quote:Hispanic refers to those who trace their roots to Spanish-speaking nations from Spain to the Philippines. Latino's are a subset of Hispanics who trace their heritage to the Americas.
Yes, but this misses the issue. The issue is with the emphasis on Spain in "Hispanic," which offends some Latin Americans. The reason they find this offensive is that they have a great deal of indigenous "blood" (for lack of a better term), and Spain to them represents the nation that came along and destroyed their culture, forcibly converted them to a new religion, and forced them to adopt a new language. Negative feelings toward Spain are very common in Central and South America.
In this case, Latino is preferred because it does reference the one commonality that all of these groups now have (the Romance language) without specifically giving a place of honor to Spain.
Of course, since my heritage is pretty much purely Spanish, I don't really have this hangup.
Syn, I am also a Dolphan, a teacher, an independent, a parent . . . . I think the issue is not the existence of labels, but the use to which we put them. I think we all pretty much agree that labels used to demean people (like "spic" or the N-Word) are wrong. But sometimes I hear people in the majority telling people in a minority that they should not apply a label to themselves, that this is foolishness and divisive. But I see this usage of labels as a way of describing, affirming, and celebrating the particular subset of American culture that I have experienced. The people saying I should not describe myself as a "hyphenated American" are typically the ones who feel that, to be American, I should subsume any aspect of myself that is different: that the fact that there is a difference between my experience as a Cuban-American kid growing up in Little Havana and that of a white kid growing up in Indiana is a bad thing, that needs to be eradicated for true acculturation to have occurred.
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posted
What I don't like is feeling vaguely guilty if I'm say, trying to point someone out, and I say, "see, that African American guy over there." I live in a town that's mostly white, if there's a group with all white people and one African American, then naturally that's what I'm going to use to distinguish him. Just like if I was in a room with all blonde people and one red haired person that's what I'd use to distinguish them. I feel like I shouldn't even notice, you know, andcertainly I shouldn't bring it up if I make a mistake and do notice. And generally I don't notice anymore than in passing, but it seems like that's the one thing I can't comment on.
I generally switch between African American and black, just using whichever comes out first. As far as I can tell none of the African Americans I know mind (which granted, isn't many) so I don't see why I should worry about it.
General Note: I don't know many African Americans because our school is about 1% African American, not because I don't want to.
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posted
(Note to CT: The activist doesn't sleep, but has been known to take a day off, watch trashy TV [but "elegant trash," as Harlan Ellison once defined it], and even do something for the sheer fun of it once in awhile.)
Taking another deep breath...
I sometimes describe myself as a "recovering academic." I spent a lot of years safely cocooned in an environment that was extremely supportive of me and my personal growth - although I am quite sure my advisor and mentor is ambivalent about the choices I ended up making.
Based on my admittedly limited experience, I came across more obsessiveness with "correct" vocabulary and terminology in academia than I do in activism. Part of it is just the pragmatic nature of politics and advocacy - is your main focus to do a vocabulary lesson or to advocate about certain policy points? That doesn't mean you don't have your own "correct" vocabulary - you just pass on a lot of opportunities to "instruct" other people, except by the example of your own language use.
There are times I've felt a little bemused by terminolgy too. One particular instance comes to mind...
When I was doing my masters program in Special Ed (full-time), I took a course with one professor who had a particulary grating condescending style that rubbed almost everyone the wrong way.
In one class, an "older" student (probably the same age I am now) was telling a story and said something about "colored people." The instructor, surprisingly gently, told the student that this wasn't the accepted term any more - the term currently used was "people of color." (At this particular time, I believe college professors were probably the only ones using that term.)
I had one of those dreadful moments when the "unspeakeable thought" demands to be spoken. I probably could have fought it, but I was sitting next to Linda, one of my buddies in grad school. Linda was a very light-skinned African-American, and she told me she often got mistaken for "white."
I leaned over quietly and whispered to her: "Does that make me a person of no color?"
Compounding my own lack of impulse control was a fact I had forgotten. When it came to laughing, Linda didn't have any self-control either. She burst out laughing - hard. Tears in her eyes.
The teacher, smiling a lot like a shark smiles, said: "you know you're going to have to share that with everyone now, don't you?"
I did. Which resulted in the whole class bursting out in laughter - including, a little later than everyone else, the instructor.
I don't think she ever forgave me.
(Edit to add: to avoid any confusion here, the instructor was NOT a "person of color" - as she defined the term.)
posted
So are you saying that it doesn't matter because in Mexico they'd just call them Indians or worse? I'm a bit confused.
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posted
Yep, they suffer from a LOT of name-calling, negative stereotyping, and segregation. NativeAmericans in Mexico are strongly discriminated against as far as obtaining housing, property rights, equal protection under the law, work, governmental&political positions, schooling&college, etc
"against indigenous people?!?!
