This post comes from a teacher I once had when I was a kid. I can't be sure which one, but I think it was Social Studies. Regardless, I wrote a paper and I capitalized "Black," but didn't capitalize "white." The comment written on my paper told me not to capitalize one without the other. At the time I saw one, but not the other capitalized in certain circles. I've come to agree that both should be capitalized if one is, but that neither really means what it once meant. And what did these words really mean anyway? The younger we get, the more we mix, whether sexually, or just in terms of friends, we are not like our parents. I'm 31. The kids tens years younger than me are much more so. I think that is great. I'm not claiming we're a post a racial society. I know we're not, and I'm not quite sure what that even means. I do think we are moving towards a more racially integrated society on H, and maybe H Street is moving to a more class integrated society. A class integrated society is much harder.
In college I studied post-colonial lit. with a focus on Jamaica. Jamaica, for obvious reasons, has lots of interesting racial issues. A theme (and maybe this was just me) that seemed to run through it was that each generation held more hope, and as the older generation died off (or maybe changed), things got much better in terms of racial harmony. I'm not so big on the older generation dying off part (my grandmother has always been very racially progressive, and very progressive in terms of gay rights). But I understand the overall theme. I've gotten off topic. I meant to make us think about what we capitalize, and why we do so. What does it really mean to capitalize Black, and White, when so many people are both, of a those, and/or a combo of so many other things? Sorry if this is a late night musing, but, really...what are we to do now?
5 comments:
Very interesting post. Culturally Deaf people capitalize their D in Deaf, while people with hearing loss, and who do not identify themselves as being a member of the Deaf community are called "deaf". Some Deaf people feel this is unnecessary and only creates more identity politics and divisions within the Deaf community. I'm not sure where I stand on that yet. The capitalized Deaf is defined in dictionaries as referring to culturally Deaf. Also, I've seen in some rare instances that some people capitalize Hearing to identify Hearing people. I'm intrigued by the capitalized versions in other cultures and communities. Looking forward to reading comments here. Thanks for the post.
rachelle, that's an interesting point. At one point capitalization wasn't standardized in American English.
Proper nouns (i.e. specific people and places such as America, Asia, India, or the Caucuses) are capitalized, but other types of nouns are not. Adjectives that are derivatives of the proper nouns (e.g. Americas, Asians, Indians, or Caucasians) should also be capitalized. Indefinite adjectives do not need to be capitalized (e.g. adjectives such as cold, pretty, yellow, white or black).
The issue becomes more confusing because the same word can be used to describe an indefinite something and also be a proper name or adjective. For example, I can travel west, or I can live in the West. In the first instance, the word "west" is capitalized, but in the second it is not because the first use is indefinite but the second refers to a specific region.
Likewise, a person can be black, and he can be "a" Black. The important distinction here is that the first use of "black" describes an impersonal attribute of an individual, but the second use (a Black) is a proper noun and refers to a specific segment of society.
i need to think about this........
verrrrrry interesting.
if i have two legs, do i write, "i walked toward the tree with BOTH of my LEGS"?
sh*t, blind people must have a bitch of a time....
wait, did i say "bitch?"
why did you focus on jamaica?
just curious...
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