As a Democrat, I'd really like it if people who are saying we need to stop saying words could actually identify elected democrats that are actually saying them. I must be missing it.
As a Democrat, I'd really like it if people who are saying we need to stop saying words could actually identify elected democrats that are actually saying them. I must be missing it.
The list is in Sidney Sweeney's jeans Because those forbidden words have the same stench of made up right-wing BS as that commercial, or cracker barrel or any of the other made shit that they start.
At this point the chuds are just inventing problems to go after, all of this is their equivalent of “manspreading”. Name two purple-district Dem electeds who have ever used even one of these terms.
Amy McGrath in KY tried to be a centrist against McConnell, and had her ass handed to her. If you give voters a Republican and a Repub lite to choose from, they will pick the real thing.
Thank you. Sure, there are some language police online, but they aren’t elected officials or legit Democratic candidates. This is the game the legacy media plays with us: pin anything done by any non-conservative on “the Democrats” — the convenient catchall boogeyman for a whole class of pundits.
As an independent, I love how the folks that've been responding to posts like this over the last two days always make it about *elected* democrats (unlike the original posters) like somehow those elected democrats aren't representing the rest of you and are therefore inextricably linked.
Because it's in the context of winning elections. I fail to see how some academic vernacular that elected officials *don't use* is some how causing democrats to not get elected. It's almost as if something else is going on....
I'll bet you *did* see how some rank and file GOP'ers doin' racist stuff, even if (in the past, at least) most elected GOP officials didn't, was an understandable reason for folks to think twice about voting for them. Conceptually its the same, even though one is worse than the other.
“Nutpicking” is a good term. Both sides engage in it.
Mostly fair, I think. I'm a huge French fan. I *do* think a critical mass of nuts can exist on a certain "topic" on one side or the other where its no longer unfair to point at them and be like "Are you guys gonna do somethin' about these folks, or what?" I'm an even bigger Reagan fan than French,
but, as the leader of the GOP in that era, the only complaint I'm willing to listen to about him is over his "Big Tent" approach. There were definitely folks in that tent that shoulda been exiled to outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Everyone who knows a Republican has heard them be unapologetically racist.
Let’s take a look at Republican advocates and their word usage. Charlie Kirk, Nick Fuentes, Hegseth reposting his desire to remove 19th amendment. They’re just words that seem to TRIGGER maga…. 🙄
Yeah, they're definitely worse. Just tryina help you folks be better. Still votin' fer yer guys though.
Why are you thinking that only elected Democrats matter? Stephen Miller, Charlie Kirk, Laura Loomer, none of these people are elected. Do you think that what they say doesn't matter too?
I would like for Democrats to refrain from needlessly alienating persuadable voters (these words would do that), but seriously, as you say, who are the office seekers in purple places who talk like this?
You are so right. Straw man arguments that take on a life of their own, thanks to media laziness.
It's not just about elected officials. It's about how we, as progressives, communicate our values. Using jargon and academic lingo is often a kind of in-group signaling at the expense of being more broadly persuasive.
I'd argue that it's way more effective, for instance, to say "We have to help the homeless" than "We must address the unhoused." Stuff like that.
How about we have to help the unhoused?
OH FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!! Are you kidding me?? SEMANTICS??! THAT'S your biggest concern??
I used to volunteer at a shelter and never once heard anyone refer to themselves as unhoused. What they feel is a *homeless. The physical body is unhoused but the human being is *homeless.
Ok, let’s hear your argument
Jason Crow - a sensible man! - sponsored this, which is a nice bill but right outta the bucket, that title... crow.house.gov/media/press-...
On the bright side, it's a great bill with bipartisan support.
It is, but if you want to see it on Fox as "government waste from crazy libs," that title was perfect
I NEED TO BREAK IN HERE-Am I the only one who thinks those boxes being carried out of Bolton's house had the same look and feel as an empty milk carton?Like when you think it's full but when you go to pick it up it practically flies you backwards?The alleged Bolton boxes looked brand new & unused!
Perhaps a few Fox viewers would be on board with keeping people and their pets together. I do agree about some of the terminology. I'm a lifelong Dem and have look up some of the meanings.
Wait! I thought only activists used those terms and not actual politicians?
I want a constitutional amendment that bans the use of acronyms in statute titles.
Public health degree here, been dealing with name changing for 50 years. First we replaced the clap with VD. Then VD became STD. Then it became STI. No matter what you call them, someone will say “that’s offensive” Today I saw “differently compromised” being used instead of immune compromised.
