For as long as I can remember, I have always capitalized the B in Black when speaking to my racial identity as a Black woman [1]. Despite being corrected numerous times by college professors on papers I turned in, my commitment to capitalizing the B has never wavered. And because of this, I'm here to settle the cultural debate once and for all: the B in Black needs to be capitalized across the board. Here's why.
Capitalizing the B is a way for us to have agency in defining ourselves, because so much of our existence in America has been defined for us.
On Juneteenth [2], in the wake of America's racial reckoning, the Associated Press [3] announced that it would officially begin to capitalize the B when referencing Black people in the context of racial, ethnic, or cultural identity. This long-overdue change, which was led by Black journalists and scholars [4], sought to do away with a journalistic practice set by white newsrooms that were insistent on using a lowercase b. When a lowercase b is used to describe Black identity, it implies in some way that we are less important, invisible, and not recognised as a proper noun in contrast to other racial groups that have a longstanding history of being capitalized.
Black identity has journeyed in label and term, moving from coloured to Negro to Black to African American and back to Black. Capitalizing the B is a way for us to have agency in defining ourselves, because so much of our existence in America has been defined for us. Capitalizing the B is a sign of respect and also an acknowledgment of the problematic history of utilising lowercase, a function of systemic racism [6], even if it's not meant to intentionally harm. If we are to truly address this issue, the B in Black must be capitalized everywhere. Our Blackness isn't just a colour; it is our identity, our culture, our community, and a shared experience that spans the diaspora.
Following this summer of protests, several news and media outlets [7] made the decision to also capitalize the B, a symbolic measure in showing more respect to the Black community in print. For me personally, when I capitalize the B, I see it as a way to honour my grandparents (and the ancestors before them) who spent a lifetime in lowercase. They are deserving of human dignity that cannot be reduced to a single colour in a box of crayons. As the national conversation on systemic racism persists, making this small change in language can have a big impact on finding common ground in the fight for racial justice. So, yes, it's OK to use Black when writing about Black identity, people, and culture — the only request is that you put some respect on the B: make it uppercase.