Depending on which circles you run in, you can be “canceled” for failing to refer to various ethnic groups by specific terms. This is true even if the groups in question don’t actually prefer the latest “approved” terms of reference.
It’s not Hispanic, hyperliberal activists say. It’s “Latinx.” Also, it’s not “black.” It’s “African American.”
Fail to use these terms and suffer the consequences.
The most befuddling thing about these rhetorical landmines, where one misstep can result in a torrent of abuse, hate, and possibly even termination from a job, is that Hispanics themselves overwhelmingly prefer “Hispanic” or “Latino” to the term “Latinx,” according to new Gallup polling data. A majority of blacks, meanwhile, don’t care whether you say “black” or “African American.”
“Hispanic respondents were asked … about their preference among the terms ‘Hispanic,’ ‘Latino’ and ‘Latinx’ – with this final option being a newer, gender-neutral term favored by some Hispanic Americans,” Gallup reports this week.
The survey found 57% of Hispanic respondents prefer the term “Hispanic,” while 37% favor “Latino.”
Only 5% prefer the nonsense term “Latinx.”
“These findings are fairly consistent with a differently worded question Gallup polled among Hispanic Americans in 2013 that also found that most said the term used did not matter, though ‘Hispanic’ was slightly preferred over ‘Latino,’” the polling group notes.
The new survey, which was conducted between June 1 and July 5 of this year, polled 302 Hispanic adults and 275 black adults and in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The margin of error for both black and Hispanic respondents is plus or minus 7 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Gallup found similar results when it surveyed black respondents.
“Most Black Americans, 58%, do not have a preference between the terms ‘Black’ and ‘African American’ when asked which term they would rather people use to describe their racial group,” Gallup reports. “The one in three who express a preference divide evenly between preferring each term.”
Of those who do have a preference, the survey shows 52% of black respondents favored the term “black,” while a smaller 44% preferred “African American.”
Four percent of black respondents had no opinion one way or the other.
“These findings from a June 1-July 5 Gallup poll are similar to Gallup’s prior tracking of Black Americans’ preferred terms using a differently worded question asked from 1991 to 2019,” the group reports. “The new wording makes it clear that the question is asking what the group should be called – not how the respondent prefers to be referred to, themselves. The earlier surveys also found majorities saying it didn’t matter to them which term was used, and usually, no clear preferred term was identified among those who did have a preference.”
It adds, “Although the term ‘African American’ was used as early as 1782, it was popularized in the late 1980s by a group of Black leaders, including Rev. Jesse Jackson, who argued that this term had ‘cultural integrity.’ But like Gallup’s findings today, the Black public mostly had no preference between the two terms in the early 1990s and the following decades, while similarly sized minorities preferred one over the other.”
Remember this the next time someone tries to shame you for failing to refer to either group by either “African American” or “Latinx.”
Not even the people in these groups are asking for this.
The insistence that you use terms such as “Latinx” is not coming from actual minority groups. It’s all speech policing from overeager, race-obsessed activists who demand you conform to the terms they’ve created for ethnic groups.