Perfect
As long as we don't forget the reasons we switched from homeless to unhoused I guess. But I think our real problem is that historically the GOP have so many resources to overwhelm our side with propaganda. We only have people power so whatever we do we have to do together.
"we switched" Who is "we"?
I agree. But we really have to be aware of meta-communication, you know? The really important thing is to get these fascists out and get policies that help people in place. If we have to use a little bit of archaic language to do that, we got to be okay with it, you know?
We're not trying to communicate "I'm better than you," but that's what voters sometimes hear. It's so important to be aware of that.
It's arcane, not archaic, and it's one of the things which drove otherwise-sensible voters into Trump's arms.
No, I meant "archaic." "Homeless" is a bit old-fashioned next to "unhoused." Arcane language is what we should avoid.
"Homeless" is not a tiny bit archaic. Words don't become "archaic" when 75% of the people are still using them and most don't even know the arcane new word. Heck, our extremely well-educated president was using the word frequently during his presidency (9 years ago). Y'all need to get out more.
I'm arguing for using the older words
I understood and approve. But you did say "If we have to use a little bit of archaic language to do that, we got to be okay with it". I get that maybe you're being polite trying to pull 2 sides together, by labeling the **mainstream** word "archaic" ... but ... it's not. "Itinerant" is archaic.
When I was a kid, they were "bums".
Agreed. I misread your post. Apologies.
No worries. I appreciate the apology, thank you.
I'll give you an example.... the backlash during COVID whenever Anthony Fauci said "Latin-X." I heard such BACKLASH from the Latino community who were just angered by it.
OK, that was like 5 years ago and was extensively discussed at the time. And I haven't seen anyone say "Latinx" much at all since. Anything recent? Fauci was also a civil servent and not an elected official.
But he was using the term because he was afraid of being attacked? Trying to make sense ir, I feel like, while it's not most of the Democrat pols using the terms, it the closest activists to them calling for their use? There's a reason I could guess most for the words on the list before I saw it.
Latinx was coined by individuals who wanted a way to be referred to without gendered adjectives in their own language.
It is not used in Mexico.
Latin was right there.
Like the use of “ə” in Italian to un-gender the plurals “i” and “e”? I think it won’t survive, Italian language is too much gendered. But I say: let the nature of languages work. In the meantime, I ask the preferred pronouns and talk and write accordingly. Or keep a vague approach, it can be done.
We used Latinx in my Episcopal Church for a while until the Latino members asked us to stop using it. It may be a generational thing. The point I remember them saying is, x is not even a letter in our alphabet. What they really dislike is "Hispanic"
It’s great that there was this conversation so that people could make their views heard
Yes, I work around a lot of Indigenous people, and 1) I learned to ask them; and 2) they don't always say the same thing!! Some of them think about stuff like his harder than others. Also there are the things that they say but that we should not. It's so much more satisfying to wonder and ask.
Honestly, avoiding referring to all people from Latin and South America and of Hispanic descent with one word is probably best.
Yup. Or like, oh you speak Spanish, let's get a mariachi band.
I was aware that it shows up in some of the place names I've been to in Mexico. I'm just telling you what I was told. I have studied Spanish, but I didn't think about it hard, cause I was talking to a native speaker.
Mexico
Right, I guess he meant in common parlance? I have been to Ixtapa too. This is what he told me, he was a native speaker.
In Spanish X is pronounced like an H, maybe that’s what they meant.
That's it I bet, meaning when I say Latino, I am pronouncing it like they do. But when I say Latinx I am pronouncing it like *I* do.
Lah-tinks?
How do you even pronounce “Latinx” in Spanish?
I have never met a person who wanted to be referred to in this way. It screams "made up by white people"
I thought “Latine” was the preferred term, though?
There’s different preferences in every community. This article lays out some of the nuance and different opinions and perspectives around any word that purports to describe so many people at once in case it helps. www.motherjones.com/media/2019/0...
So to me it seems like the actual best practice is “just refer to people the way they like on a case by case basis, be humble if they tell you something different, and try to not be dogmatic or prescriptive” or, put even more simply, “let’s just not be assholes”
The hilarious thing is that you could be serious.
Hilarious in what sense? I personally don’t care, but I just remember a lot of the backlash to “latinx” being from Latin people who were like, “um, we didn’t pick that”
I live in Portland where latine is real. Add any letter but o or a and they fall into orgasmic bliss. They being almost entirely white progressives.
