Moments of Permanence - April 14th, 2009

About April 14th, 2009

You know I've seen it before, that mist that covers your eyes... 10:59 am
Me: I am having trouble resisting links I KNOW will be triggering for me, despite my psychologist telling me last week not to take chances with this stuff until we can address it in-session. SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH ME.
[livejournal.com profile] lazulisong: dude picking at scabs is a natural human reaction

Which, 'tis true, but also, it won't get better if you pick at it.

While I'm now closing the linkset before I do get triggered (haven't yet, fortunately), I will link this, which articulates better than I'm ever likely to why joking about rape is Wrong: I still don't understand—and I don't believe I ever will—why anyone wants to be the guy who sends that shiver down her spine, who makes her eyes burn hot with tears at an unwanted memory while everyone laughs and laughs.

It only adds to, it does not form, my profound dislike for Bill Maher.

Current Music: Boy George and Culture Club - Sweet Toxic Love
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Hmm 02:14 pm
Something I've encountered rarely but it seems to be on the rise: Using "Latin@" to designate Latino/Latina in non-gender-specifying way.

Positive: The amphora can be read to combine both a and o. Using Latino as generic is kind of sexist default=male, using Latina as generic draws condescending "correction". (My preferred solution, possibly: Using "Latin". But that's also the name of a language...)

Negative: I, and I suspect many others, read "Latin@" as "Latinat". Unless pronouncing it Latinat, how the hell do you pronounce that? As a byproduct, not least, of the way I read text (I "hear" it in my head, unless I'm deliberately reading fast/skim-reading, in which case it gets more complicated), and also as a direct product of my perception that spoken language is important and central, I object to words that can't be pronounced. (Da5id in Snow Crash, despite my recognition that the 5 was a play on V, was Dafivid in my head, kinda. Only the /fiv/ part is really elided.)

I'm pretty sure there's a difference between Latino/Latina and Hispanic, that explains why they're different words, but as an ethnic group it's not collectively identified in Australia, that I'm aware of. I've known Mexicans and people from various Central American countries, and they were identified by nationality.

( Slight digression, including reference to trigger-potential content. )

I suspect that the difference is that the Central American/Latin-descent Caribbean population in Australia is small enough that identifying them collectively seems sort of wrong all by itself. Along with, I think, a minimal tendency here to group ethnicities at all. European doesn't work - German is different from French is different from Spanish, etc, and so, since everyone identifies with a specific ethnicity, be it where they/their ancestors immigrated from or as Australian without descent markings, everyone can identify with a distaste for mass categorisation. Or something.

Possibly I'm over-generalising. What do I know? I meant this to be a two-line post and I'm having a disordered few days.

Current Music: Ludwig van Beethoven - Concerto for Piano, Violin, Cello and Orchestra in C Major, op. 56 "Triple Co
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