Thread by @thurgoodhamer

Great responses from @Afromanticist @yslm_19 @ChampagneSharks @WhurDeyDoDatAt @nigritie @drmathys_ @msiamastar @ninamonei and @nwhittaker10 and anticipating work from @whitney_nell and the JER soon.

https://twitter.com/thurgoodhamer/status/1431292745096781826

I find this particularly compelling on the lowercase side of things, but I have no issues with the capital B (and when I'm writing with others who use it, I don't put up a fuss):

https://twitter.com/Afromanticist/status/1426114823801163780

I can't say I understand (and perhaps it is not a matter of understanding, per se), but I do recognize and feel the affective and political motivations for using the capital, expressed in tweets like this:

https://twitter.com/msiamastar/status/1431308829413806084

I do get understand this, though--if we capitalize nationalities and ethnicities and Black is meant to signal some panethnic identity among the heterogeneous group that we call Black Americans, then this seems to be in line with convention.

https://twitter.com/yslm_19/status/1431304435939127296

This is probably what I would've said prior to reading all the replies, but I might be convinced now that a capital B might be useful to signal a particular, proper thing in some cases, where a lower case b would signal something messier & more terrifying

https://twitter.com/nigritie/status/1431302418701197316

I am very much looking forward to this @nwhittaker10 . Tag me when you publish it, please!

https://twitter.com/nwhittaker10/status/1431296312654376962

And yeah, in any case, I'm not interested in the gesture as much as I am in the substance. Totally agreed.

https://twitter.com/ChampagneSharks/status/1431335604554506244

Thanks for the replies so far! Very helpful and instructive. I love all of it.