Yeah see that’s why I was rebutting the “x”, i know a lot of latin folks in like, theatre, and most of them use the “e” if they use anything at all, which is where we agree, it’s a largely extrapolated “solution” that didn’t really originate from the group itself.
I live in a heavily Latino area and every Latino I asked about it found it offensive because it felt to them like a bunch of white college kids was criticizing their language and telling them it was wrong. That is a direct quote from a friend, but others I’ve talked to about said similar things. 1/2
Mike Madrid and Chuck Rocha have spoken on this extensively over the years. After asking my friends and getting their opinions, I quit using the term.
That sounds like the right way to incorporate the views of the people directly impacted.
I really hadn’t considered it as an affront to their culture by criticizing their language until I discussed with so many. Similar discussion years ago on the term African-American vs. Black. I was surprised at those answers, too. But I get that now. I’ll never assume things like that again.
Accepted terminology also changes over time, which is why Tom’s list is ridiculous.
That list didn’t come from Tom at all. He just shared it. But that same thing has also been reflected in focus groups. As one commenter put it, many of those words are good in a grant proposal or an academic setting, but often come off as cold or removed. Sometimes simpler words are better.
Actually "cold and removed" is the best argument against theses words I've heard! Even if you know what they mean, or kind of know the term, they don't have much visceral resonance. I argued that "food insecurity" is a pretty normal phrase but it doesn't pack much of a punch.
Exactly. They are good and useful terms for some audiences. But politics is a game of moving hearts and minds, so cold and removed is the exact opposite of what is needed when motivating voters.
What percentage of Latino/Latina/etc people use LatinX to refer to their selves? And what percentage of people who use LatinX are non-Latin versus Latin?
My point is it’s not an academic term being foisted on the population. If people decide to use it or not over time that is all part of how living language works.
Yeah, because academics also knew that it was a stupid, paternalistic term that didn’t even bother to engage with the language it was attempting to “fix”
Bullshit. I work in education and I've been instructed by county administrators to use that term, which has been a point of contention.
Okay fine. I remember seeing a "Latinx Employee Appreciation Month" sign on a Macy's in Portland in 2019. The large majority of actual Latino people in actual America in 2019 didn't use the term and didn't like it. It *WAS* foisted on a population who did not want it.
I think what’s being missed here is that I was refuting Tom’s claim that these terms originate in academic ivory towers. I have no interest in maintaining the use of latinx in unless someone tells me that’s what they prefer.
In the late 2010s, many people and institutions with power in the US decided that they WOULD use this term all over the place, with seemingly total ignorance and incuriosity about whether the people it referred to liked the term. I'm glad you don't do that, but MANY others did.
I remember hearing a presentation by an MD. It was clear that she knew basically nothing about Latino culture in the US; she mispronounced a few very basic Spanish words. But she used "Latinx" a bunch of times, in a way that suggested she was confident that it was the RIGHT word to use.
Where I live "Latinx" is considered insulting, paternalistic at best. Where is it I live? Mexico City
…by affluent white kids in private colleges who promise they have Tejano friends and it’s ok.
... in a language that is gendered. Really - this was coined by a *few* activists, and the Hispanic community at large roundly rejected it.
It feels like your issue is more about the consequences of saying something and being perceived to be a bigot, which is about how we build community and maintain relationships even when we don’t agree with each other 100%. I think that’s an important thing to think about.
I can’t make any sense of you. Nothing in her reply indicated that anyone was viewed as a bigot. It seems like some used “Latinx” and a most Latino/Hispanic people in the group discouraged it. Your circular, rambling reply with the “bigot” buzzword is an example of what Dems should not be doing.
Not really (though I'm all for building community ..) It's about terms that originate with a small group of people, pushed out to to communities (and the wider public) that don't want to take up the term for any number of valid reasons. Like the very un-Spanish "Latinx".
Yes. Latino people I know and talk to overwhelmingly despise the term, and see it as insulting that outsiders with no knowledge of the Spanish language adopted it. (I'd be pissed too if American society decided something was problematic about the word "Jew" and we need to be called "Jxws" instead.)
Yeah, this 👇
Twelve of them?
Not a Democrat.
It just takes one Democrat out of millions to say a "forbidden" word and the media/critic/consultant class has fresh meat to feed on for weeks.
