BuzzFeed's style, like that of most newsrooms, is built on AP — but as our readers know, we make many deviations. One thing that's been on our mind lately has been the B question: Should we capitalize the "B" in black?
Most US media outlets follow AP style — lowercasing black across the board as an adjective referring to people of African descent. We follow that for news stories, but if an essayist or op-ed writer uses Black, we let the capitalization stand. It's a policy that allows us to follow what's generally accepted, but also respect personal narratives.
We reached out to editors and copy editors from publications who've fallen on both sides of the style ruling. Because some mentioned the style guidelines of the National Association of Black Journalists, which notably had not capitalized black, we contacted the NABJ's director of communications, Kanya Stewart. She told us the association had decided to revise its style and shared the following statement:
"The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) has adopted capitalizing the letter 'b' in the word 'Black' when it is used as a proper adjective, describing a diaspora, community, group and the like — just as Caucasian, Asian, Hispanic, etc. are capitalized.
"Capitalizing the word properly recognizes the identity of Black people.
"We are in the process of updating our online style guide and have already begun capitalizing Black in our communications and publications. We have also requested that the Associated Press consider making this change in the AP Stylebook."
We read many compelling cases from several style guides, including Conscious Style Guide, which says, "By capitalizing black and white, we also make necessary distinctions between color and race—black hair and Black hair—similar to distinguishing between native and Native. Don't wait for your style guide to catch up, because it's waiting for you to demonstrate sufficient usage." Both Conscious Style Guide and Diversity Style Guide suggest capitalizing both the "B" in black and the "W" in white. However, when the Toronto Star decided in 2017 to start capitalizing Black, its style chief, Anthony Collins, told the newsroom the publication would not be capitalizing white or brown because "they do not describe a shared identity and experience the way Black does."
Danielle Belton, editor-in-chief of the Root, said her site doesn't capitalize the "B" because she refuses to capitalize the "W." "I suppose we could just capitalize one and not the other, but for the writer/editor in me, that would, personally, drive me bananas," she said via email. "Also, race is an entirely made-up social construct designed to oppress many while elevating others. It's all garbage. I'm not capitalizing this madness."
Others still think it should be left up to the writer. "In fact, this matter and whether a writer does or does not want to capitalize God are the two things I will always tell an assigning or managing editor that I'm not touching with a twenty-foot pole," said Mike Laws, a copy editor for the Columbia Journalism Review. "These are the kinds of choices any writer worth his or her salt, any conscientious scribe, will have exercised great care and due diligence in making. Far be it from me, lowly copy editor, to question their judgment."
Copyediting is all about using your best judgment — and that includes knowing when to look to organizations like NABJ to lead the way on certain style changes. Whether more outlets follow suit or not, we believe it's an important conversation to have in the larger newsroom — beyond just identity-focused cultural stories to reported features and breaking news. It would be easy to stick with the status quo — but maybe "easy" isn't the best path forward?
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