yeah to be honest I don't ever remember the last time I ever had to use the term latino in real life lol
this is just more Americanism trying to put us in a little box
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Why is it Latin@ folk are uncomfortable or don't want to talk about race?
- Thread starter Advance.Wars.Sgt.
- Start date
this is just more Americanism trying to put us in a little box
Possibly? But I'm not sure how this comments helps.
I was speaking to someone on PM about this and have thought more about this. I'm not agains the term and its use. My issue is fear that the term will be used to correct those who use "Latinos". Unless the person is being referred to directly, in that case, I would go the route in the preference of the subject.
I don't even use Latino personally. I prefer Hispanic. Language is complex topic, so I would agree that this is way more nuanced that my original take.
Whenever someone mention the topic, I just shut up and don't even try to explain it. People just believe w/e they want to believe.
You will find this kind of thing everywhere Europeans colonized and produced offspring with the slaves and natives. The more "white" offspring are always treated better and hold higher status. It still trips me out what Sammy Sosa did to himself.
I mean you literally called a counter-patriarchy movement patriarchal....
It's mostly women, gender non binary, trans and other LGBT Hispanic folk who are spearheading the movement for more inclusive language.... calling that Patriarchal is really really really funny.
You know what? Screw the shorthand. Just use Latin Americans. US Americans have co opted the term "American" to refer as only to themselves since forever. Just using "Latin" seems like another way to "shoo" us out of their America.
Man don't I know it. I am Korean descent born in Venezuela, so not the same kind of racism experience than say if you were mestizo or black, obviously. Still, back when I lived there, people would say rude racist things to me all the time. Even this little kid stopped to call me Chinese pig. Yeah, in comparison this has been really rare here in the US.
Mexican here, that's how we do it traditionally to make words gender neutral in text, it's easier on the spanish language unlike that Latinx nonsense created by white americans.
You are wrong about the bolded.
When you go deeper in the History of the independence it wasnt really that Haitians invaded DR, it was about a treaty made with the colonizers to make the island "one and indivisible", regardless on what is your take on DR independence, this was almost 200 years ago, and it doesn't excuse fearing that they are going to invade today, when Haiti is the poorest country in the world. Haitians color of their skin is the main reason Dominican dislike Haitians, the term "Maldito Negro" which translate roughly to "Fucking Black" is very commonly used in DR as an insult to stupidity. and Colonizers from Spain came and invaded DR, USA invaded our country as well, There isnt anti-spain or Anti-American sentiment at all in DR, while someone like me that has a lighter skin tone than someone from Haiti has been victim of racist remarks when I lived over there.
what's the gender neutral form in french? since the french coined the damn term we may as well borrow from them
Should've worded that better but I meant when speaking in real life. The @ is fine when typing.
a menos que ustedes digan latinat lol
You never heard Maldito Blanco? Because I've been called like that a few times before lol
How did you expect not to derail the thread with that?
French, much like spanish, italian and portuguese is a heavily gendered language, a lot of nouns DO NOT have gender neutral forms, hence why this is a debate at any capacity, Romance Languages do not enjoy the ultra neutrality of the english language.
So that automatically means that those texts and references are written by white folks? Because there aren't any Latino/a academics? Did you bother to read any of those?
Just cursorily reading the top 3 hits I searched for showed that there isn't a consensus of who created it, but that it most likely originated from Spanish speaking communities, and one paper was written by a queer Latina graduate student.
I wouldn't look to French for gender neutrality.
And gutter_trash is wrong
Latine is just the feminine form of latin in french
French use Latino and Latina
And major dictionaries like Larousse don't even seem to acknowledge latina lol. It's just latino according to Larousse... but in others you can find latina... but no latine because again that's just feminine form of latin
Ie:
Qui relève de la langue des Romains, qui s'exprime dans cette langue : Une grammaire latine. Les auteurs latins.
It's latine when saying grammar because in french grammar is a feminine noun, and it's latin when saying author because in french author is a masculine noun.
Not my point. It's just an insult, like you mentioned before, hence why I asked you.
Mod post - Do not derail the thread with disagreements over the terms Latino, Latinx or Latin@.
Official Staff Communication
Please do not use this thread to discuss the terms Latino, Latinx, Latin@, etc. If you would like to discuss them, you may create a thread. Otherwise, please respect other posters' use of these terms.
Ok so from reading this thread and having no real experience with the topic, this seems similar to how conversations of racism happen in Europe too, as the most common experience with discrimination comes from labor/economic class, where racism exists but no meaningful conversation happens because there is no real widespread vocabulary to discuss it with. And with no community wide conversations about the topic, awareness of its specifics and how it manifests is rare and malformed, whereas people are far more versed in how e.g. blue/pink collar work is disadvantaged against more privileged kinds of work.
