Kwame Anthony Appiah has an interesting piece over at the Atlantic on language and usage, racial designation as social identity, and the linguistic arguments that (hopefully) lead to consensus. In short, it’s a philosopher’s take on whether we should capitalize the B in black as a designation for those of African descent.
My two cents? I don’t really care which—capitalized or not—ultimately wins out. But opinions to the contrary notwithstanding, there simply is no case to be made for applying one rule to black and another to white. Just doesn’t make sense.
But in this crazy, upside-down world in which we now find ourselves, sense is in rather short supply.
