The perpetually competitive capitalization of black lives

The perpetually competitive capitalization of black lives [could& should be politically constrained by human being (verb)].

(This is a response to recent impositions onto me. Church, I think erroneously, responded to my appreciation to black parishioners with capital “B”. My comments on selected political thoughts are in brackets and yellow highlight.)

(In this work, I discovered a major objection to KJV-Bible politics, recently corrected. This 411 year-old British imposition on Anglo-American tradition is at least egregious.)

At the recent edge of 300,000 years’ homo sapiens’ development, humankind can manage life on earth. However, so far, the civic-citizens do not accept the responsibility to constrain errant fellow-citizens. “Civic” herein refers to reliability in human connections& transactions more than to cooperation with the magistrates. Biologists suggest that migration from Africa perhaps 100,000 years ago led to the mutations that produced the myriad skin colors of our time, starting perhaps 50,000 years ago; see an understandable review at Why Did People Become White? | Live Science. But what does actual-reality suggest about promising political philosophy for managing life on earth?

Here’s the Sumerian perspective (5,500 years ago), in Hebrew vernacular (3,000) years ago), NIV Bible (1973):

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

(Emphasis mine. The RSVCE and OJB have “and let them have dominion”. KJV (1611) omits the phrase: NKJV (1979) restored it. [Did that Old Testament omission favor King James? Has it influenced American failure to pursue Genesis-1 responsible-human-independence (RHI)?] The Message Bible has “so they can be responsible for”. Wycliffe has “be he sovereign to”. Vulgate translates “and let him rule”.) [I prefer NIV, because it clarifies, to me, that man& woman has God-like ability to rule and may choose to do so -- can& may. Each person can& may constrain chaos in their way of living. Self-interest in constraint is so obvious, a negative-choice seems arrogance rather than free-will.]

AP says it will capitalize Black but not white

AP says it will capitalize Black but not white

[It seems obvious:  If any characterization offers civic-integrity, society should capitalize Human Being; in its current status, homo sapiens.]

July 20, 2020

By DAVID BAUDER, The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — After changing its usage rules last month to capitalize the word “Black” when used in the context of race and culture, The Associated Press on Monday said it would not do the same for “white.”

The AP said white people in general have much less shared history and culture, and don’t have the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color. [This sentence is blatantly ignorant. We understand from mitochondrial-DNA that everyone alive evolved from one woman. Perhaps from another time and location Y-chromosome studies suggest one man was her ancestor and ours. And white slavery by blacks is a historical fact.]

Protests following the death of George Floyd, which led to discussions of policing and Confederate symbols, also prompted many news organizations to examine their own practices and staffing. The Associated Press, whose Stylebook is widely influential in the industry, announced June 19 it would make Black uppercase.

In some ways, the decision over “white” has been more ticklish [how about stupid?]. The National Association of Black Journalists [NABJ] and some Black scholars have said white should be capitalized, too. [Subscribers can stop paying for AP stupidity. I did.]

“We agree that white people’s skin color [Who has seen skin color make a decision or take action? Only a body, mind, and person acts.] plays into systemic inequalities and injustices, and we want our journalism to robustly explore these problems [Faulty media-workers are the problem.],” John Daniszewski, the AP’s vice president for standards, said in a memo to staff Monday. “But capitalizing the term white, as is done by white supremacists [Do some capitalize “supremacist”, too?], risks subtly conveying legitimacy to such beliefs.” [By analogy, Daniszewski labels himself “Journalist” and NABJ “journalists”. Daniszewski happily expresses arrogance the public can& may observe.]

Columbia Journalism Review, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, NBC News and Chicago Tribune are among the organizations that have recently said they would capitalize Black but have not done so for white.

“White doesn’t represent a shared culture and history in the way Black does,” The New York Times said on July 5 in explaining its decision. [How did NYT miss Genesis 1:26-28? It’s only 3,000 years old.]

CNN, Fox News and The San Diego Union-Tribune said they will give white the uppercase, noting it was consistent with Black, Asian, Latino and other ethnic groups. Fox cited NABJ’s advice. [Is there no place for Brown? Is intermarriage racism?]

CBS News said it would capitalize white, although not when referring to white supremacists, white nationalists or white privilege. [The 1787 U.S. Constitution accommodates every person who accepts that they are of We the People of the United States as specified therein. It’s proffered intentions satisfy Genesis 1:26-28, respecting RHI.]

Some proponents believe that keeping white lowercase is actually anti-Black, saying it perpetuates the idea that whites are the default race. [Furthermore, capital B argues that blacks either deny or exclusively claim “in God’s image” per Genesis 1:26-28.]

“Whiteness remains invisible [Invisibility, or stonewalling, deprives my human being (verb). It is censure. I have experienced stonewalling in civic forums as well as at church.], and as is the case with all power structures, its invisibility does crucial work to maintain its power,” wrote Eve Ewing, a sociologist of race and education at the University of Chicago who said she’s changed her mind on the issue over the past two years.

“In maintaining the pretense of its invisibility, whiteness maintains the pretense of its inevitability, and its innocence,” she wrote on the website Nora. [The actually-real pretense is that skin color determines human being (verb). Ewing is just as capable of writing that thought as I am.]

Kwame Anthony Appiah, a philosophy professor at New York University, wrote in the Atlantic that capitalizing white would take power away from racists, since their similar use “would no longer be a provocative defiance of the norm.” [I see that point. However, it projects White Supremacist on all racists. On a harder analogy, it’s like saying hunters use their guns to kill people, because many killers employ guns. However, skin color can be altogether discounted in the practice, facilitation, and encouragement toward each individual pursuing human being (verb). Preserve White Supremacists’ will to emphasize their resistance to human being (verb).]

The AP checked with a variety of experts and sources in making its decision. [Democracy is no substitute for RHI, which humankind expects from both journalists and media workers.]

“We will closely watch how usage and thought evolves, and will periodically review our decision,” Daniszewski said. [How much harm will occur for how long? Standards for reviewing stupidity seem destined for repetition.]

[Some people choose to capitalize capital-B rather than comprehend, practice, facilitate, and encourage Human Being (verb). I employ HB for affect, rather than to recommend.]

[Returning to my introduction if "man& woman has God-like ability to rule and may choose to do so", why is the humankind that is on the verge of colonizing the moon/Mars perpetuating the commercialization of black skin?

Is it that every newborn who has white skin is racist? Is the newborn with white skin privileged?

Some nations train "the workers we need". What if every Education Department in the world reformed its curricula, in order to inculcate the comprehension& intention to aid each the newborn, the child, the adolescent, the young adult, and the practicing citizen to develop their unique Human Being (verb) to the civic integrity that is required for RHI? What if the world decided that the meaning of life is for each person to reliably pursue the happiness they perceive, at each stage in their life, rather than subjugate to the common good or another human construct? The student would still have to learn on their own, but at least they’d have better chance to discover& accept civic-integrity.]

Copyright©2022 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. Updated December 23, 2022