Skip to main content

Capital B


A few weeks ago, I was writing about race. This is not something I do a lot, and not something I feel particularly qualified for. But I had a story I thought worth telling, and it came with semantic issues that could not be ignored.

Specifically, I was wrestling, not for the first time, with how to refer to Black people. I couldn’t sidestep the issue — I couldn’t write my way around it — because their racial identity was central to the story.

So I consulted with my son, who is more attuned to the zeitgeist than I, and he told me that “Black with a capital B” was the way to go. He pointed me to an article that laid out the case, which I found interesting and, ultimately, convincing.

So I took his word for it, though partly for selfish reasons. Because, as it happens, capitalizing the word ‘Black’ plays right into my hands. With a single keystroke, I am suddenly able to solve writing problems I’ve been dealing with for years.

Consider, first, that Black is a one-syllable word. This might not matter to you, but to a writer it’s a big deal. By contrast, ‘African American’ is seven syllables, which is absolutely guaranteed to wreck the flow of any sentence it inhabits. And since I find those seven syllables as culturally misleading as they are linguistically clumsy, I am thrilled to trade all seven for one.

Furthermore, that capital B returns to me some control over the word ‘black’ —both as a color and a metaphor — which I’ve felt slipping away of late. I have written, even recently, of white hats and black hats — as well as of black markets — and in the country’s current state of ferment I have to be sensitive to possible insensitivity. I would hate to lose these tropes — they do have their uses — and I’m hoping the capital B can provide some cover to continue using them.

So overall, I was happy with the solution. With the mere capitalization of one highly evocative yet acceptable word, I could march into the racial discussion without needing to tiptoe around the language.

The only problem was what to do about white people?

The article urged the capitalization of the word ‘white’ when used in the context of race. Which sounded only fair. So I did that too.

But in thinking about it since, I’ve realized that I never use the word ‘white’ to describe a person, except in the context of race. Which means that the whiteness of my writing is just assumed.  That white is the default mode for my writing and, indeed, for my worldview. Which is not something I’ve thought about before. Is that wrong? Or just natural? Is there anything I can or should do about?

This is what they call “unconscious bias” in the well-meaning but problematic “diversity departments” I sometimes write for. We all have it to some extent. The mere act of noticing that someone is in fact Black betrays a certain bias. White people generally don’t register that other white people are white.

So where do we draw the line between unconscious bias and racism? There are those who say there is no line. That racism is racism, and that there are no degrees of it. While I understand this impulse, it seems harsh to me. It minimizes what I think is genuine concern and good will among white people.

Nonetheless, I’m quite sure that my unconscious bias can, if I’m not vigilant, color anything I write. (Note my intentional use of the word ‘color’ — slightly eyebrow-raising in this context — just to demonstrate how politically fraught certain common words can become.)

But it turns out that in light of recent events, this whole subject has been on the minds of news organizations, as well. Just yesterday, as I was finishing this piece, the New York Times announced, in an editorial, its decision to use the capital B. The paper will not, however, capitalize ‘white,’ which, they say, “doesn’t represent a shared culture and history in the way Black does.” And besides, white nationalists use it for their own creepy purposes. So, as you can see here today, I have rethought the capital W. For now.

I strive, not always successfully, to be correct in my use of the language, with the understanding that ‘correct’ will always be a word framed in air quotes.

Language reflects culture, and our culture now changes far too rapidly to separate the language being used from the context in which it’s used. Context — where and how words are used in real life — is the ultimate arbiter of correctness.

But one thing is certain. Language is a moving target. It never stops evolving, sometimes abruptly. I assume I’ll just keep evolving along with it.


Berkley MI

07/07/20

Comments

  1. I suggest You register myriad unconscious generalizations of every person you meet, including The “race” of any White whom you meet. In other words, I suspect you do notice. It just isn’t at the top of your hierarchy of thoughts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was admonished by 3 of my grandchildren the other day by referring to Blacks. “Gramma”, “Don’t ever say Blacks. My reply, “Blacks call themselves Black. Why can’t I? “Black is ok, just not Blacks. You have to say Black people or Black person.” I get it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If You Were Putin, What Would You Do?

  S o let’s say you’re Vladimir Putin. Scary, I know. But let’s just say you’d been trained by the old KGB to hate the United States with a white-hot passion that you’ve had on simmer since long before you became dictator. It’s a hate you were taught in the Brezhnev years, which were almost as bad as Stalin’s but with mass death ruled out, more or less. You nursed the hate through the convulsions of the early nineties, when your beloved Soviet Union was scrapped and replaced with economic chaos and widespread privation, which the Russian people somehow endured, as usual. Then finally, in 2000, you got your shot. You took over the whole country, and your hate was given room to breathe. Still you took your time. Fourteen years till you “annexed” Crimea and moved on the Donbass. Two more years before you engineered Brexit and the self-destruction of the UK, the same year you stole a U.S. presidential election for a pliable con man you’ve owned for three decades...

Chuck Schumer Isn’t Quite the Villain He’s Being Cast As

  E verybody’s pissed off at Chuck Schumer. His handling of last Friday’s continuing resolution (CR) vote has been widely excoriated, and calls for his head have been loud and rude, as befits the times. But even before the actual vote, I was thinking that his very public decision to not filibuster the CR — thereby allowing it to pass — was, in fact, the right one. To be sure, it meant allowing a deeply atrocious bill to become law. The consequences of that bill will need to be addressed, first in court, then in any strategy we can devise to save the country from these repulsive people, but I’ll get back to you on that. In the meantime, Schumer made his decision with eyes wide open. He expected to take heat for it, and he wasn’t disappointed. His reasoning is on the record. He says, I think accurately, that if the government were to be shut down, only “essential personnel” could be called in to work, but that it would be up to the executive branch to decid...

On What Planet is This Good for Business?

  W here’s the upside of all this wanton destruction? Once you intentionally tear down a flawed but quite-workable system, once you reduce it to smoking ruins, once you’ve thrown much of your population into high-stress survival mode, what’s the benefit? And whose benefit is it? As I said last week , the biggest benefit always goes to Putin. But he’s not the only one looking to make the most of the chaos. Closer to home, there are any number of billionaires aspiring to oligarch status, plainly looking for opportunity in this new world order. I’ll use the word ‘oligarch’ as a catch-all for the extravagantly rich and powerful, as well as for the corporate interests they control and the negative influence they exert. Some are household names, but most stay well under the radar. Think of them as today’s Robber Barons. And they will indeed find ways to increase their wealth under the Trump regime. Which apparently, for some profoundly misguided reason, is ...