Consistency, standards, and respectful language are all goals of the DDC editorial team. How do you achieve that when the subject at hand has different opinions with valid arguments? You have the discussions, you do the research, discuss again, and ask for others’ thoughts on the matter.
The discussion topic we are currently having is the capitalization of the words “Black” and “White” when referring to racial groups. We agree that “Black” should be capitalized. There was no debate on that aspect among the editorial team. However, the “w” in “white” remains debatable. Reading many opinion pieces and articles by predominantly Black voices, there are a few questions we must answer to decide. Some feel that a capital “W” forces the thinking of racial constructs, while others feel the capital “W” gives validity to white supremacy groups that also use the capital letter.
Many publications and writing style guides are in disagreement as well. The Chicago Style Manual (2020), 7th Edition of the American Psychological Association’s Publication Manual (2020), The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune and the Center for the Study of Social Policy advocacy group all capitalize the “W”, while the Associated Press, The New York Times, and the Columbia Journalism Review do not, preferring the lower case “w”. The MLA 9th edition (2021) guides users to lowercase both terms. Canada’s The Globe and Mail is using “Black” and “white” in its publications, while the United Kingdom’s The Guardian Style Guide uses “black”, but also recognizes authors may prefer “Black”. Again, there is no consensus.
From a library standpoint, the Library of Congress Subject Headings capitalizes “Black” but not “white”, and while Dewey is not a part of the Library of Congress, we do work closely with their classifiers. If the DDC was to follow LCSH’s entries, it could make things easier in the future for any bulk changing within a library system.
What are your thoughts? What option would work best for your users? We would love to hear your opinion on the subject.
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