It’s been conclusively proven in poll after poll over the last couple of years that most Latinos hate the term “Latinx,” with some having never heard of it and not wanting to hear it ever again.
According to Merriam-Webster, the woke version of Latino and Latina “is used generally as a gender-neutral term for Latin Americans, but it has been especially embraced by members of Latin LGBTQ communities as a word to identify themselves as people of Latin descent possessing a gender identity outside the male/female binary.”
Because this term does not appeal to most Latino communities and also offends some elder generations, many Democrats in Congress (including Ruben Galego (D-Ariz.), quietly moved to end its use in formal communications. Some affiliated special interest groups also responded to the call by changing their behavior.
Some Democrats, who had previously supported the term with all their hearts, are now singing a new song when they hear it used by others. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), a freshman “Afro-Latino” Congressman, is today’s case in point.
After the New York Yankees Twitter account went “woke” in the aftermath of the horrific Uvalde, Texas mass shooting, Torres took issue with their use of “Latinx,” stating that he’d “never heard anyone locally use the term” and proclaiming the term was “imposed on” the Latino community by… corporate America and the government or something. One of his polls showed how inept it is among Latinos.
The South Bronx is where I live, and it’s home to the Yankees. Never heard anyone locally use the term ‘Latinx.’
Does a majority of Hispanics actually use the term ‘Latinx’?
If the answer is ‘no’, how did ‘Latinx’ come to be the term to use in government and Corporate America? https://t.co/4EYR1ksywx
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) May 27, 2022
I never said there should be a ban on the term ‘Latinx.’ Quite the opposite.
I mostly use the term ‘Latino’ whereas Corporate America & government almost exclusively uses the term ‘Latinx’.
I am simply wondering why in light of the following study: https://t.co/rBTBtbmmhh
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) May 28, 2022
There were a couple of problems with Torres’ mini-rant, though, the first one being that it’s not the government nor corporate America who “imposed” the term on anyone. The term was actually imposed by his own party’s wokesters.
Second, and possibly more troublingly, Torres used the term several times in a favor.
After and before the election, Democrats pic.twitter.com/0LtwlHaASZ
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) May 28, 2022
Not only was Torres called out by conservatives over his politically convenient about-face, but his supporters on the left weren’t too happy with him for his flip flop.
“You know damn well that term was not created by corporate America it was created by LGBTQ+ LatinX to self identify within the spectrum. There are so many things you could centered your attention on, this an absolute waste for those who supported you,” tweeted one.
If he’s smart, Torres will start spending less time on Twitter and more time focusing on resolving the infighting going on between colleagues over New York’s new Congressional maps.
And when he’s not doing that, maybe he can join the Latino community in fighting the next “woke” word that will likely be foist on Latinos by the more “woke” members of the Democratic party: “Latine.”
Flashback:Hispanic GOP Congressman Rips Miami Herald Away After an Insulting Editorial About Hispanic Conservatives
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