News agency AP says it will capitalise Black but not white

The Black Lives Matter protests have forced many large organisation to examine how they use language. Photo / AP

After changing its usage rules last month to capitalise the word "Black" when used in the context of race and culture, news agency Associated Press on Monday said it would not do the same for "white".

AP said white people in general have much less shared history and culture, and don't have the experience of being discriminated against because of skin colour.

Protests following the death of George Floyd, which led to discussions of policing and Confederate symbols, also prompted many news organisations to examine their own practices and staffing.

AP, whose style book is widely influential in the industry, announced on June 19 it would make Black uppercase.

In some ways, the decision over "white" has been more ticklish. The National Association of Black Journalists and some Black scholars have said white should be capitalised, too.

"We agree that white people's skin colour plays into systemic inequalities and injustices, and we want our journalism to robustly explore these problems," John Daniszewski, AP's vice-president for standards, said in a memo to staff Monday. "But capitalising the term white, as is done by white supremacists, risks subtly conveying legitimacy to such beliefs."

Columbia Journalism Review, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, NBC News and Chicago Tribune are among the organisations that have recently said they would capitalise Black but have not done so for white.

"White doesn't represent a shared culture and history in the way Black does," the New York Times said on July 5 in explaining its decision.

CNN, Fox News and the San Diego Union-Tribune said they will give white the uppercase, noting it was consistent with Black, Asian, Latino and other ethnic groups. Fox cited NABJ's advice.

CBS News said it would capitalise white, although not when referring to white supremacists, white nationalists or white privilege.

Some proponents believe that keeping white lowercase is actually anti-Black, saying it perpetuates the idea that whites are the default race.

"Whiteness remains invisible, and as is the case with all power structures, its invisibility does crucial work to maintain its power," wrote Eve Ewing, a sociologist of race and education at the University of Chicago who said she's changed her mind on the issue over the past two years.

"In maintaining the pretence of its invisibility, whiteness maintains the pretence of its inevitability, and its innocence," she wrote on the website Nora.

Kwame Anthony Appiah, a philosophy professor at New York University, wrote in the Atlantic that capitalising white would take power away from racists, since their similar use "would no longer be a provocative defiance of the norm".

AP checked with a variety of experts and sources in making its decision.

"We will closely watch how usage and thought evolves, and will periodically review our decision," Daniszewski said.

-AP