In the midst of the “racial reckoning” that has defined America since the brutal murder of George Floyd, American media institutions are revising their style guides. One after another, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press and even Fox News have decided to capitalise the ‘b’ in the word ‘Black’, when used to refer to African-Americans. According to the NYT’s announcement, it’s because they believe this “best conveys elements of shared history and identity, and reflects our goal to be respectful of all the people and communities we cover.”
However, some outlets such as The Washington Post, CNN and Fox News have also decided, in an act of racial grammatical reciprocity, to capitalise ‘White’. The justification is that both ‘Black’ and ‘White’ denote distinct cultural identities. As the Post said of white European immigrants to the America, “these diverse ethnicities were eventually assimilated into the collective group that has had its own cultural and historical impact on the nation,” going to conclude that “as such, White should be represented with a capital W.”
Those who joyously celebrated the New York Times uppercasing ‘Black’ as an act of “liberation” (for instance, Nikole Hannah Jones, the founder of the 1619 project) were not as happy about the Washington Post’s decision. Some have referred to it as the “grammar equivalent of all lives matter”. Others argue it is outright legitimising white supremacy.
For me, it feels like the grammar equivalent of All Lives Matter.
— Monica Byrne (@monicabyrne13) July 29, 2020
But is capitalising (or not capitalising) a single letter really such a big deal? Well it may be a small symbolic action, but the fact that so much of the mainstream media is making it at the same time is not. It is taking place as part of what some have rather derisively called the “woke cultural revolution”. This also includes Robin DiAngelo’s terrible book, White Fragility, and similar tracts becoming bestsellers; white voiceover actors recusing themselves from voicing black characters; major corporations aligning themselves with radical political causes; city authorities voting to defund or even abolish police departments; and other significant developments.
We are in new territory now — and not everyone is finding the right way forward. For instance, the decision by the Washington Post and others to capitalise ‘White’ is obviously foolish, because it reifies a phantasmic unitary ‘white’ racial identity and culture, as fetishised by creepy white nationalists. In what sense do an Armenian-American from Los Angeles, an Irish-American from Boston, a New York Jew, an Appalachian, a descendant of Southern slave owners and a Palestinian immigrant share a distinct cultural identity?
There is (or was) the idea of WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) culture, which for so long held a hegemonic position — and was held up as what European immigrants had to assimilate into (if they were allowed) to be considered upstanding Americans. Of course, this ‘respectable’ idea of ‘whiteness’ was a basis for institutionalised racial oppression and violence, so no truck should be had with it.
But isn’t there an inconsistency from those who think capitalising black is an act of social justice, while capitalising white is wrong and inappropriate? By capitalising ‘Black’ aren’t you inevitably opening the door for legitimising ‘White’ identity and other forms of racialisation? After all, ‘blackness’ and ‘whiteness’ can’t really exist without each other.
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