A few years ago it became the norm in a lot of print media to capitalize the word “Black” when “referring to groups in racial, ethnic, or cultural terms.” That’s quoting from the Columbia Journalism Review which gives its explanation here: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/capital-b-black-styleguide.php. Much other discussion on the matter can be found online.
People of r/askanamerican, what’s your take? Do you capitalize or not capitalize? And, lest it need saying, this is not asking about capitalizing for proper noun phrases like “Black History Month,” but if, for example, you were to write a sentence like, “Eric Adams is the second black/Black mayor of New York City.”
43 comments
Associated Press agrees, and since I’m in a business that follows AP style, I comply. I also agree with the reasoning.
When I talk about any group of people and or nationality I tend to capitalize the first letter and sometimes the word people after it as well.
I’ll give my own response, just to show I’m asking in good faith. I sidestep the issue completely. I’m of an age in which “African-American” was considered the polite, educated term and referring to anyone by something as crude as skin color was considered very reductive. Now “African-American” is apparently considered archaic, but I have a hard time shaking what I was taught. Plus, frankly…the capitalization feels a little forced to me. It feels performative, to a point that seems almost condescending, if that makes sense?
Ultimately language and norms change and whatever is polite is fine by me, but I am curious to hear others’ thoughts on this.
You’re supposed to, but sometimes I’m just lazy.
Yes.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/time-to-capitalize-blackand-white/613159/
If I’m not capitalizing white, then I’m not capitalizing black. I don’t capitalize “old”, “young”, “fat”, “skinny”, “gay”, “straight”, “disabled”, “smart,” “dumb”, “majority”, “minority”, or any other term describing demographics of people that are proper nouns.
That seems silly to me.
I capitalize the first letter when referring to any race or ethnicity.
in formal writing, yes. in everyday? not specifically — it’s like names, sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.
Lol, no.
No. The only one I capitalize is “Asian” and only on the computer and only because the red squiggly lines annoy me.
I capitalize the B for the reasons outlined in your linked article.
Yes, when referring to a group of people or a person, but not the actual skin tone itself. Example, Black people have black skin tones, White people have white skin tones.
So I would say, Eric Adams is the second Black mayor of New York City, Eric Adams has a black skin tone.
No. If I did, I would capitalize White and Brown as well.
I capitalize the B in Black when referring to people. Same as I would capitalize the A in Asian, H in Hispanic, I in Irish, etc. It has never crossed my mind to do anything different.
I never have, personally, although I’ve seen it a lot recently.
I don’t understand the article you linked. They say “we already capitalize Asian, Hispanic, African American and Native American” which I think is a fairly good argument for capitalizing both black *and* white, but the article says to not capitalize white? It doesn’t seem consistent in what it’s arguing.
Asian, Hispanic, African, American, etc tend to come from geographical names, which we capitalize in English. I’ve never heard of a specific rule to capitalize ethnicity/race, and I’m not necessarily opposed to having it as a rule, but I don’t get why they would specifically exclude “white” from that rule. Just be consistent, I guess.
I’m not familiar with that nor do I do it. It makes sense, though. We capitalize other cultures like Irish, Japanese, etc. But this is also assuming it’s proper terminology, as I was under the impression that African-American was the professional term.
No, I never capitalize any racial group
I don’t and I’ve never received any backlash for it.
I can talk about white people, black people, amerindian people, asian people, latinos, all without capitalization. If I talk about a specific ethnic group, like Italian, Igbo, Lao, or Hmong, then I would capitalize.
Yes, but only recently. It’s largely a publication style rule that started to change during the BLM movement, and I recall reading an article that explained why it’s becoming more common.
I find it depends.
I might capitalize it when speaking of a demographic as a whole (“Black culture”, or “Black-owned businesses”), but I wouldn’t capitalize “black” in “black person” or “black people” as I feel like I’m using more as a simple description there.
Though I’d expect a journal to have better rules than I do. I’m sure there’s all manner of ways they write professionally that wouldn’t happen casually.
Not for the color except to begin a sentence. For the racial group, yes.
Its my name, so Yes
I capitalize origin labels for proper place names, ie “European,” “Asian,” “Turkic.” “Blacks” is no more a proper noun than “Whites,” but I’ll code switch capitalizing race names depending on what the other person does
All proper nouns get capitalized.
