Elon Musk calls on AP to change capitalization rule on races
The article covers tesla CEO Elon Musk’s criticism of the Associated Press (AP) style guide regarding capitalization of racial terms. Musk objected to the AP’s rule that capitalizes “Black” when referring to the race but leaves “white” in lowercase. He questioned why “white” is always lowercase while “Black” is capitalized, calling this practice racist and unfair. The AP explained that the decision to capitalize “Black” was based on recognizing a shared cultural and ancient identity among Black people worldwide, whereas white people generally do not share the same cohesive history or experience of discrimination based on skin color. Musk rejected this rationale, labeling legacy news outlets as biased against white and Asian people and advocating for either all races to be capitalized or none. The AP acknowledged ongoing debates about this issue and said it will continue to periodically review the style guideline. The article also includes social media reactions and notes that the AP Stylebook, first published in 1953, is currently in its 57th edition.
Elon Musk calls on AP to change capitalization rule on races
Tesla CEO Elon Musk criticized the Associated Press for its style guide, which capitalizes black as a race but uses lowercase for all other races.
“Why is ‘white’ always in lowercase, but Black is uppercase, @nytimes?” Musk wrote on X on Tuesday in response to the New York Times‘s reporting on the fatal stabbing in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“The NY Times is deliberate, precise and comprehensive in its anti-White racism,” Musk continued.
Chaya Raichik, the user behind the Libs of TikTok account, posted a screenshot of the AP Stylebook in response.
“AP’s style guidelines literally says to lowercase White and capitalize Black,” Raichik wrote. “Anti-White racist trash outlet.”
The change to capitalize black when referring to race was made in 2020 and was shortly followed by a rule to lowercase white. According to the AP, it “consulted with a wide group of people internally and externally around the globe and considered a variety of commentary in making these decisions.”
“There was clear desire and reason to capitalize Black. Most notably, people who are Black have strong historical and cultural commonalities, even if they are from different parts of the world and even if they now live in different parts of the world,” the outlet wrote in a release at the time.
“There is, at this time, less support for capitalizing white. White people generally do not share the same history and culture, or the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color,” the outlet wrote.
Musk did not accept this explanation.
“Legacy news like AP is super racist against Whites (and Asians),” he wrote. “Either capitalize all races or none. That would be fair and equal treatment, but only lowercase for Whites is racist by definition!”
According to the outlet, it “will periodically review our decision” regarding capitalization.
“Some have expressed the belief that if we don’t capitalize white, we are being inconsistent and discriminating against white people or, conversely, that we are implying that white is the default,” it wrote.
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“We also recognize the argument that capitalizing the term could pull white people more fully into issues and discussions of race and equality,” the outlet said.
The AP Stylebook was first published in 1953 and is currently on its 57th edition.
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