(IGNORE the image, for some reason I couldn’t post without one)
Non-Latinx/Latine people DNI
What is your personal preference?
As someone outside of the community, I personally find “Latine” to make more sense. It fits with the vocalization of “Latino” or “Latina”, and the -e suffix is an established neutral term
Personally, I find “Latinx” to feel very artificially added. Its pronunciation as “lah-tin-ex” or “lah-tinks” seems very anglicized imo, and doesn’t feel like it really fits within the Spanish language
But I thought I’d seek the opinion of people within the community
So please, share your thoughts down below 💜
The issue, at least as far as I understand it, is that “Latino” as a general term irks people.
It’s like referring to humans as “men’ instead of “people”. It contributes to a sense of patriarchal dominance.
Personally, when I refer to humans as a group, I say “people”, not “man” or “men”.
With a lot of ethnicities, the terms are neutral. Caucasians are Caucasians. Asians are Asians, African Americans are African Americans, etc.
But “Latino” is a gendered term by its very nature. This is why a lot of people have started using “Latinx” or “Latine”.
Does using “mankind” to refer to humans offend you? Genuine question.
I’ve heard (debated) etymology that “man” is gender neutral because in older English, “male” would have been “wereman” and “female” would have been “wifman,” so the “man” morpheme just designated “human” and the prefix designated the gender.
Which does imply that "were"wolves are exclusively male, and a female wolf person really should be called a wifwolf.
The issue is that you’ve made an assumption about an entire culture based on your own external experiences, and when confronted with opinions beyond your limited view, you ignore them because they don’t immediately make sense to you.
Sounds familiar.