On ‘Black’ and ‘White’

“I would like to ask why the word ‘black’ is capitalized in several of the recent articles in the Monitor, but the word ‘white’ is not?  I do not want to add fuel to anything, but it caught my eye.  Is it grammatically correct?  If so, then wouldn’t both words be capitalized?  I have seen it can be a debatable topic in other articles on the web, but would like to know your reasoning.”

This note, from Jefferson County resident Susanne Shultz, arrived in my inbox a few weeks ago. As I told Susanne at the time, she raised a really good question – and one that had been nagging at me as The Monitor’s “Let’s Talk About Race” initiative unfolded.

Some background: The Monitor generally follows Associated Press style guidelines. A couple of months back, the AP decided to capitalize “Black” when referring to people in a racial, cultural, or ethnic sense. It more recently decided not to capitalize “white” in the same context.