A capital step for respect
Why the Star will now capitalize the words Indigenous and Black
I have never fully understood the reluctance of media organizations to say yes to the increasingly frequent requests from Indigenous people and representatives of the Black community to capitalize the proper names of their people and their communities.
I know there are long-standing stylebook “rules” and conventions of language that have provided reasons for not capitalizing either “Indigenous” or “Black.” But, balanced against the questions of respect and fairness raised by not capitalizing these proper names and the passionate, intelligent requests to do so, I believe there is no contest here: Why not capitalize these words given how much it matters to those who care deeply about how the media depicts and names them? Why withhold something so simple — but clearly, so meaningful — as an uppercase letter?
To that end, I am pleased to tell you that the Toronto Star decided this week to begin capitalizing “Indigenous,” in all instances, and “Black” in reference to Black people, identity, community and culture. Black will remain lowercase only when it when it refers specifically to skin colour in a sentence such as, “People with black and brown skin are stopped and questioned by police at higher rates than white people.”
“Readers have been urging us to capitalize Black and Indigenous for some time as a mark of respect, just as we capitalize other ethnoracial terms such as South Asian, Latino and Roma,” said Anthony Collins, the newsroom’s style chief and co-chair of the style committee that recommended this change to senior management. Editor Michael Cooke signed off on this immediately.
To be clear, as Collins said in a memo to newsroom editors, the Star will not be capitalizing white or brown because “they do not describe a shared identity and experience the way Black does.”
Newsrooms and stylebooks governing language usage can be slow to change. The decision to move forward on this issue puts the Star out of step with its many wire services — The Canadian Press, The Associated Press, the New York Times and the Washington Post. In Canada, both TVO and Maclean’s magazine have opted to capitalize both Indigenous and Black.
These important changes have been under discussion by the Star’s style committee for several months. The committee, which I am part of, met first to discuss the Star’s language and usage in writing about Indigenous people, understanding that the Star’s long-standing use of “Aboriginal” is not the term now preferred by Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Following consultation with several Indigenous people, the Star has crafted a full style note advising its journalists on how to write stories involving Indigenous people. It makes clear that “Indigenous” is the preferred term and once again reminds the newsroom that the word “Indian” is considered offensive and should only be used when necessary, usually in historical or legal contexts. It also advises that while Indigenous is acceptable as a collective term, we should avoid lumping different groups together and be specific about the individual First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities we cover, using the names our subjects prefer in identifying themselves.
Lenny Carpenter, a member of Attawapiskat First Nation who grew up in the James Bay community of Moosonee, and is now the program manager with Journalists for Human Rights’ Indigenous Reporters Program, was one of the people in the Indigenous community to whom the style committee reached out for guidance on these critical issues.
Carpenter, like others consulted, made clear that capitalizing Indigenous matters: “It is a complaint I see time and time again from Indigenous people when sharing news stories that Indigenous is not capitalized.”
Indeed, as Wanda Nanibush, who is Anishinabe from the Beausoleil First Nation near Penetanguishene and the Assistant Curator of Canadian and Indigenous Art, at the Art Gallery of Ontario, told me this week after Star editors removed the uppercase “I” from her job title: “In this era of Truth and Reconciliation, I believe it’s time for the Star to change their colonial editing policy that always removes the capital from Indigenous.”
The issue of capitalizing Black had been discussed periodically by the style committee, each time with no consensus reached — mainly because The Canadian Press, whose style the Star largely follows, has not done so.
Shree Paradkar, the Star’s new race and gender columnist and a member of the style committee, brought this matter back to the table in a May 1 email, “making a case for Black people with an uppercase B” as “a term of racial respect” and a “progressive, inclusive step” for the Star.
Paradkar provided the committee with critical background on the issue. As well, she reached out to numerous people in the Black community who made clear this was a matter of importance.
As Anthony Morgan, a Toronto human rights and civil liberties lawyer, told her, “there’s a fundamental criteria of human rights at stake here.
“Blacks have a desire to have that capital B. The principles of self-identification are essential. We are trying to assert our Blackness, we are trying to assert our humanity in a language that was not ours to begin with, and now we have to suffer the indignity when our oppressors who benefit from the structure tell us we are not right. “Not capitalizing the B diminishes Blackness.” One of the Star’s long-standing values in covering the diverse community it has long served has been a commitment to dignity for all. To that end, these capital letters signal some small measure of progress. I hope this step prompts other news organizations to follow.
This matters to Indigenous people. This matters to Black people. And, it matters to the respectful and fair reporting on our greater community of people overall. publiced@thestar.ca