Just a small correction, this is about speaking in latin, not the ethnicity.
Just a small correction, this is about speaking in latin, not the ethnicity.
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Yeah, as a black American, I tend to view this topic through the lens of binary race classification. There's not a lot of nuance. We had the "one-drop" rule and it's led to a pretty simplified outlook on race. And in some ways I think that's for the best? Of course we have issues with colorism in our community but it's seemingly less extreme than in Latin societies, or the Caribbean, where race more of a sliding scale.
Sometimes though the nuance I hear from Latino friends on this topic sounds like a sideways justification of racism in their communities. That's the kind of nuance that gives me pause. If I'm being honest. As an outsider looking in, I grant you that my perspective is skewed, but anyone handwaving away racism is going to get a cold reception from me.
Exactly this is something English speakers don't seem to understand even inanimate objects are gendered.
For example
The Chair= La Silla(feminine pronoun)
The Car= El carro(Masculine pronoun)
Edit: just saw the mod warning.
From my experience I can say that for example we Puerto Rican's are so mixed that we don't really fit in any specific category. Because we are the result of 3 different cultures Africans, Spaniards and Taínos.
Example there was a federal document that asked me for my race and I was unsure what to put because I remember my options were African, Asian, European or other. I
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Well, while I have heard it before, is seldom used and not under same racial connotation that calling someone "Maldito Negro" has.
Latin@s are not Latins though lol. Latins are from Ancient Rome.
Will never get tired of how Americans just lump all Latin American people into one group, think we're homogenous and then complain about how we don't get along. At least this thread talks about a real issue, but the generalization comes up all the time in political threads.
I'm third generation Mexican and people never guess when asking about my Ethnicity. Everyone thinks I'm some sort of European (or oddly enough middle eastern when I have a beard). Ive been lucky enough to never have experienced any sort of racism but of course am always open to any of the discussions OP is referring to.
I once got into an argument with a black woman because she felt I should've said something to a woman next to us in line using the " n word" on the phone. I tried to diffuse but she ended with " Whatever you're white anyway you wouldn't understand."
I once got into an argument with a black woman because she felt I should've said something to a woman next to us in line using the " n word" on the phone. I tried to diffuse but she ended with " Whatever you're white anyway you wouldn't understand."
Yes please do this.
To answer your question, it gets exhausting hearing that because I'm light skinned, almost white Latino, that I can't possibly know what discrimination is from other minorities on top of Afro-Latinos. I just gave up trying to talk any issues when within our own people, they don't want to stand in solidarity. I'll deal with my problems myself because my own group wants to push me away
There is a reason why Latin America is called such. But the word Latin itself is gender neutral.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latins
I don't want to get this thread of track so this is all I will say about our discussion. I'm a dark skinned Dominican, all of my cousins are white or lighter skinned,
my mom and aunts call me negrito, negro, etc (weirdly terms of endearment). I know the history of Dominican independence and while yes there was a treaty to try to unify the island, the Haitian rulers treated the now Dominican side really bad and taxed them heavily to pay back the French, hence the independence movement.
I know that on the island, Haitians get treated bad, I've seen it, and I've seen the weird after effects it causes. For instance, in Santiago I tried giving a Haitian worker some water
and they wouldn't accept it due to other Haitians looking (can accept things from Dominicans). That is instance in a sea of the crap I've seen or experienced. What i'm saying though is that yes, racism has a huge part to play in the Dominican/Haitian divide, but it is not the only thing. The past invasions (even after independence) and more recent arguments/conflict
between the two sides of the island have a huge part to play too. Tons of Dominicans feel like they have maintained their side of the island while Haiti has squandered theirs ( I don't agree with this sentiment). So those same people feel like other governments are trying to unify the island, which in turn would make it worse off (and you do see a lot of media proclaiming that the Hispaniola should be shared).
The one thing with Dominicans I have seen, is that while they will talk crap and say crude remarks about other Dominicans based on literally everything (hair, skin color, what part of the island you are from), regardless of all that, if you are indeed Dominican, it doesn't matter in the end. So I have heard dark skinned guys call white skinned Dominicans, 'el diablo', maltildo blanco, cochino, etc, but then turn around and get mad if those same guys referred to themselves anything else other than Dominican.
To get back on topic, that why this all so very weird. Latinos internally fight, until someone says something about us, then they band together. So while racism exist and is indeed one of the biggest problems (just look at univision or telemundo), those same racist weirdly are the first to embrace you when shit goes down, as long as you are from the same country. Its all very complicated and insanely messed up. I really don't get it.
