Why a universalist hates capitalizing racial terms like ‘black’ and ‘white’

The other day, several white women came onto my Facebook page and demanded that I capitalize black when writing about race. I told them race is a social construct and capitalizing racial categories only validates the concept of race. I am a universalist who rejects all forms of division based on social identities, as three of my favorite quotes should show:

“I am human—nothing human is alien to me.” —Terence

“The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.” —Thomas Paine

“I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being, neither white, black, brown nor red.” — Malcolm X

The white women said I should ask black friends about this, so I did. One said he only capitalizes black when it’s the first word in a sentence. Another said he rolls with the current fashion knowing it’ll change in a few years: “We’re capitalizing black now? Sure, why not?”

I looked at living black writers. Some capitalize black, some don’t. Two that I especially respect, Adolph Reed and Margaret Kimberley, lower-case black.

I looked at style guides. The Washington Post says to capitalize black and white. The Associated Press and Fox News say to capitalize black but not white. The Chicago Manual of Style says to respect the writer’s choice (though they recently qualified that by saying they prefer capitalizing black, but the issue can’t be…