The Christian Science Monitor

The case for uppercase: Commentary on style, dignity, and Black culture

I spent the first five years of my journalism career as a sportswriter, in a newsroom that sorely lacked diversity. Looking back on my tenure, I can count the number of Black journalists, including myself, on one hand. I left that particular publication to start my career at an African American newspaper. The change was profound. It was a smaller newspaper, yet a more soulful newspaper. 

One of the first lessons I learned at that publication was the importance of the word “Black.” I learned the distinction between “Black” in terms of race and “black” in terms of the color of an item. The capitalization

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