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Comment by karpierz | Hacker News Reader

"Black" =/= "black". "Black" refers to a group of people who are lumped together for how they're perceived/treated in (American/western) society. "black" refers to materials which don't reflect visible light.

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The parent of your comment is not confused about the difference between people who are Black and the color black. They are referring to the inconsistency in the media wherein stories that discuss race will typically have uppercase "B" in "Black", yet lowercase "w" in "white", where they both refer to a specific group of people. One could argue that, for the sake of consistency, they should both be capitalized or not, yet it is indeed unusual to see capitalized "White" in the media, as in, "The White community" or "A White teenager". It is more common to see "The white community" or "A white teenager". However, it's perfectly normal to see "The Black community" or "A Black teenager". And that's aside from how often each group is mentioned in the media.

Because white is not a race, it’s used as a counterculture to the use of Black (previously also Negro and Afro), and historical evidence supports that. “Black” is only used as an identifier by that ethic group and their erasure of ethic identity. While African American is another term, within the culture of the of the group, it’s lacking once more an actual origin and lumps those who do actually know their African origins with those who don’t, leading to the premise of the self-codified ethic term Black. This term has been preferred by the National Association of Black Journalist since 2017 and was picked up by major newspapers and the AP only last year.

Can you fold in "Asian" while keeping your rationale consistent?

(No dog in this fight, I'll just use what everyone else uses, but the whole thing's a mess).

Many Asian Americans call themselves Asian. Not many white Americans call themselves White.

Asia is a place. European and Caucasian get capital letters too.

This doesn't explain the non-existence of White. They are perceived and treated in a certain way in the American society.

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