Why I’m Not Capitalizing the “b” in black *

In the past few days, we have been treated to dozens of news media announcing that starting now and in their future publications the word “black” would have the first letter capitalized. Why does it seem that’s a step in the right direction PC-wise? Is it only the righteously “woke” who think so?

My initial reaction was to wonder if those same news outlets are going to capitalize the “w” in white. My second reaction was to wonder why we use those two words to denote a wide range of skin tones that never include any humans who are actually white or black. I should mention that I have traveled to West Africa at least five times and met many dozens of people indigenous to that region and never once saw a truly black person. Yes, in Nigeria where I spent the most time many were darker than the typical Afro-American here. But none were jet black, though I admittedly met only a small fraction of the population. My mother’s side of the family are all proud Irish-Americans, many of whom have very light completions that can be called “peaches and cream” but their skin tones are definitely not white, on the pinkish side maybe but not white. And their hair isn’t “red” either, maybe a shade of orange though to characterize them as “carrot-top” is silly since the top of a carrot is green.

At one time in our history the word “black” was considered offensive. Later, the same stigma was attached to the word “Negro” as “black” became more acceptable. But we don’t use the words “yellow Americans” or “red Americans” to denote race so why do we continue to categorize people as white or black? Why aren’t my wife and I, as well as our children and grandchildren, classified as Euro-Americans? After all, our ancestors on both sides were from Ireland and Germany.

Then what should we think about the phrase, “colored people”? Or, as we now say, people of color, momentarily putting aside the NAACP. I’m thinking about having a block party for all my uncolored neighbors but don’t know how much beer to buy. I mean, who would show up? Aren’t all humans colored? Would only colorless aliens from another planet come to my party? If they did, what in the world would they drink? And if they had no color how would I see them?

The most recent United States Census officially recognized five racial categories (White American, Black or African American, Native Americans and Alaska Native, Asian American, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander) as well as people of two or more races. By the way, why aren’t Alaskan Natives simply classified as Native Americans? And what race is a native of Libya or Tunisia according to the Census Bureau? Talk about screwed up.

In my future expositions I’m going to throw out all references to color as designators of race. Euro-American and Afro-American will be my style rather than white and black. As for the terms “colored people” or “people of color” they’re history, no disrespect to the out of step NAACP.


* In terms of full disclosure, my master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation were on racial issues in the U.S. and I was co-editor of a book on the Geography of Black America published by Doubleday.