[ceejayoz]

There's some debate over this.

https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-cultures-race-and-e...

> 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 capitalized, too.

> 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 capitalize white, although not when referring to white supremacists, white nationalists or white privilege.

[OJFord]

What's the reason for capitalising either of them introducing any debate in the first place?

I doubt this will pass the test of time, makes it seem like a noun ('a White'; it must be a noun to be a proper noun after all) rather than an adjective ('a black person') which (capitalisation aside) is way out of favour. (At least it is/would be in the UK, where 'PoC' isn't really used either, so ymmv.)

[SoftTalker]

Agree. If you're hung up on whether your adjectives are capitalized, you don't have much to worry about.

[falcor84]

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

Oh, interesting - so would I be correct in saying that "white supremacists" are people thinking that White people are superior to others, whereas a "White supremacist" is a White person who is a supremacist of some group, e.g. "A White male supremacist"?

[OJFord]

Probably more likely to be a typo (as in off-style guide) than a deliberate distinction!

[klik99]

Assuming this is about ethnic groups in the context of America, saying "White" doesn't have a "shared culture and history in the way Black does" is arguably true, but "Asian" and "Latino" also both don't have a shared culture and history in the way "Black" does. Also "White" is the only ethnic group name that doesn't refer to a place, even though it's clearly a stand-in for "European", which kind of implies everyone else came from somewhere else.

[AnthonyMouse]

> "White" doesn't have a "shared culture and history in the way Black does" is arguably true

I don't think this is even right. For example, many Australian aborigines or natives of the Caribbean are "black" but are only from Africa in the sense that all humans are including Europeans. Likewise, a recent immigrant from Zimbabwe will have a very different "culture and history" than a fifth generation resident of Brooklyn, even if they have similar genetics and skin color. For that matter, at this point a resident of New York and a resident of Mississippi will have about as much in common as someone from France and someone from Poland, regardless of the color of their skin.

It also seems like quite a presumption to even suggest the contrary. Are we really safe to claim that people from Ghana and people from Ethiopia have a uniform culture just because they're both on the same continent and we aren't that familiar with either of them?

> Also "White" is the only ethnic group name that doesn't refer to a place, even though it's clearly a stand-in for "European"

How is this standing in any different than "Latino" implying Central and South America or "Black" implying Africa?

It seems like the best solution is to just not capitalize any of them. Or, for that matter, to stop trying to categorize people in this way, since the entire premise was established by foolish racists and doesn't deserve the dignity of continued deference.

[bobthepanda]

The problem is that we do need the categorization because no matter the subcategory, the interactions with foolish racists are common and need to be talked about and addressed.

Botham Jean was a first-generation immigrant from the Caribbean nation of St. Lucia but that did not prevent him from being a victim of police violence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Botham_Jean?wprov=sf...

[bobthepanda]

Black is not just the shared culture of African Americans but also includes Africans who immigrated after the slavery era, Afro-Latinos, and Afro-Caribbean people, which have significantly less overlap.

It is why African-American has dropped out of usage as the general term.

[mjevans]

I think it would make more sense in a hyperlinked / popup definition field / WikiLike proper noun (a page is a full thing).

E.G. White Privilege helps to denote that this is a title for something, and might link to an outside definition, footnote that describes the term (in case someone somehow doesn't know it yet) etc.

[throwaway_30724]

I can't wait until we just get to be American.

Tired of questions asking "what I am", both from people and on forms. I'm American, not Asian, not Latinx. I have so far traced 3 great-grandparents lines back to England and 1 from an eastern European country that no longer exist (so how am I suppose to classify myself with that?). 2 left for Virginia in the 1600's the other 2 left for the US in the early 1800's. I'm an 11th generation American, yet I don't have that option on forms and people still ask me where I am from - no, I mean before that, what country are your(my) parents from? confusion

Also, I don't speak Spanish, so am not Hispanic (why is this even grouped with things like Asian, Black, White? and why are Asian's Asian but the other two get colors?)