At least in my experience living in Miami to cuban parents, Hispanics are racist as hell and have to qualms about saying it in public.
I guess Chileans are "white americans" now (we use "x" as gender neutral a lot).
Anyway, Latin America is a weird place, full of casual racism (and full fledged racism and xenophobia. Also sexism, see regaeton and trap). It's moving forward, but it will take a while.
Latin America has a lot of races, an according to the country the racism is geared towards an specific race, like for example in Chile people are very racists against blacks, because until 5-10 years ago it was very rare to see one, but now they play a significant part of our society, there is also racism against native americans or people who look like one, but here there are also people who is proud of them because they gave us the identity that differentiate us from europeans. There you have Bolivia where for the most part they are very into their native roots, and proudly display them almost everywhere.Also there is Argentina where people from the metropolis view themselves almost as white europeans, and are very racists against black and natives, but on the same country, lots of areas from the borders of the country have a huge population of natives, and they are obviously more receptive of that, and I'm sure that there are more examples like this in the other countries of the region, but I'm not sure about their situations, so I can give examples.
And I'm sure that this happens in all the other continents, like today I was shocked to learn that koreans have an specifial racial gesture towards japaneses, and for someone who doesn't lives there that sounds weird (specially since everyone in latam calls asians "chinese") and I'm sure that wouldn't understand that people in latin america has the same prejudices. even europe seems to have that kind of racism bias, even if for most people all of them look white
And I'm sure that this happens in all the other continents, like today I was shocked to learn that koreans have an specifial racial gesture towards japaneses, and for someone who doesn't lives there that sounds weird (specially since everyone in latam calls asians "chinese") and I'm sure that wouldn't understand that people in latin america has the same prejudices. even europe seems to have that kind of racism bias, even if for most people all of them look white
I imagine the root of it is the values of European colonization becoming ingrained in the culture and persisting until the modern day. Still on that 90's style "we don't see race" shit too.
Im not saying is the only thing, but is the main thing. the fear of invasion is used as propaganda to hide the racism that is behind the hate for Haitians.
I am from baja california, mexico and there different types of racism, classism, regionalism and other type of issues that you can't box them with a single word, for example a black man african american normally would be treated better that a light-white skinned american even more if he is tall, if you come from the center of mexico people from here woud make fun of you, and say 'el chilango con sus quesadillas sin queso' even if you look like a white european, hell recently you have people being more racist to central Americans especially people from hondurans that black haitianos.
i think there is a feeling that they have gotten a handle on the race thing and don't want to rock any boats before all hell breaks loose.
incoming fascism iceberg.
(also I'd like to know what someone like the Yaqui or South American Indios would have to say about latin society and race)
incoming fascism iceberg.
(also I'd like to know what someone like the Yaqui or South American Indios would have to say about latin society and race)
To answer the question brought by the OP: because IT IS uncomfortable to talk about race. Even the most well meaning statement could potentially come off as condescending or outright hostile. Then you have the issues brought up in this very thread, me a Mexican-American from Texas who is mestizo but on the lighter shade of brown has a WILDLY different life experience than some of out Dominican brethren. The issue of race isn't simple it encompasses history dealing with colonialism and modern attitudes towards people who are different than the majority of an area. Most importantly and it should be shouted from the rooftops, this isn't only a latinx thing. See the backlash that Alexandra Shipp received after variety reported she might be recasted when X-men joins disney. There were a ton of black people on social media who were gleeful because in their words storm should be a proud dark African woman and not a biracial woman.So miss me with that this is an exclusively Latinx thing of issues of colorism. Frankly every culture around the world more or less treats those with lighter skin better. It's utter bullshit we can agree on that but solving it is incredibly complex. We've had 2 needless threads whose entire function has been to shame a popular Latina actress for attempting to talk about issues within our community but it gets avoided in lieu of dunking on her for not being inclusive enough. The other debating the merits of the usage of language which is ever evolving. To the Spanish speaking posters if you don't like latinx you don't have to use it. It's really that simple.
Mexicans can be racist as fuck, even against themselves. I'm Afro-Mexican on my grandma's side and she was kinda racist against dark skinned people. People just like feeling superior to other people.
I think people would be surprised. The things I've heard about central americans this week reminds me a lot of what Trump is saying. A lot depends on class but most importantly it's when you came to this country. Depending on your generation views can differentiate a lot.
User Banned (2 Days): Inflammatory Commentary, Ignoring Mod Post
Get this out of here. Wouldn't be surprised if a white person started this. And if not, it's stupid as hell.