As we all know, the AP Stylebook is widely used as the standard for writing news articles. It addresses capitalization, punctuation, headlines, grammar, formatting etc. And on Friday, which was Juneteenth, the Associated Press announced on Twitter that the Style Book will now require the word “Black” to be capitalized in news stories when used “in a racial, ethnic or cultural sense.”
But not the word White when used in that context. Not yet, anyway.
AP’s style is now to capitalize Black in a racial, ethnic or cultural sense, conveying an essential and shared sense of history, identity and community among people who identify as Black, including those in the African diaspora and within Africa.
— APStylebook (@APStylebook) June 19, 2020
Also Indigenous.
We also now capitalize Indigenous in reference to original inhabitants of a place.
— APStylebook (@APStylebook) June 19, 2020
“Our discussions on style and language consider many points, including the need to be inclusive and respectful in our storytelling and the evolution of language. We believe this change serves those ends,” AP adds. “Our revisions come after more than two years of in-depth research and discussion with colleagues and respected thinkers from a diversity of backgrounds, both within and from outside the cooperative.”
And as far as capitalizing White ethnically or racially in the interest of inclusive and respectful yadda yadda yadda?
As a global news organization, we are continuing to discuss within the U.S. and internationally whether to capitalize the term white. Considerations are many and include any implications that doing so might have outside the United States. We will have a decision within a month.
— APStylebook (@APStylebook) June 19, 2020
In an international context, the concern may actually not be wokeness but rather the opposite. Unlike in the United States, overseas one’s nationality can matter as much or more than skin color. White wouldn’t be as descriptive or illuminating in that sense. And considering that in the United States you can use white for someone who is, say, Hispanic, just based on how they act, it’s even more confusing. Here it’s almost (but not quite) a catch-all for “not Black.”
Lots of blue checks tweeted on Saturday praising the move, many of whom suggest that they should indeed capitalize white. So that, for example, “whiteness” will “not allowed to pretend to be something inherently benign.”