Is it still socially acceptable to use a lowercase B?
I remember when AP changed their guidelines, and the New York Times ran an article about why they were still going with the small-b (among other things, not all African-Americans were in favor). Then in the next day or so they went, “Just kidding! We’re going big-B after all!”. And then all the other publications jumped on the bandwagon-- even the Wall Street Journal says “Black” now.
So my question is, is it still a matter of personal preference, or has small-b gone the way of “Negro” and “colored person”? Because if it’s a matter of choice… big-B really bugs me from a grammatical perspective. But if it’s a matter of respect and disrespect, then sure, I’ll have to go along with it, I don’t want to offend anyone.
I’m capitalizing it b/c I understand some people prefer it, even tho it impresses me as pretty stupid. And yeah, pretty sure I saw a B/w article in the local rag.
Most NBA players are tall and Black. But Patty Mills is Short (6’1") and black (Torres Straits Islander).
Not all Blacks are black, and not all black people are Blacks. It depends if you are using Black to indicate DNA-verifiable ethnic ancestry (like Arab), or black as visually distinctive (like blonde).
This is now the only acceptable way of writing in many national newspapers. Very Online SJWs will throw a hissy fit if you don’t capitalise black and/or do capitalise white. Personally, I’m not capitalising either, ever, because it’s stupid and does more harm than good.
We’ve used capitalization for Black and White here for as long as I can remember, so it’s not a new thing. I find not capitalizing White to be the oddity, even though I’m aware of the reasoning.
How so? It’s no different than capitalizing Native American.
I think this is silly and won’t follow it, but it’s nothing compared to not using the terms Black and White at all. Even aside from their history as racial classification, they have too much other baggage from their metaphorical use for events or things to imply goodness or badness. But if the majority of black people want to be called Black, I’m fine with it.
But I’d prefer to be called European-American if you need to refer to my ethnicity, for two reasons beyond this: 1) I am derived from so many different ethnicities I don’t feel it would be right to claim one as my own, (somewhat but not completely analogous to African-American descendants of slaves who in many cases do not even know which African country their ancestors came from), and 2) European-American specifies almost exactly what most people refer to when they say “white”. For instance, I have to do a tiny double take every time someone talks about racism against Indians, semitic people, or Latinos. (Even though I don’t quibble about it because it’s not like it would be better if it were “merely” ethnic discrimination rather than racism.)
I am writing to be published – my editors just e-mailed me a couple of days ago, asking if I had a problem with using the capitalized form when “black” referred to people of African descent. I said that it was fine, as long as they didn’t simply do a “find and replace”, because that would result in a lot of cases where the color (or lack of color) “black” ended up capitalized.
I was surprised, when looking through my book, how many times I’d used the word “blackface” (the uses were entirely appropriate – this was a historical work), and asked that these uses NOT be capitalized. They agreed.
For those (like me) who think it silly but do not intend to comply, is B any “sillier” than LGBTQadinfinitum, Native American, or any other group’s preferred/changing self designation?
I don’t think capitalisation is silly per se, but I think capitalising black but not white (and vice versa) is stupid and counterproductive. Also, it just looks weird.
Because “America” is a place name, and thus a proper noun. And “Hispanic” is also a place name (Spain). Caucasian is a mountain range. And for that matter, “Jewish” and “Muslim” are ethnicities. Again, proper nouns. But black and white are colors. Colors are common nouns. We write “white” with a small-w, after all.
(Okay, if I’m going to be honest, my emotional resistance is mostly habit. Until recently, “Black” was nonstandard capitalization, and I have an an OCD thing about formatting [quite possibly literal OCD]. It’s like how I can’t make myself read a story, no matter how highly recommended, if the writer misuses apostrophes or capitalizes “Said” because they end quotations with periods instead of commas. So whenever I saw someone use “Black”, I’d get an itch inside, and I developed a sort of Pavlovian reaction wherein “Black” = “Aaargh!”. Now that it’s everywhere, I’m still… itchy about it).
But my personal issues aside, the grammar is still objectively wonky.
