The Associated Press in Black and White: Causing a controversy by trying to dodge one?

OK, so the AP says that the Stylebook  now says to do what many individual papers have done on a house style for years: Capitalize "Black."

That said, it said it would decide in about a month whether or not to capitalize "white."

CNN didn't wait. It said capitalize both. And I agree.

The issue is complicated by "Hispanic" being capitalized, but in the past, neither "black" nor "white."

As further illustration, last year's entire Stylebook listing on race-related language usage is here.

As for AP's current decision, if it's a legitimate idea to cogitate a month before a decision, do you really need a month? I think not.

So, is this a duck and cover instead? I think so.

The better-yet solution? Lowercase "hispanic." Oh, that neologism "Latinx"? Throw it away. It's a print media bit of virtue signalling. Does anybody really say aloud the word "Latinex"? Thought not. And, no, I'm not alone in saying that.

Update: Kwame Anthony Appiah brings his philosopher's hat to the fray to say "uppercase White." Why? It removes privilege from a White stance, among other things. I get exactly where he is coming from.

Update 2: AP has done just as I expected and is keeping "White" lowercase. Not me. Per CNN, and per Appiah, when I remember, both "Black" and "White" get uppercase. Poynter has more. Per the piece, the AP is engaging in cultural essentialism. The new African diaspora in the US has not necessarily had all of the same experiences. It's that fact, as well as the skin color of his mom, that led some Blacks to ask if Barack Obama was one of them. Within the New World, many Caribbean blacks who have emigrated to the US don't claim to have entirely common cultural experiences with Blacks born in the US. Ask Colin Powell and others.

VP for Standards John Daniszewski also claims "there is less support for capitalizing White." Really? Per the CNN link that said it would capitalize both? Per the feedback you've gotten over the past four weeks? "Less support" is purely relative, not absolute, in this case.

CJR follows AP, or rather preceded it, I think, on a house style. Whatever; it's wrong, too. And, as regular readers here know, it's not the first time I've found it wrong by any means. And, contra a claim by Dallas sports teevee talking head Dale Hansen, it, like most media (self included) doesn't like to admit its mistakes.

Anyway, on this and other blogs, and in all likelihood at any professional sites, this person will capitalize both.