Capitalize the “B” in Black (and not the “w” in white).

It’s been nearly two hundred years since Ida B. Wells said we should capitalize the “B” in Black when referring to Black people.

Today, Kirkus announced that 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests have informed a new decision to capitalize Black in all future articles when referring to people of African diaspora.

Oh, and they will also be capitalizing “white.” And there is a James Brown lyric in the middle of the statement, which connects to nothing.

Anyway. The statement seems to root itself in the argument that making “white” lowercase and Black uppercase denies the uncomfortable legacy of whiteness and makes us not think about it anymore. And even if seeing “White” makes people uncomfortable . . . come on guys, isn’t discomfort the point?

No. Some of us can’t afford to simply adopt the same language habits of white nationalists, re-frame the purpose of them, and call it a day.

Blink and you’d miss the “aw shucks” moment when Kirkus paints white supremacists as pesky mosquitoes rather than a network of fully human agents, editors, and executives that booby-trap Black writers’ success with the lie that stories told in white dialectics reflect higher literary merit.