CNN staffers were told Thursday night to begin capitalizing not only “Black,” in reference to race, but “White,” too.
“When referring to the racial categories of Black and White, CNN style is changing to capitalizing both words,” wrote Tim Langmaid, vice president and senior editorial director, in an evening email to staffers.
“Both words denote a racial or ethnic identity and therefore should be upper case when referring to a person, community, culture, etc., in the same way CNN capitalizes other descriptors of race, ethnicity and shared identity, including African American, Native American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian, Asian American, African, and other terms,” he explained.