It may be bizarre for you, but it is often a reasoned and thoughtful use of the word, meaningful in the context of a complex and consistent consideration of the general meaning and usage of words.
I encourage you to consider and understand the perspectives of those who do capitalize the word.
This serves as an introduction to some people's thinking:
Note, the standard practice to capitalize ethnic groups: For example jewish would be considered incorrect. There are those who consider Black to be an ethnic group, hence, capitalizing it encompasses a way to "describe the people, culture, art and communities" that make up the ethnic group. In which case, it's not a color, exactly, which I think is what you may be missing, when you consider why some capitalize the word.
Case in point: We already capitalize many other groups that are often associated with "color." Color, of course, being a construct we often see as "real," when in fact it is a cultural interpretation.
> After all, she pointed out, “We already capitalize Asian, Hispanic, African American and Native American.”
You and your link make reasonable arguments for capitalizing black, but I don't see any justification (other than to be contrary to supremacist groups) for not doing the same for white, which leaves it inconsistent with the naming of all other racial/ethnic groups.
It's a complicated matter and I'm not the right person to make any statements about it, but on the one side, we have white sub-groups like Irish or Italian. On the other, grouping all Black sub-groups under one moniker seems overly abstract as well. That said, it works for the debate of racism etc in the US, which affects people of color, not so much the various white groups.
Right, but are those sub-groups still all that relevant in the context of race in America?
It's been a long time since Irish-Americans have been treated differently than British-Americans, for example.
I would say grouping all white sub-groups together makes as much sense as grouping all black or Asian sub-groups together because generally racial dynamics today are viewed as occurring between White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, and Native American groups. Further granularity is rarely considered in informal language.
It's also due to the unique conditions under which the Black identity was formed - that is forced colocation, separation from history, and systemic coidentification. Anyone who traces their history back to slavery, which many Black Americans can, basically has to stop there creating one pretty large "sub-group".
There's a case to be made - and some theorists do - that black and Black are different identities in America, the second directly corresponding to that shared loss of history.
Ha -- I think in that case capitalization makes sense -- especially when the words are paired -- as this at least does some work to make the group identifiably separate from those who do not at all identify with them.
You're right, they kind of assume the reader knows what they are thinking. My guess is that it is because white isn't used for comradery except if you are extreme, whereas it is normal to do so for non-white groups, so they are trying to delegitimize the extreme group. Whether it is the effective course of action given the goal is an interesting question.
Leftist activists circles have grievances with white people and this is a small token of revenge. Depersonifying white people. Asians don't get internally consistent treatment because of intersectionality.
Are we really pretending it's a coincidence all the time?
This naivety is rightfully never applied to right wing bigotry.
I'm not white myself but I'm genuinely confused as to why this kind of blatant ethnic antagonization is so normalized in western elites and extremely taboo to point out.
The actual critique - which is articulated in many places - is that "white" isn't an ethnic group with an actual cultural or racial lineage. Instead, "white" was created and exists as the dual to "colored" - a shifting category encompassing many ethnicities that describes their position in a set of power structures, historically colonialism. Consider that "whiteness" has changed considerably over the usage of the term, with many ethnicities (irish, italian) shifting into it as their position in American society (the cultural superpower of the time) changed.
To consider this further, shift the power structures and see how whiteness changes. Who is considered "white" in the historic USSR and contemporary ex-bloc states is radically different than the usage in America at the same time. This is even more complicated in places like Central or South America, India, and parts of Asia. I guarantee that - if you weren't versed with local power dynamics and colorism history - you wouldn't be able to classify who on the street is generally considered "white" in Buenos Aires.
>is that "white" isn't an ethnic group with an actual cultural or racial lineage.
None of them are. There's more genetic diversity in sub Saharan Africa than in any other place on earth. People from Asia and people from Africa don't identify as black or asian as a consistent racial lineage.They're also a western ad hoc hodge podge just as much as whiteness is.
I'm confused - it seems like every example you give here supports the theoretical conclusion above.
"Black" as used in the editorial above is a very specific usage - replacing "African American" for the critical reasons outlined. The reason this group is unique as an ethnicity w.r.t. recategorization is because the structure and violence of slavery isolated them from historic ethnicities and forcefully regrouped them under a new one. This is why in that Habecker paper, peoples with dark skin and african heritage who were not part of that system try to separate themselves from that identity - that's why it exists!
I'd also argue that "Asian" probably _shouldn't_ be capitalized, and there are some theorists who agree. Really, asian only really exists as an ethnic category because Americans historically (and even now) couldn't really be assed to learn the basic geography of Asia and grouped it all.
It's easy to be confused when you keep changing your definitions when they're not consistent!
"is that "white" isn't an ethnic group with an actual cultural or racial lineage".