Naw. Here's the weird thing, once Mexican NativeAmericans cross the border into the US, they suddenly become just Mexicans -- whether they speak Spanish or not -- to the US's dominant culture, and to most other Mexican migrants. And enjoy the fruits of sharing the Mexican-migrant reputation of being good/hard workers. Admittedly, a few labor sub-contractors do take advantage of nonSpanish-speakers.
posted
PSI, I have no idea what you're trying to say.
Aspectre's pretty accurate, from what I've heard. (I've only visited my family in Mexico when I was a child, and without understanding the language, I won't pretend to have first-hand experience with the Mexican power structure.) Cortez never really died in Mexico -- Mexicans of pure or near-pure Spanish blood are still the top tier of the economic and social ladders in Mexico. The more sullied one's blood is with native blood, the farther down one goes.
My family's nearly pure Spanish blood, which means they have homes in safe neighborhoods. Hell, my tia Carolina was married to a pretty high-ranking government official until about six months ago -- she's now a Texan, but I still think highly of her. Because of my family's blood, my father was able to get a high-quality education that qualified him to immigrate to USC to get his MS. If he was of native stock, I seriously doubt he'd ever have had the opportunity to any real education at all, let alone a chance to immigrate to the United States and attend one of its top universities. Blood makes you or breaks you down there.
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quote:Ok, Eddie, here is where 'PC' gets on people's nerves. It becomes a club for those who want to feel superior without doing any actual work. And the list of criteria for the club is arbitrary and often nonsensical.
For example:
It is not PC to drive any vehicle that looks like an SUV. SUV's became the hated car of the PC crowd, for a variety of reasons. They are too big, they use too much gas, they are not environmentally friendly. And when all those conditions are true, yeah, they probably are a bad idea. However, there are quite a few cars that have the same basic functionality and look, for which those things are NOT true. My car, for examle, is exactly the same size as a longbed Nissan truck, and gets better gasmileage than my Stanza used to. And I still have PC buttheads sticking anti SUV propoganda on it. Clearly, they have done no research on which vehicles are actually the problem. They are just going over their PC checklist and going "Oh, SUV bad."
...so your point is that you ran into morons who are capable of understanding that SUVs are bad for the environment, but incapable of distinguishing which SUVs are more harmful than the status quo?
Is that political correctness or just idiocy? Anything when utilized by idiots can turn into a nightmare -- just look at the Libertarian party.
quote:Example the second:
I am squicked out by gay sex. For whatever reason, two men making out makes my stomach turn. I am also squicked out by calamari, and it is loved by millions, so personal quirks can hit you in all sorts of places, not just sexual politics. Anyway, I don't like it. So, I don't like books with graphic descriptions of gay sex, I don't like movies with gay sex, and I am unapologetic about it. Now, in the PC crowd, this makes me a homophobe and a bigot. Despite the fact that I have a number of gay friends, and have never done anything to harm a gay person for their sexual orientation, and in fact am square in the 'just leave them the heck alone' camp.
But that isn't good enough for the PC commandos. You are either 100% with their program, or you might as well be a nazi KKK member.
And yes, I have been told that I was a homophobe and a bigot because I could not see the beauty in gay love. Sorry, I also don't see the beauty in cubism, and some of those paintings sell for millions. It's just a matter of taste I guess.
But with PC extremism, NOTHING is allowed to be a matter of taste if it falls outside the agenda.
And that's what pisses people off. I have zero interest in forcing gay people to see the beauty in hetero love. And I would never yell at Karl and tell him he's a heterophobe if he told me hetero sex was icky. I would just laugh and keep chatting with him, just like he does with me. But Karl isn't a PC commando, just a good guy.
Exactly what is "100% with their program"? I'm a serious supporter of equal rights, and I've never found much "beauty" in homosexual sex. I'm not violently repulsed by the thought of it, but I'm not interested in watching any of it -- no more than I'd be interested in watching sex videos of Janet Jackson or fat people. Fat people don't disgust me (though to be fair, Jackson does), but I find no excitement or titillation out of watching them hump.
Again, this sounds like you just ran into idiots. While you may notice liberal idiots more than you notice conservative idiots, probably because the liberal idiots aren't representative of the entire philosophy, that doesn't mean they're anything more than a fringe element in what's by and large an intelligent civil rights movement devoted to the granting of equal rights to all citizens -- a philosophy you, by your declaration that you oppose legal persecution of homosxuals, belong in.
I stated in my first post that of course there are idiots who take inoffense to indecent levels. Are these two examples really representative of politeness as a whole? Trying to end use of the term "nigger" doesn't really correlate with slapping bumper stickers on car-based SUVs or harassing people who are repulsed by the idea of homosexual sex.
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posted
PSI, native Mexicans are just that -- native Mexicans. Native Americans, if you prefer. Chicano.
There's a kinda-sorta-derogatory term for them in Spanish, but I'll be damned if I can remember it right now...
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posted
And by the way, you may want to give props to Jose. He's more familiar with his native culture than I am, and actually speaks the language, so he's probably a better spokesperson for the Hispanic/Latino/strawberry-picker minorities on this board.
