It sort of tells you all you need to know about the Republicans of Arkansas — that they would elect a whiny, lying, thin-skinned mouthpiece for the status quo with no administrative experience to a high position. What’s even more revealing, though, are her first acts in office.
Within hours of being sworn in as the new governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed an executive order Tuesday banning the term “Latinx” from official use in the state government.
It is one of the first, if not the first, executive order of its kind, Tabitha Bonilla, an associate professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, told NBC News.
It was one of seven orders signed by Sanders, a Republican, right after taking the oath. The other ones focused on prohibiting Arkansas schools from teaching critical race theory, budgeting and spending as well as other government affairs.
That seems petty, that the first thing she does is have a snit over what some people call themselves. We must police the language, apparently, and that means dictating what words may be spoken and written in her presence, probably all in the name of free speech. It’s all about the “anti-woke agenda”.
For Ed Morales, the author of the book “Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture,” the governor’s seemingly sudden interest to ban the term Latinx — which is often derided by conservatives and debated among some Latinos — speaks to “this anti-woke agenda” the Republican Party has increasingly adopted.
“It is something that seems to be tied to things that they object to, which is really anything that prioritizes marginalized people and marginalized points of view,” Morales said.
Anti-woke is just another way of saying white supremacy. Every little thing she does is going to be about white supremacy, as you can tell from her first priorities.
To judge from the verbiage, it’s also prohibited by State Imperial Decree to teach home economics (budgeting and spending are part of that curriculum) and Civics.
I’m sure her new state slogan is also hidden in her fiat decrees, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Are we sure she isn’t really called Karen Huckabee Sanders?
Nepo-gov
When they use ‘woke’ in a pejorative fashion, I translate it as ‘insufficiently bigoted.’
She is also a bit slow here.
She needs to ban pronouns!!! He and she might be OK, pending study by the Arkansas Inquisition. But its and they are right out.
She needs to ban the neoprnouns too, after someone explains to her what they are.
@^ Reginald Selkirk : I translatre it as they are duochebag bigots not worth listening to.
But yes. Also that.
“Woke” -they’d rather remain asleep… & clueless & bigted & scum.
But we are supposedly “snowflakes” for objecting to .. words being used differently, accurrately and not white-washing history thus erasing most of it ..somehow.. yeah?
Coz the reality (when you deign to thnk about it) burns..
What the fascist GOP is doing here is what they always do, using Orwell’s 1984 as an instruction manual.
This is Newspeak.
Limiting the language to limit what people can think about.
And as a bonus they get to punch down and beat up a group that isn’t them, the Latinxs and people who use the word Latinx.
Banning Latinx is an overstep, but how is it presented on a form? Would someone be given other choices to self-identify (eg- Latina/o). Latinx doesn’t seem to be catching on amongst the target populations.
Anti-woke grandstanding by the likes of Sanders is obligatory right wing virtue signaling, pioneered by DeSantis the neo-McCarthyite. On that note DeSantis has made a pro-Rufo move: https://floridapolitics.com/archives/579522-gov-desantis-taps-christopher-rufo-5-others-to-transform-new-college-of-florida-into-classical-college/
And creepers inducing: “Rounding out the list is Matthew Spalding, dean of Hillsdale College D.C. campus’ Graduate School of Government. Hillsdale College is a private conservative liberal arts college that the DeSantis administration is referencing as its model for transforming New College.
“It is our hope that New College of Florida will become Florida’s classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South,” DeSantis Chief of Staff James Uthmeier said in a statement.”
I had previously dismissed Rufo as some dingbat, but he seems shrewd and well polished, everything James Lindsay is not.
Seems the conservative long game of marching through the institutions is creating dividends.
There are legitimate issues with the “LatinX” word, but I’m sure Hucksterbee knows nothing about them.
Critical Race Theory and antiracism are important. The former should be available for students that want to pursue legal studies and it should inform US history to an extent. Whether it should infuse all aspects of pedagogy would be a stretch, but is anyone actually advocating that? Antiracism like antifascism is a stance.
I see Michelle Alexander and her book The New Jim Crow as CRT popularized. I found it informative and eye opening. I recently watched the documentary 13th. Alexander as amongst those (including Gingrich) interviewed. It should make people reflect on the impact of previous choices made over the decades. It should make the Clintons amongst numerous others feel guilty or at least some degree of dissonance.
