Today’s contribution to Black history month (something we will celebrate and uplift until having a separate month isn’t needed) will focus on the education of white people. As I asserted in my latest blog, Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?, white people need some educating around race because it’s not something we’ve been required to study.
Another thing I pointed out in the blog is the need to have relationships with white people who may be further along the path toward creating racial equity who can help steer our way to growth and understanding. Luckily for me, I am in relationship with numerous kind souls who are more immersed than I in anti-racism work and who can gently point out when I may be committing micro-aggressions of which I am unaware,
such as capitalizing both Black and white.
I admit to being reluctant to the first suggestion. We all matter, I thought. (That should have been a heads up!)
When the second suggestion came, I thought this may really need to be considered, but I felt strong commitment to create white culture dedicated to creating an equitable world, and didn’t want to off-put potential learners by seeming to be anti-white.
Not one to believe in coincidences, the third suggestion really got my attention. It helped that it came with a link to more education.
Turns out this grammatical suggestion was put in motion by W.E.B. Du Bois back in 1926. Almost 100 years later, we are still working out how to respectfully acknowledge our Black brothers and sisters to show them that they are seen and heard and that they matter, that we see Black as a culture.
It also turns out that there is a history of capitalizing white among white supremacists, a group I’m not looking to imitate.
For now I’ll capitalize Black and leave white as is, and I’ll dream of a time when exerting energy thinking about the capitalization of a color is a thing of the past, a time when we are all more concerned with capitalizing American and when being American means automatic inclusion and equal access to resources.