Plus, he's always right, so long as he agrees with me.
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posted
But Lalo, I always agree with you when you're right.
I don't have too much expertise on the indigenous thing, though, because unlike most of Latin America, in Cuba the Spanish pretty much obliterated the native population (Siboneys, Tainos, & Caribe)--even more successfully than the British in North America.
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posted
But Eddie, the problem is that the extreme fringe is often the most vocal element of the 'PC' crowd, and the quickest to villify members that are not towing the line. It doesn't make the whole group of people who like politeness bad, as you say, but it does put a bad taste in the mouth of those who have been the subject of attack.
And, to your point, I feel the same way about what I think of as the radical right. It's just that they were not the topic of discussion.
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posted
It's not that hard. Polite people do their best to call people what they wish to be called, and they don't take offense when none is intended.
The polite term for African-Americans in my lifetime has been Negros, Colored People (as in the NAACP), then Blacks, then African-Americans. It's not that hard to keep up. Older people who still use the old terms aren't trying to be offensive and nobody takes it that way. It's pretty easy to tell when someone is deliberately being rude.
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posted
'Chicano' refers to MexicanAmericans of SouthernCalifornia. Despite efforts to extend that self-identification to include all SouthWestern MexicanAmericans -- heck, farther, even to NewYork -- it's still pretty much an "LA thing".
'Indios' is probably the politest Spanish word to refer to NativeAmericans of Mexico.
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posted
The fact that a term is inaccurate really has little to do with anything.
We will have labels for any large group of people, particularly if they decide that there is a particular term they would like to be referred to by, until everyone can know everyone else personally.
People don’t particularly like all the labels for a lot of reasons. They are very ambiguous. Is some one are should all the following people be call Cubans: Some one from Cuba, Someone who has two parents from Cuba, Some with two grandparents from Cuba, Someone with one parent from Cuba, someone with one grandparent from Cuba, someone who looks like they could be from Cuba, who has a brother-in-law from Cuba. This ambiguity makes them difficult to apply properly unless the party being referred to has told their preferred term. It is also ambiguous in that “nigger” is ok for some people to use yet not for others.
Another reason people dislike the whole thing is they don’t like being sued, particularly for merely exercising their first amendment rights, like Southwest Airlines did (see here and here (See the last paragraph, too). So great length, large sums of money are spent for the sole reason of reducing this possibility. Diversity training, Racial Sensitivity training, your employer does not care; they just don’t want to get sued. The end result is people go around second guessing everything they say, and everything they do.
One last reason is that stereotypes grow up around labels. Most people feel that the entirety of any given stereotype fits them, and that the label is pigeon holing them into a particular identity.
One last reason is that most people are bright enough to see that the ever changing labels some groups pick for themselves are just an attempt to hide. Just look at NAMBLA.
(The argument is going to be made that not everyone sues over stupid stuff, that this is rarity, hardly ever happens, yadda-yadda-ya. If this argument is good enough to defend performing medical procedures on a minor without parental consent, I think it is good enough for this.)
Oh, yes you are being too sensitive.
Posts: 1458 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
Wait so the politically correct term is African American? At least in DC where I go to school, I have never heard anyone call themselves that. I mean Al Sharpton says black, so that must mean it's okay. Of course there is always that annoying thing where blacks can call each other "nigga" (you have to have the a, or so my friends tell me) and it means friend or brother or "dawg" if you will. But if I were to say that I might get beat up. From my experiences, my white friends are more likely to be shocked by my "non-PC" terms than any of my black or other minority friends. My little brother was shocked when I told him I was dating a black guy, he said "shhh Molly I think you're supposed to say African American!" so if it were not 2:30 AM, this would be more coherent, so I am going to stop now...
Posts: 252 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Tain't never polite to use the word, luthe. It's just that one can address ones friends with the rudest labels and most scurrilous charges -- eg "you dumb <insert whatever nasty here>" -- and get away with it. And comedians can get away with it as a part of the act: being rude and offensive in a manner that one couldn't get away with in real life is a portion of comedy.
However, using that same language offstage is likely to earn that comedian a bit or more of trouble. Similarly, using the epithet you chose as example upon a stranger or with a real intention to insult is nearly as likely to land a black in a heap of trouble as it would a white.
There are probably many words/phrases in your vocabulary that you would censor yourself from using on this forum, but would feel quite comfortable using amongst your closer friends. Same rules apply in real life.
quote: Why do we even need labels? To me they are stupid and cumbersome and make absolutely no sense. The darkest black person isn't black. the palest white person isn't really white. Then you get billions of people that are Asian from Indians-Japanese people. Why are labels nessasary? Especially for people who just don't fit into neat little catergories.
Syn,
Tell that to the government! THEY are the ones that insist we designate our "label" on every frickin' form we fill out, and on the census, and on all types of applications.
If the government would quit asking, maybe it would be less of an issue.
posted
I'm pretty sure most of the time those questions are optional. Except on the Census, which isn't exactly a frequent occurence.
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