear that Trump had done better than expected in Latino areas. Rightly they turned to a successful Latino Rep who had managed to help drive up the Latino vote which helped win Arizona for Biden:

Ruben Gallego
@RubenGallego
Az Latino vote delivered! This was a 10 year project. You tried to bury us with SB1070 you didn't realize we were seeds and ten years later we would grow to fight back. #AZBlue

Zander
@zndr_a
@RubenGallegoRuben, honest question, how do we as a party improve our work with the LatinX community across the country as well as we've done in AZ? Its so frustrating to see so many republican LatinX voters, but I know its on people like me to help convince them dems are the place to be.

Ruben Gallego
@RubenGallego
First start by not using the term Latinx. Second we have to be in front of them year round not just election years. That is what we did in AZ.

Followed by lots of (predominately white) lefties basically saying "no"

But I think this is a classic example of a term not being helpful if it's being used to describe people - people you're trying to convince/get on side - if they don't use or like that term themselves.

Edit: And I think there's been a number of polls that somewhere under 5% of Latinos actually use the term (and a significant plurality) don't even know it. It seems primarily a shibboleth/signal to other people who use the term rather than a way of engaging with or persuading the people it's meant to describe.

[Valmy]

Followed by lots of (predominately white) lefties basically saying "no"

But I think this is a classic example of a term not being helpful if it's being used to describe people - people you're trying to convince/get on side - if they don't use or like that term themselves.

I mean basically yes. What is more important? Actually helping the poor and oppressed in this country? Actually empowering them through good and wise policies? Or culture war?

The answer is clearly culture war for far too many people.

And it absolutely cuts both ways now. The right will gladly eat its own for culture war reasons now. Nice to see them get on our level.

[grumbler]

But I think this is a classic example of a term not being helpful if it's being used to describe people - people you're trying to convince/get on side - if they don't use or like that term themselves.

Edit: And I think there's been a number of polls that somewhere under 5% of Latinos actually use the term (and a significant plurality) don't even know it. It seems primarily a shibboleth/signal to other people who use the term rather than a way of engaging with or persuading the people it's meant to describe.

Latinos/latinas in the US overwhelmingly prefer the term Hispanic, which makes the whole "LatinX" issue even more amazing.  Hispanic is gender-neutral.

[Sheilbh]

Latinos/latinas in the US overwhelmingly prefer the term Hispanic, which makes the whole "LatinX" issue even more amazing.  Hispanic is gender-neutral.

Exactly - and my understanding is that in Spanish the gender neutral (though not widely used) suffix would be Latine which I think would also work.

I don't know that it's particularly culture-war-y I think it's more a shibboleth - it's a way of advertising your awareness and your views to others, for want of a better word, in your group and create a nice common feeling. I think it's less like a culture war clash than the way that Trump, for example, makes tiny references to sort of Fox News deep cuts - if you're not a huge follower you won't get it, but if you do it's like a little shout out to you.

That's a  part of politics and a part of the way we all use language. But I think in this case it hinders the other, more important part of language and politics which is to convince people, to build out your coalition etc. And on that front I think it is unhelpful.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Nah, I think it is left culture war shit. They are literally saying that Spanish is patriarchal as a language and should be actively changed for the better. If most of America's Spanish language speakers disagree, they just need to be "educated." It's very much "of the left" sort of culture war.

America has always struggled to name the Latino/Hispanic cohort for a few reasons that make them defy easy grouping:

-Most of them identify as racially white, although "brown" is a growing identifier
-Most of them either identify primarily as American or the specific origin country their family is from, first and foremost (i.e. Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Colombian, etc etc.)
-Both the terms Hispanic and Latino have a history of basically being created by the white community to try and label their community, and both have always had issues.

I think Hispanic is more accepted simply because it was the term the government and census came up with first, before Latino became more en vogue. Latino was needed because the logic behind the term "Hispanic" was that this was a Spanish language population, but many of these people when they hit 2nd generation, are fully bilingual with maybe a slight preference for English, and many third generation only speak limited Spanish at all. But we still want to "capture" them because they have last names like Martinez and often their skin is a little too far in the color wheel for us to be comfortable with so they must have some sort of label so we can correctly identify what sort of minority they are.

[FunkMonk]

Spanish is the language of the original colonizers so it should be canceled and replaced with a truly international and inclusive language, like Esperanto or Klingon.

[DGuller]

I think another component here is that some people consider being right to be more important than anything else (never mind the smug definition of what they consider to be right).

[viper37]

Spanish is the language of the original colonizers so it should be canceled and replaced with a truly international and inclusive language, like Esperanto or Klingon.

Klingon would be fun.  But once it's widely spoken, it will lose its appeal

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Spanish is the language of the original colonizers so it should be canceled and replaced with a truly international and inclusive language, like Esperanto or Klingon.

Klingon would be fun.  But once it's widely spoken, it will lose its appeal

but everyone would be able to understand the better version of Shakespear

[Barrister]

I think Hispanic is more accepted simply because it was the term the government and census came up with first, before Latino became more en vogue. Latino was needed because the logic behind the term "Hispanic" was that this was a Spanish language population, but many of these people when they hit 2nd generation, are fully bilingual with maybe a slight preference for English, and many third generation only speak limited Spanish at all. But we still want to "capture" them because they have last names like Martinez and often their skin is a little too far in the color wheel for us to be comfortable with so they must have some sort of label so we can correctly identify what sort of minority they are.

Okay, so I'm probably biased because of my experience with A: a Brazillian sister-in-law, and B: having two exchange students from Spain stay with us.

But I thought the problem with "Hispanic" is that it would cover my two spanish exchange students, but exclude my Portuguese-speaking sister-in-law, when that's not really what was intended in either case.  As such "Latino" meant "someone from Latin America", which was the term we were looking for.

[Valmy]

Well yeah they are Lusotanic.

[Jacob]

Well yeah they are Lusotanic.

Who are you calling a lousy satanic?1?

[The Brain]

Well yeah they are Lusotanic.

It's so sad that Leonardo DiCaprio died from U-boat attack.

[Zoupa]

An easy way to fix this whole US racial and semantics problems would be to adopt the French system, where it is illegal to ask those questions in the census.

Problem solved.