Hucksterbee slanders is a xtian terrorist just like daddy (who IIRC is now pushing dietary supplements on TV). And, if I saw correctly, that rtwing fanatical bastardized bastian Hillsdale College now has ads on TV for free to anyone signups for their american history courses (america first, white is right, propaganda). There are a lot of things on TV I wish I could ‘unsee’.
This society is crawling with rtwing, xtian terrorist, bigoted propagandists with too much money and tightly closed, hateful minds.
Also, Tom Horne, newly elected Sec of Education and head of the Jim Crow society for the advancement of bigotry in Scarizona (also previously shunned by voters) just said that ‘race is irrelevant’ in american life.
Politics as performance art… if abusive behavior is the point, get John Cleese and let him heap verbal abuse at Huckabee. She is not even in the same league…
Boris Johnson, Bolsonaro, Zuma et al should set up a club. Huckabee Sanders would fit right in.
I don’t know anyrhing about Arkansas except it is a quite poor place and Slick Bill served two terms as a governor. I assume people there either are baptists or meth addicts or both.
Seems about right for a fascist.
It seems problematic to say the least, looking at this from across the continent, that a proven liar, supporter of insurrectionists and a person lacking any administrative experience, can become the governor of a state. But at this point in the US decline, it probably doesn’t matter anymore.
I have no skin in the LatinX game. When talking about the kind of people the term is supposed to encompass, which I rarely have any occasion to do in their absence, I tend to fall naturally into using whatever the particular folks of that description in front of me use. And when they’re not around, I tend to use what I last used when they were around. If the term catches on among the people it is supposed to describe, fine; if not, also fine.
But whatever anyone thinks about “LatinX,” what does it say that one of the first official acts of an incoming governor is to weigh in on it and impose a rule? Doesn’t Hucksterbee Sanders have important things to do?
“That seems petty, that the first thing she does is have a snit over what some people call themselves.”
In fact, it is not what they call themselves; it is what other people call them. From an article from Boston University:
“According to the Pew Research Center, a thimble-sized portion of people with Latin American ancestry use the term Latinx. In August 2020, the center reported that 3 percent of respondents viewed it favorably; a year later, a Gallup poll increased that to 4 percent.”
Just to be clear, I think Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a slime, and I am generally opposed to banning words (an exception might be the “N word,” because of its historical connection with the most vile racial abuses) but let’s not justify our position on the incorrect assumption that the term “latinx” is something that these people really want to be called.
Sure.
The right wingnuts have been attacking the public libraries.
Sarah Huckabee needs to get a list of books to be banned and then threaten to shut down the libraries. Which has already happened in some places.
I just found out that my local public library has had numerous challenges to carrying some books.
They always celebrate Banned Books Week so I doubt they went very far.
Trans people. This is their current number one victim to attack, most likely because there aren’t very many of them and some of them are children.
Then, attack the public universities.
They do educate people after all and that is a huge threat to the GOP.
Public schools. Half of all states budgets roughly go to public schools. All that money is just sitting around waiting for some right wingnut grifters to grab it.
Then there is the War on Poor People and the War on Children and the War on Xmas.
Huckabee isn’t going to run out of things to do.
Jeez, if I had the inclination (and lacked all integrity) I might go for being a US governor. It must be a sweet job if you have a glib tongue and a lot of lobbyist contacts with deep pockets.
My campaign slogan would be “down with the great eskimo conspiracy”.
Stealing an idea from “Oops Apocalypse” I would launch a theory unemployment is caused by pixies.
And I would launch a program to drill down to the evil spirits Xenu buried in the crust, so we can arrest them.
Banning the word is stupid but the word “latinx” is also absolutely infuriating. It’s basically used by white people to feel special and climb their high fucking horse. Guys, you have no business going around and changing other people’s language.
One good thing about this article: I finally looked up the correct pronunciation of LatinX.
I’ve never had occasion to say the word out loud as it is one of who knows how many words I have only encountered while reading. (Yes, I am an out and proud bookworm since grade school.)
@lotharloo and @Green Eagle,
It’s infuriating to you? Why? It’s an incorrect assumption? So?
The issue is why is Arkansas banning its use? Because it infuriates Sanders, exactly as it does you. Because it’s an “incorrect assumption” as you assert. Your arguments are only one step removed from banning speech. You just don’t happen to be governor of the state of Arkansas. Why does it infuriate you so much? Why do you care?
