Last week The New York Times published "The Case for Black With a Capital B," an op-ed by Professor Lori L. Tharps. As a Black American and a proponent of the capitalization, I congratulate her for opening a conversation that is long overdue, a conversation that goes to the heart of how a large group of Americans with the most difficult of histories has struggled to express itself and gain greater agency in American society.
Tharps opens her critique by showing how The New York Times and the Associated Press style books continue to insist on using the lowercase "b" for "black Americans," specifically those whose genetic lineage is from the African diaspora in America. Yet the AP style book dictates that nationalities, races and cultures be capitalized. This should make one wonder about the proper identifier for Black Americans, because if we are neither a race nor a culture, what should the classification be?
Read the entire article on The Huffington Post: here.