Nope. I don’t capitalize white either.
black like color no, Black when referring to groups in racial, ethnic, or cultural terms, absolutely.
>It is a kind of orthographic injustice to lowercase the B: to do so is to perpetuate the iniquity of an institution that uprooted people from the most ethnically diverse place on the planet, systematically obliterating any and all distinctions regarding ethnicity and culture. When people identify with specific terms of the African diaspora, we defer to those; in the absence of the identifiable ethnicities slavery stole from those it subjugated, Black can be a preferred ethnic designation for some descendants.
Depends on context. Yes if I’m talking about race relations, generally not if I’m talking about individuals.
The cultural preference on this changes every couple of decades. I capitalize it, both because it’s the cultural preference right now, and because I think it is pointing to something important: there is a distinct Black culture and ethnic identity in America, people descended from slaves and who have lived under America’s specific form of anti-Black racism. There is not, on the other hand, a distinct white cultural identity in America — or at least, there is not one that we should want to preserve as something separate and distinct from broader American identity.
The things that define white American identity, in a way extricable from any other American identity, are discrimination, violence, abuse, exploitation…things that we should not want as a defining feature of our culture. To be clear, ethnic identities within the broader label of “white,” such as Italian, Irish, Russian, British, etc. are absolutely good and things which people should feel pride in. I feel pride in being ethnically Jewish, for instance, but I do not feel pride in being white. The positive things I associate with my American heritage, as distinct from Jewish heritage, are all things that are universal to Americans of all races, not unique to whites: freedom, democracy, justice, fair play, etc. Those are the shared heritage of all Americans regardless of ethnicity, and mistaking those as distinctly white things that no one else gets to participate in has caused a great deal of pain throughout this country’s history.
All of that said…as for the original question of capitalizing or not capitalizing Black, I really don’t think it’s that big of a deal either way. I’ve never met a Black person who thought it was an especially important aspect of race relations or identity, lol. It’s a polite gesture, but not the most important thing either way, in my opinion. And you can also just say “African American” if you want, nobody would take offense to that.
Yes, and also not all Black people are African American
I don’t capitalize it, personally. (Unless it would otherwise be capitalized, like at the beginning of a sentence). Capitalization is reserved for proper nouns. Ethnic groups are proper nouns. Colors are not. Black people do not share a culture, unless you mean to suggest that all human beings with a certain skin tone share the same culture or customs, something demonstrably false. You wouldn’t capitalize white, which is similarly used to describe many different ethnicities united purely by melanin concentration.
I often do, but I also capitalize White, Latino, and Asian for consistency.
I capitalize Black now, yes.
Idc if it makes people comfortable it’s not an inconvenience to me either way. I’ve never had anyone ask me to capitalize black or white when referring to race, so this seems like more of an academic and media issue than a common individual issue
Only if it’s the first word in a sentence. I don’t capitalize colors.
Everyone is so fucking sensitive about labels though so I don’t even know what is PC anymore and am steadily losing patience trying to cater to everyone. Go ahead and put a punch in my liberal card, I’m just tired of it.
The black Americans that are super afro when they have lived here for generations are just as annoying to me as a white person that says they are Irish or whatever. I will get killed for saying this, but I just don’t care anymore. I have no use for labels.
Yes, but because I’m Black. If you’re not you probably won’t do it.
I do.
Why? Because the style manual for my profession says so. That’s not the only reason but it removes any doubt for me on if it should be done.
Only if it’s the first word in a sentence. Same as I’d do for white, brown, or any other color.
Black is an adjective. Only proper nouns and the starts of sentences are capitalized.
I do. Black, White, Asian, Hispanic…..when denoting a group of people I capitalize it, when I’m talking about a color I don’t.
Yes just like I capitalize Asian and Indian. If Black people knew where we would come from we would identify as that country and it would be capitalized. I dont capitalize white, they generally know if they are British or German or anything and choose white.
I do. I find Black Americans do when referring to our ethnic group, and lower case when referring to our race.
I don’t like the rhetoric that we can’t trace where we come from. I come from America, which is enough. My dna test literally has Mississippi/Louisiana African Americans.
I do!