I would like to introduce Red Nibö, a new Ecko instance in the fediverse that opens a space for the discussion on science, technology and their social impact. The instance is aimed to the Latine community, so the main languages are Spanish and Portuguese but other languages are welcome too.
How would you spell it? EDIT: I have changed the tile of this post to “Latin American”
Latinx is a term created and imposed by American anglophones on hispanophones and lusophones and doesn’t make sense in these languages. Both Spanish and Portuguese are gendered languages (even words like chair, or bottle, or whatever, have a gender), and on top of it if you want a gender neutral term there are better ones that work better in these languages, like Latine or just simply Latin American. Less than 5℅ of Latin Americans have even heard of the term, and even less approve of it. It’s not adopted by the community it’s imposed onto to, to “represent”. It’s patronizing and a bit ironic. Also, there’s the whole linguistic activism side to the whole thing. Latin Americans are perfectly aware of inequalities between the genders, without having this term externally forced upon them in a misguided attempt at inclusion.
That’s at least how I understand it as an outsider from a different continent.
Thing is just that “Latinx” is usually a moniker created by people on the spectrum of liberal identity politics — people who essentially think that critiquing and controlling language will fix racism and other ills by ‘changing the way people think about experiences and identities’, which is of course something Marxists identify as counterproductive as language is not the driving force behind social dynamics.
There’s nothing wrong with the word per sé except that it can even seem a bit patronizing towards actual Latine people, but not much. It just usually symbolizes a certain adherence to made up respectability language that is meant to fix racism with words instead of actions. It’s not like Latino/Latina or the better gender neutral Latine were in any way offensive anyway.
ironic because instead of being supportive of an instance being created for one of the most exploited continents in the world, you downvote a good post just because you are against some word.
But Latin America is not a continent, American is the continent.
Sounds like trying to separate USA and Canada from the rest and I would include it and say that is “one of the most explioted communities/zones in the world” instead.
Thanks for the clarification. I agree to it and I think the term “Latine” is more appropriate since we can properly say it in Spanish and Portuguese. I am not aware of the state of the discussion in the US, therefore I chose to spell Latinx as a term that could include all genders (Latino/a/e), understanding x as a variable. Of course, your point is valid and we should avoid a term that is imposed by the white liberal wing. I am happy to learn from the discussion. It’s much more valuable than the downvotes, which are harder to interpret.