Inside/Outside

DC insider says Democrats need to drop the ‘faculty lounge jargon’ and quit saying ‘Latinx’ if they want to keep the House in 2022 https://t.co/thwj9xxd1w

— Raw Story (@RawStory) May 21, 2021

Much as I have criticized James Carville for his judgment on "wokeness," I have to agree with him here.

Carville was especially critical of the term "Latinx," which has been hotly debated among liberals and progressives. MSNBC's Joy Reid and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have used the term, but many Latinos flat-out hate the term "Latinx" — which they view as silly Spanglish and an effort to Anglicize the Spanish and Italian languages. And they'll be quick to point out that most native Spanish speakers in Bogotá, Madrid or Buenos Aires don't even know what "Latinx" means.

Carville told Quijano, "The term Latinx — 3% of the people use that. And if you want to persuade people, you have to talk the language of the people. You can't talk the language of the faculty lounge. And we're just lapsing into this jargon talk that not only was it not helpful — I think it was hurtful. We hurt ourselves with this jargony-type language.... The objectives, I'm pretty much in accord with."

Carville told Quijano, "The faculty lounge is speaking one language; the people are speaking another language. And I'm trying to get people to vote for Democrats to enact policies that I think are productive for the United States. And this kind of jargon language hurts, and it hurts a lot. And it cost us congressional seats; it cost us state legislator seats."

Take AOC as an example.  Once in a while I read an article about her which reminds me she is Puerto Rican (and good on her; she should be proud of her heritage and Puerto Rico).  But it's not the first designation that comes to mind for me, not the first one I learned about her. The first one, is that she's a woman; and already that begins to sound like Samuel Johnson's aphorism about the talking dog; and I don't mean that at all.  She represents what any person can accomplish, and I think her accomplishment already are worth noticing.  The second designation is that she's "progressive."  That one I like even better, just because it's politics I align with.

But "Latinx"?  Who has ever described AOC as "Latinx"?  Or "Latina"?  Probably somebody did, but it didn't stick around long.  The problem with Latino/a/x or "Hispanic" is that it covers too many people from too many nations (everyone south of the Rio Grande, but also Puerto Rico; and not Spain?  Or yes? And Brazil, where the national language is Portuguese?) and makes a hash of what are supposed to be designations that identify...well, something positive.  If I am mindful that AOC is a woman, it's because she represents what human beings can do, not just what women can do; and it reminds me not to classify people into "greater" and "lesser," but also not to ignore the cultural roles women are still pressed into.  Yeah, it's complicated.

"Black" is similarly complicated, as is "Asian."  AAPI is kind of a nice step forward on that, especially when VP Harris reminds us "Asian" includes India, and the Pacific Islands ain't necessarily "Asia."  But "Hispanic"?  Or "Latino/a/x"?  Pretty much a mess, there.  Especially if the people you mean to identify that way don't take easily to the label.

Carville added, "I mean, Biden won. But he is the most non-faculty lounge person in probably the entire Democratic Party."

We could do worse than to take a few pages from Biden's playbook, especially if we want to push back the forces unleashed by Trump.  Most people don't care about the ideological wars; they are much more interested in what government does, or doesn't do, in their daily lives.  Biden understands that better than anybody on the scene right now.