In a follow-up to an earlier commentary, I reviewed the style guides of several leading national newspapers to understand why the relatively new grammatical convention in newsrooms is to capitalize “Black” but not “white,” when the words are used in a racial context.
The guides revealed an astonishing degree of convoluted logic, intellectual contortions, and group-think.
Equally astonishing is the speed by which the convention has been adopted by other media, other institutions, and the general public, including by those who are concerned about the divisive nature of radical DEI ideology and identity politics. They don’t realize that the convention is not only an outgrowth of the radicalism but also furthers it.
The rationale for capitalizing “Black” is mostly sound. As newspapers have explained, Blacks are a community of shared values, experiences, culture, and ancestry. In other words, they are an ethnocultural group. As such, “Black” is a proper noun and should be capitalized.
Of course, there are significant exceptions to the idea that Blacks are a homogeneous community. For example, the thousands of Sudanese refugees who settled in Minnesota are not the same ethnocultural group as Blacks in Alabama whose ancestors were slaves.
Still, the capitalizing of “Black” is in keeping with the longstanding grammatical convention of capitalizing the names of ethnocultural groups. There are hundreds of such groups in the world, each with a unique mix of race, ethnicity nationality, language religion, customs, ancestry, socioeconomic classes, skin shades, and genetics. Most of them can be found in the U.S.
So, why isn’t “white” capitalized?
There is a possible explanation that is both logical and consistent—namely, that whites are not seen in news rooms and elsewhere as a homogeneous and discrete ethnocultural group. Whites are too diverse to be a singular group warranting a capitalized proper noun.
But that explanation wasn’t offered by the newspapers. Nor was there any other logical and consistent explanation for not capitalizing “white.” Perhaps the convention is some sort of virtue signal to put whites in their place and express contrition for what they have done to Blacks. If so, the signal is not on my wavelength.
Either way, newspapers, other media, and other institutions have put themselves in a Catch-22: If whites are considered a homogeneous ethnocultural group, then “white” should be capitalized. If, on the other hand, they are not considered a homogeneous ethnocultural group, then the foundation of DEI crumbles.
It crumbles because DEI (and its sibling of critical race theory) is based on the specious stereotype that all whites are the same in terms of privilege, socioeconomic status, political power, values, racist attitudes, and DNA. According to DEI dogma, white individuals cannot be seen as disadvantaged minorities, as victims of discrimination, as impoverished, as lacking in political power, as facing institutional barriers to success, and as eligible for inclusion in DEI programs.
However, to believe that whites are homogeneous, one has to also believe that Anglos whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower are no different from Armenian Americans whose ancestors were slaughtered at the hands of Turks in the Armenian genocide; that Boston Brahmins at Harvard whose ancestors became wealthy from the cotton trade during slavery are no different from impoverished Scots-Irish Appalachians whose ancestors were tenant farmers; that whites who risked their lives by marching for equal rights in the South in the 1960s were no different from white supremacists; and that my impoverished immigrant grandfather who worked as a coal miner in southern Illinois in 1915 was no different from the planters in South Carolina who owned hundreds of slaves in 1850.
It takes considerable cognitive dissonance to think this way—to think that whites are a homogeneous ethnocultural group for DEI purposes, and, at the same time, to think that “white” shouldn’t be capitalized because whites are not a homogeneous ethnocultural group.
Thankfully, you don’t have to go along with this doublespeak.
Mr. Cantoni is of Italian ancestry and thus of highly diverse genetics, including Neanderthal DNA. Contact: [email protected].
