I yield! I will start uppercasing “Black.” I know when I have lost the battle.
A year ago, the New York Times made a change to its style guide and began using the uppercase for “Black” “to describe people and cultures of African origin, both in the U.S. and elsewhere.” And strangely, they decided to continue not capitalizing “white.”
One letter writer to the New York Times (6/8/2020) calls the uppercase decision “improvident, patronizing, and wrong on many levels.” And he went on to say, “’Black’ is not an ethnic or national group, like Igbo, Basque, Xhosa or American, which rightly are capitalized.”
The writer quotes Jesse Jackson, who said, “Any term that emphasizes the color and not the heritage separates us from our heritage.” I agree with the letter writer and with Jackson.
I dislike the symbolic and gratuitous nature of the Times decision. In announcing their style change, the Times leaders said quite clearly that they began having discussions about uppercasing “Black” after the murder of George Floyd and during the many protest demonstrations.
The Times resorted to one of two fundamental ways America deals with problems. The first way is to throw money at it—sometimes with a solid plan and sometimes not. The other way—especially when it concerns African Americans—is to throw symbolism at the problem. Unfortunately, the Times readily admits they were doing just that—uppercasing “Black” instead of addressing the police murders of unarmed African Americans forthrightly.
Last July, Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty informed us that all the major style guides were recommending capitalizing “Black” when referring to people. She wrote that a flurry of style guides had recently updated their entries to specify this change. These style guides include The AP Stylebook, the Chicago Manual of Style, the AMA manual of style, and the APA Manual.
The style guides are simply aligning themselves with generations of Black publications. But the timing of their change is suspect as they moved in reaction to the George Floyd demonstrations. In addition, the Times will not capitalize “white.” Nor will several of the leading style guides, when the terms “white” and “black” when referring to race are comparable.
I have weathered the fierce stance of many African Americans since the late 1960s and the 1970s who insisted on uppercasing “Black.” They were as adamant for the practice as many of us were against it.
Although I still disagreed with them, I finally understood this regard for “Black” when in the late 1980s, African Americans quickly adopted the term “African Americans” and acted as if it was something new.
A good friend answered my question about the general perception that the “African American” term was new. He said that most Blacks had not had my experience. My experience was interacting with Harlem activists from the 1930s to the 1960s who had–I thought–firmly established that most Blacks in America were African Americans.
Through the years, I have accepted editors of newspapers and magazines routinely capitalizing my use of the word. I assume that was their right.
But now I give up. So uppercase “Black” it is. I will also capitalize “White,” as it specifies race similarly to “Black.”
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Wornie Reed is Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies and Director of the Race and Social Policy Research Center at Virginia Tech University. Previously he developed and directed the Urban Child Research Center in the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University (1991-2001), where he was also Professor of Sociology and Urban Studies (1991-2004). He was Adjunct Professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine (2003-4). Professor Reed served a three-year term (1990-92) as President of the National Congress of Black Faculty, and he is past president of the National Association of Black Sociologists (2000-01).
This column first appeared online at What the Data Say and is shared here by permission.
