Add Language Choices to The River Ruckus in Montgomery

     The Montgomery Advertiser has been receiving complaints from readers about their capitalization of "Black" in stories identifying race, but not capitalizing "white". The comments have been in relation to stories about the violence on the Riverfront.

      The paper points out they are following the style agreed on by The Associated Press, which explains:

"After a review and period of consultation, we found, 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, AP is a global news organization and there is considerable disagreement, ambiguity and confusion about whom the term includes in much of the world.

We agree that white people’s skin color plays into systemic inequalities and injustices, and we want our journalism to robustly explore those problems. But capitalizing the term white, as is done by white supremacists, risks subtly conveying legitimacy to such beliefs.