"The reason this group is unique as an ethnicity w.r.t. recategorization is because the structure and violence of slavery isolated them from historic ethnicities and forcefully regrouped them under a new one."
Conflicting statements.
According to you white people don't have historic ethnicities but black people also don't because of slavery and that is why they deserve capitalization?
Black isn't an ethnic group either. There are black people from Africa, Pacific islands, Australia, South America, and India. It's a descriptor, not an immutable category that defines you, and it's uniquely used here in America.
In America, captital-B Black is usually used to refer to people who were forcefully disconnected from their ancestry by the imposition of slavery. In many theoretical frameworks, it is an entirely new ethnic group by virtue of their original ethnicity being severed and the forced co-reculturalization through slavery and the subsequent (and continuing) power structures that forcefully and implicitly group them together.
What if I am writing capital-B Black out of respect, though, for that unique ethnic group? Like, even if I recognize that I was part of the problem, or that is somehow still not ideal, but I am trying to make the situation a little bit better?
Except that it also contains recent Ugandan immigrants who moved here by choice and work as surgeons. Just like white, it's a big umbrella and rough category.
I agree that there's complexity there, but it's worth noting that it is a point of moderate contention whether those immigrants share the Black identity or just the black identity. More knowledgeable theorists than myself (and notably those actually party to these identities) have discussed this at more depth, and I recommend digging into it if you're interested.
I'm not digging into racial pseudoscience, nor do I have any interest in such. Are these the same types of people who say that being on time and respectful are "white" values? Those people are stupid and/or malicious.
Capitalizing one and not the others is racist. There is no monolithic white, black, or brown experience, and to pretend otherwise is racist. It's a stupid microaggression
"For many people, Black reflects a shared sense of identity and community. White carries a different set of meanings; capitalizing the word in this context risks following the lead of white supremacists."
I don't find that thoughtful.
The argument further erodes when they also capitalize "Asian", which is described as "groups that include myriad ethnic identities united by shared race and geography and, to some degree, culture" - How does that not apply equally to "white" also?
I, a Turkish migrant living in Europe, think of a specific culture when I read "Black", and skin color when I read "black" (in the context of talking about people of course), and White doesn't tell me anything. Many people from West Turkey also consider themselves as "white" but this is only in comparison to the average skin color of people from East Turkey.
It's a mistake to internationalize it, the terms are usually used in the American context.
Black usually means the descendant of slaves. When Obama was starting his political career there was some debate in the Black community about if he really counted as Black, since he didn't really have much contact with the Black community until his 20s and his history is quite different.
White typically means descendants of various waves of settlers with limited ties to any specific European country. Generally they can trace their lineage to a mix of early and later arrivals. With a strong bias towards northern Europe.
Hispanic generally meant Mexican, Cuban, or Puerto Rican. Which were fairly geographically distinct communities in the 90s so one word for all three didn't cause much confusion.
It seems to me that this practice is just another example of putting white people on a pedestal. If all other racial groups have "a shared sense of identity and community", then it implies that being white is the default; that the world is split into white and not-white.
Independent of the stated rationale, I think the primary function is as an ideological test and signal:
Does one hold that all the diverse peoples of Africa can be considered with a shared group identity, which deserves acknowledgement and respect, and do you simultaneously hold that white people of Europe can be grouped together, but that grouping is undeserving of the same validity and respect.
If someone is willing to engage in this Act of cognitive dissonance, they can be considered part of the political in-group or at least sufficiently compliant to be trusted.
It is absolutely an example of the liberal racism that Powell is talking about and straight out of 1984.
>Does one hold that all the diverse peoples of Africa can be considered with a shared group identity, which deserves acknowledgement and respect, and do you simultaneously hold that white people of Europe can be grouped together, but that grouping is undeserving of the same validity and respect.
We have words for those people.
African.
European.
I'm not sure what you're talking about here? It's confusing.
Maybe the problem here seems to be that "white" is implied to be the umbrella term for "European." It's not, nor do I believe very many people think it should be. We don't want to go back to the Pre-WW2 eugenics thinking. That pretty much tore the continent apart.
Shared Black identity across nationalities and ethnicities, and even moreso shared American Black identity as a product of active erasure of nationalities and ethnicities, are products of shared experience within the context of White supremacy.
So is shared White identity across nationalities and ethnicities. But identifying with the shared White experience of White supremacy has a substantially different character than identifying with the shared Black experience of White supremacy.
You should read the CJR link. The "shared sense of identity and community" is being descendants of the victims of the slave trade and not the color of their skin.
That's a strange definition, because it excludes the majority of the world's dark skinned population. If only the descendants of slaves brought to the Americas can claim to be Black, then there are no Black people in Africa. Hell, even Barack Obama can't claim to be Black, since he is a child of immigrants, not slaves.
It's bizarre to me that in certain circles some Colors are capitalized, while other colors are not.