So sulky prom date Sarah Huckabee Sanders got her dad’s old job, presumably with some help from her dad’s (old, white, racist) friends in a state that typically falls in the bottom 10 in terms of education and income but is known for racism, poor healthcare options and isn’t exactly addicted to truth and justice. (Meth maybe but definitely not the truth.)
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/23/us/west-memphis-three-dna-court-hearing/index.html
https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/west-memphis-three-3039/
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pocharaponneammanee/west-memphis-three-modern-dna-test-exoneration-appeal
And the first thing the woman known for defending Dolt 45’s decision to lock up Central and South American kids in cages does is… sign pointless, stupid legislation regarding an accepted (but not widely used) term for Hispanic people, in what I can only assume is a dogwhistle signal to the Republican party that she is ready and waiting for a different, better job in the Republican party.
Color me shocked.
Then again, she is an idiot, governing a state full of them.
Does she really think that Dolt 45 will run again in ’24 and more crucially, win? Does she actually think that Dolt 45 will 1) remember her at all, 2) be grateful that she was his press secretary and mouthpiece for 2 years and 3) reward her for it? She worked for the Mango Mussolini for 3 years and hasn’t worked out that he has no gratitude and no memory?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/13/sarah-sanders-press-secretary-exit-analysis
But she still can’t get a seat at the Red Hen restaurant in Virginia.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2018/06/25/was-sarah-huckabee-sanders-denied-public-accommodation-when-a-restaurant-kicked-her-out/
“So basically, if you’re a jerk, you get asked to leave. If you’re in a job where you’re publicly a jerk or a liar, we don’t have to find out you’re a jerk in the restaurant, because we know you are.””
And resistance is not futile.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/06/23/sarah-huckabee-sanders-and-the-lost-art-of-shunning/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/06/23/why-a-small-town-restaurant-owner-asked-sarah-huckabee-sanders-to-leave-and-would-do-it-again/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-own-the-red-hen-restaurant-that-asked-sarah-sanders-to-leave-resistance-isnt-futile/2019/05/14/125b4742-75a8-11e9-b7ae-390de4259661_story.html
“When we opened after a 10-day hiatus, our dining room was full. In the following weeks, people who had never been to the Shenandoah Valley traveled out of their way to eat with us. Hundreds of orders for our Red Hen spice blend poured in. And the love spread far beyond our door, as supporters sent thousands of dollars in donations in our honor to our local food pantry, our domestic violence shelter and first responders.
After nearly a year, I’m happy to say that business is still good. Better than good, actually. And besides the boost to our area charities, our town’s hospitality and sales revenue have gone up, too.”
@ ^ silvrhalide : “Does she (SHS -ed) really think that Dolt 45 will run again in ’24 and more crucially, win?”
Um, well, a reminder :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election#Declared_candidates
It is nice to see how forgettable & lack lustre Trump’s campaign is so far that even people who are politically aware more than most have already consigned it to the forgettery. A good sign Trump is in trouble and hopefully will NOT win either nomination nor obvs the main election. Hopefully by November 2024 Trump will be in jail or dead.
@ 19. Green Eagle : What is the preferred term please? Also can you provide the exacrt title & author of that article if not a link please?
StevoR, select a suitably-long section of the quoted portion, search for that section in quotation marks: e.g. “a thimble-sized portion of people”. Very easy.
Also, think about it: that some particular term X is not preferred does not entail that some other term Y is therefore preferred; it may be that no particular term is preferred.
—
Me, I’m always a bit bemused by “latin American”, but not as much as “hispanic” since I learnt that actual Spaniards are not hispanic. Heh.
@26 Sure, Dolt 45 said he would run for president… he also said he’d pay the construction workers who built Trump Tower… then didn’t pay them and tried to deport them.
He is notorious for saying all sorts of things… “I do” (three times, to three different women)… he’s financially ruined any number of small and medium sized businesses, by contracting with them for goods and/or services, then not paying them or declaring bankruptcy, so he doesn’t have to pay them… the list goes on.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/columnists/mike-kelly/2020/01/24/donald-trump-still-owes-money-to-contractors-who-built-taj-mahal-atlantic-city/4547037002/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/28/politics/donald-trump-loans-debt-new-york-times/index.html
Why anyone believes anything Mango Mussolini says is a mystery to me.
My original statement stands.