Except it's unfortunately not just one out of millions. It's also our friends. It's also social media. Most people just don't have the time to care about what the latest accepted/correct term is. And don't appreciate being dog-piled for not using it. 1/2
We all know when offense is meant, and when it isn't. "Bless your heart" in the South can be a sincere expression of sympathy, or a very sarcastic dismissal of you. It's not the words that make the difference between intent to offend, and not. 2/2
The Democrat party cannot and should not be held responsible for every random commenting the internet. We have a party literally supporting fascism, get some perspective.
I have perspective. Say "pregnant woman" in a high-vis thread and count the seconds before you get called a TERF and put on a block list. Nobody is saying that the GOP is fine. They're saying that they're winning elections. The link was a report BY Dems, to Dems.
It's not a question of whether elected Democrats are using the words. It's that they have become part of the lexicon in a way that most people (i) think is just weird (incarcerated people? the unhoused?) and (ii) associate with Democrats. Contributes to the view that the party is out of touch
You must be blind and dead or just stupid.
Yes x 10,000. Republicans were the ones talking about trans issues last election. They see stuff from academia and then apply it to all Democrats.
Why limit it to "elected democrats"?? It's rife in interviews of activists and advocates on a wide array of subjects. And folks actually do get corrected on this stuff. I've been taken to task for >>gasp<< saying "homeless".
Because it is in the context of winning elections. People not running for office are not asking for votes.
Actually, it would help us win elections of there weren't roadblocks to talking to people in general about issues. If a pol in office proposes a policy, and all people get about it are advocates and activists interviews about it talking gibberish about it, it doesn't work.
I don't think I can disagree with your general point. It is up to the pol to sell the policy. And Democrats are generally terrible at that, I agree! Not sure what that has to do with lists of random verboten words identified by right-wing grifters that get pegged to elected Democrats not using them.
This "elected Democrats" thing is a dodge. People are encountering this in everyday life. When they fill out a medical history, when they apply to college, when they turn on the local news and someone is saying "the new OB-Gyn department will serve local pregnant people ..."
It's not a dodge! It's the central problem of this discourse! Why is the language on a college application a problem of someone running for Congress?
Pregnant people is just plain ridiculous,followed closely by unhoused.
Why is being more accurate and inclusive ridiculous?
And in normal conversation. I've been corrected on "homeless" and told I've been insulting for not using "unhoused" This stuff has infiltrated the social milleau in maddening ways - and they're MEANT to do that because that's what advocates want - everyone use their devised terms for their reasons
Some people are assholes it's true. How is that a problem for Democrats?
And I'm legitimately trying to understand what the issue is. I do not see it. Perhaps that's my failing.
So there's no reason for the term "unhoused" it's not meant to be used instead of "homeless". If a term is said to be preferred you really don't think people will take that to heart and tell others to use it? You're being purposely obtuse, I suspect.
I agree with you! I don't use the term "unhoused." I agree that people should not "correct" plain English with not-plain English. If someone else wants to say it, they can have at it. It's no skin off my nose. But how is any that a problem for Democrats writ large?
Because assholes vote.
I can 100% assure you that folks who are not terminally online for politics do not run into these words. I know many of them. This is literally about an incredibly small sub-section of folks who follow political topics online, which further exposes how utterly stupid it is.
Then it should be easy to abandon these terms hm? I live a real life too (it's not just you) and i have encountered a lot of for example in monthly observing my county legislature as a member of LWV. Thats where I was corrected re "homeless" Interacting with medical care, applying for jobs too.
Again, people are explaining to you that the Dem candidates aren't actually putting up roadblocks. You're trying to hold the party accountable for everything anyone who votes for them says. It's stupid. Stop listening to folks who lost their own party to Trump.
The secdef has white nationalist tattoos and a man with a key to the WH does Nazi salutes. Maybe that’s more important than words no one ever hears unless conservative bring them up to make people pearl clutch.
Yes. It IS more important. It's much more important. But in order to stop these jerks, the opposition has to learn to talk to people in ways that make sense to them. They have to give a clear alternative. Some Dems and academics and cultural commentators are good at it. More of them need to learn.
So the American people are so wildly stupid and mentally deficient that they can't adapt new terminology like humans have always done throughout human history is your argument? That's a pretty freaking elitist and condescending claim to make.
From their POV it's either an assertion of elitist power over them, or a form of elitist condescension, for you to try to force your words on them. Why don't you use their words? Surely you're intelligent and mentally capable enough to adapt to speaking in terminology that is most commonly used.
a response 🧵 bsky.app/profile/jess...
I don't say that we should ignore them at all.
Thread was response to someone else, but read the thread as it is about much more the the first post directed at Tom.
Yes, got that.
No, that is not my argument.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jNU...