Backlash Erupts After AOC’s Account Capitalizes Race — Except for ‘White’
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘s (D-NY) official account, controlled by her and her staffers, is under fire after capitalizing the racial identifiers “Black” and “Latino” while deliberately leaving “white” in lowercase.
The campaign account on X, @TeamAOC, made the post featuring a video from the recent “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, which read:
“Do not let them trick you into thinking we are enemies.”
The post, which was accompanied by a video from a tour stop in Boise, Idaho, added:
“Do not let them trick you into thinking that we can be separated into rural and urban, Black and white and Latino. We are one.”
The post was immediately condemned on social media, with many highlighting the hypocrisy of the caption, given their choice to capitalize all but one racial identity while supposedly calling for unity.
One X user asked, “If we are one, why did you capitalize ‘Black’ and not ‘white’?”
“We see you, you f**ing racist POS. Don’t act like it was an accident that you left the word ‘White’ uncapitalized,”* reads another popular reply.
READ: AOC’s High-Flying Hypocrisy: First Class to Bernie Sanders Socialist Rally
“You literally just separated us into ‘Black and white and Latino,’” wrote psychology professor Geoffrey Miller.
“And you capitalized ‘Black’ and ‘Latino’ but not ‘white’, implying that White is not a legitimate racial identity. We see right through your vacuous word games.”
The practice of capitalizing specific racial categories while leaving “white” in lowercase has become a popular style guide among left-leaning outlets since 2020.
The Associated Press Stylebook, used by hundreds of publications and blogs worldwide, announced its reasoning behind the practice not long after George Floyd’s death.
“AP style will continue to lowercase the term white in racial, ethnic, and cultural senses. This decision follows our move last month to capitalize Black in such uses. We consulted with a wide group of people internally and externally around the globe and considered a variety of commentary in making these decisions,” AP Style Vice President of Standards John Daniszewski said in July 2020.
The style guide also detailed its reasoning for capitalizing the word “Black” when referring to a racial category:
“There was clear desire and reason to capitalize Black. Most notably, people who are Black have strong historical and cultural commonalities, even if they are from different parts of the world and even if they now live in different parts of the world. That includes the shared experience of discrimination due solely to the color of one’s skin,” the style guide reads.
“There is, at this time, less support for capitalizing white. White people generally do not share the same history and culture or the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color. In addition, we are a global news organization and in much of the world there is considerable disagreement, ambiguity, and confusion about whom the term includes.”
The AP style guide has reinforced its leftist worldview with a number of tweaks in recent years, including the phasing out of the term “illegal immigrant.”
Associated Press reporters have since been stripped of additional privileges and barred from the Oval Office following the style guide controversy.
READ: AOC Brutally Mocked for Changing Her Accent at ‘Fight Oligarchy’ Rally