The problem of politics in a noisy age

We are once again having to readjust to a vast expansion in the amount of conflicting information at our fingertips.

- Stephen Bush

Which is worse? Having someone describe your ethnicity in a way that you dislike, or having someone knock on your door in the dead of night, demand your proof of residence and bundle you into a van? I ask only because apparently the question is rather more difficult than I had thought it was.

There is no question that there are many labels that the well-meaning left seeks to impose on me without my consent. One particular dislike is the people who write to tell me that I should refer to myself as "mixed heritage", a term that makes me sound like a tomato.

So I understand why the word "Latinx" actively pushes some of the people it describes towards US President-elect Donald Trump. But then I consider Trump's promise to deport 20 million people from the US - a pledge so central that it made it on to Republican National Convention placards - and, frankly, the profound fear this should provoke for anyone who doesn't "look" like a white American makes the tomato talk seem less problematic.