Today in Black History: The New York Times Capitalized the B in Black!

Last week, a reporter from the Chronicle of Higher Education called me to get a quote for a story she was working on about why we capitalize the letter B in Black when referring to Black people. Apparently, there are some Black academics out there in the world who are fighting to keep the b in the lowercase. *Record Scratch!*

The reporter wanted to know what I thought about this idea, since I was the one who had argued so passionately for the capital B in that New York Times op-ed way back in 2014.  Dear reader, I tried to be professional. I tried to offer a measured and balanced response, but low and behold, I opened my mouth and a torrent of emotion burst forth like a fire hose on full blast. Apparently, even though this issue was “resolved” two years ago on this very day, when The New York Times officially started capitalizing the letter B when writing about Black people, I am still full of vinegar and piss when it comes to referring to my people in the lowercase.

Why Do We Capitalize the B in Black? Let Me Count the Why’s

I went back through the My American Meltingpot archives, and discovered that I have been writing about capitalizing the letter B when referring to Black people since 2007! That’s right, for the last 15 years I’ve been banging the capital B drum on The Meltingpot. I’ve used this blog to explain why using the lower case b when referring to Black people is disrespectful, insulting and stylistically lazy. I‘ve shared how I felt personally maligned as both a reader and a writer when seeing my ethnic identifier demoted to the lower case, while every other ethnic minority gets a strong capital letter. I even used the blog to launch a Change.org campaign in 2014, demanding that news organizations and mainstream publishers change their ways. By 2019, the slow arc of literary justice had started to move and several smaller publications made the change, but the big guys still weren’t budging. And I couldn’t figure out if this was due to racism, inertia, or maybe a little bit of both. I also wrote about that.

From my post in 2013 where I explained why we should always capitalize the b in Black when referring to Black people and culture:

“This could be viewed as a simple style issue, one that only us writers would take seriously, but I’m not looking to start a revolution over grammar. This is about identity and respect. With a mere slash of a copyeditor’s pen, my culture is reduced to a color. It seems silly to have to spell it out, that black with a lower case “b” is a color, whereas Black with a capital “B” refers to a group of people whose ancestors were born in Africa, were brought to the United States against their will, spilled their blood, sweat and tears to build this nation into a world power and along the way managed to create glorious works of art, passionate music, scientific discoveries, a marvelous cuisine, and untold literary masterpieces. When a copyeditor deletes the capital “B,” they are in effect deleting the history and contributions of my people.”

It Takes Murder and Mayhem to Get Respect on the Page

It’s painful to say that George Floyd had to be murdered in order for mainstream newspapers and publishers to be moved enough to make this simple change in their style guides. To give Black people a capital letter. But the fact of the matter is, George Floyd’s tragic murder wasn’t actually enough. It was his murder that ignited the Black Lives Matter 2.0 movement that finally forced the hand of many American institutions, including the media, to do right by Black America.

In retrospect, it appears that only as American cities burned, while a global pandemic raged, were media gatekeepers finally willing to see the disrespect inherent in a lowercase letter.

Call me petty, but it makes my blood boil every time I think how easy the change was to make, and the lengths we had to go to, to make it happen.

The New York Times Takes Its Time

It still seems crazy to me that The New York Times printed my Op-Ed calling for the capital B when referring to Black people in November, 2014, but it took them until July 5, 2020 to actually make that change. Not only does that seem like a text book case of hypocrisy, but also it just seems like willful ignorance, considering The Times went through the same issue with the word Negro in the 1920s, when W.E.B. Dubois started his own capital letter campaign. Different word, but same issue. Same call for respect. Fun fact, I believe DuBois started his letter writing campaign to capitalize the N in Negro in 1923. The New York Times waited for seven years before the change was made in 1930. They only took six years to give us the capital B. Should we call this progress?

The Writer in Me Rejoices

The journalist from The Chronicle definitely reminded me how much I cared about this issue, and I’m happy to be looking back on this two-year anniversary of the Capital B campaign being won. I’m truly in awe seeing how much time and effort I spent trying to get this small bit of justice served. As a writer, words are my weapons, my currency, and my loves, so this fight was both personal and professional. I am thrilled that I no longer have to explain to copyeditors and editors why I capitalize the B in Black. I take a perverse thrill in correcting other people’s writing who have yet to adopt the change. And most importantly, I’m grateful that future generations will never have to see themselves referred to in the lowercase. And as for those Black academics fighting to remain in the lowercase, I have nothing to say that isn’t still tainted with vinegar and piss, so I’ll just keep my capital B Black thoughts to myself.