I work for a large multinational company, so big that it’s in the upper quadrant of the Fortune 500. It’s involved in an industry where, up until a decade ago, I’d have struggled to politicize its operations even if someone paid me to do so. The other day I was reading the company’s in-house writing style guide and came across an entry relating to the capitalization of the word ‘black’ when referring to people of sub-Saharan African ancestry. Prima facie, capitalizing black in the context of race doesn’t seem such a bad idea. Population geneticists often refer to black people as ‘African’ and white people as ‘European’, but these labels make some people uncomfortable for whatever reason, so if we’re going to refer to major races as white, black, Native American, Asian, and Polynesian, maybe it makes sense to capitalize ‘white’ and ‘black’ when referring to white people and black people, even if just for the sake of consistency.
Some thoughts on reverential capitalization
Some thoughts on reverential capitalization
Some thoughts on reverential capitalization
I work for a large multinational company, so big that it’s in the upper quadrant of the Fortune 500. It’s involved in an industry where, up until a decade ago, I’d have struggled to politicize its operations even if someone paid me to do so. The other day I was reading the company’s in-house writing style guide and came across an entry relating to the capitalization of the word ‘black’ when referring to people of sub-Saharan African ancestry. Prima facie, capitalizing black in the context of race doesn’t seem such a bad idea. Population geneticists often refer to black people as ‘African’ and white people as ‘European’, but these labels make some people uncomfortable for whatever reason, so if we’re going to refer to major races as white, black, Native American, Asian, and Polynesian, maybe it makes sense to capitalize ‘white’ and ‘black’ when referring to white people and black people, even if just for the sake of consistency.