To our readers:

On Monday, we joined the growing list of news organizations around the country that have opted to capitalize Black when using the word to describe a culture, ethnicity or community of people. We made this decision after engaging in dialogues with people inside and outside our newsroom and company, including readers and employees.

We also instructed our journalists that in the event the terms Black and Brown are used together to collectively describe a group, we will capitalize the “B” in both words, such as “Black and Brown communities.”

Our decision puts Black on the same level as Hispanic, Latino, Asian, African American and other descriptors.

We also told our journalists to continue to lowercase the “w” in white.

Our decision to capitalize Black is an acknowledgment of the long-standing inequities that have existed in our country, and the unique role that Black art and culture have played in our society. Cultural trends among white people, e.g. Italian Americans, Irish Americans, etc., are much more disparate, which was a key factor in our decision not to capitalize white.

We’re hopeful that you, our readers, will understand — and appreciate — this distinction.

Nykia Wright, CEO

Chris Fusco, Executive Editor

Reaction includes:

This leaves two rough choices for how to think about our society.

1) All racial groups, including whites, share an essence that deeply defines them.

2) Though group identity can be important, no individual’s essence is defined by being white or brown or black.

I prefer 2).

— Yascha Mounk (@Yascha_Mounk) June 16, 2020

Voilà: https://t.co/ONzYqTnNA4

— Thomas Chatterton Williams ? ? (@thomaschattwill) June 16, 2020

It all makes sense if you think the main purposes of journalism include:

1. Managing the Narrative, and
2. Writing for your friends, not your readers