Politics
AOC Faces Backlash After ‘Racist’ Post From Official Campaign Account
An official account controlled by Rep. Alexandrio Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and her staffers is facing criticism for capitalizing the racial identifiers “Black” and “Latino” while deliberately leaving “white” in lowercase.
The post, which was made by the congresswoman’s official “@TeamAOC” campaign account on X, featured a video from the recent “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. Ocasio-Cortez, accompanied by Bernie Sanders, has been traveling to traditionally red states in order to hold anti-Trump rallies.
“Do not let them trick you into thinking we are enemies,” reads the post, which was accompanied by a video from a tour stop in Boise, Idaho. “Do not let them trick you into thinking that we can be separated into rural and urban, Black and white and Latino. We are one.”
The post drew widespread condemnation and mockery on social media, with many users pointing to the hypocrisy of the caption given the campaign’s conscious choice to capitalize all but one racial identity in a post claiming to call for unity.
“If we are one, why did you capitalize ‘Black’ and not ‘white’?” wrote one X user in a follow-up that received more likes than the initial post. “We see you, you f***ing racist POS. Don’t act like it was an accident that you left the word ‘White’ uncapitalized,” reads another popular reply.
“You literally just separated us into ‘Black and white and Latino,'” wrote psychology professor Geoffrey Miller. “And you capitalized ‘Black’ and ‘Latino’ but not ‘white’, implying that White is not a legitimate racial identity. We see right through your vacuous word games.”
The issue over capitalizing certain racial categories while leaving “white” in lowercase has become a controversial topic since a number of outlets and popular style guides started the practice in 2020. The Associated Press Stylebook — which is used by hundreds of publications and blogs across the world — announced their reasoning behind the practice a little over two months after the death of George Floyd.
“AP style will continue to lowercase the term white in racial, ethnic and cultural senses. This decision follows our move last month to capitalize Black in such uses. We consulted with a wide group of people internally and externally around the globe and considered a variety of commentary in making these decisions,” AP Style Vice President of Standards John Daniszewski said in July 2020.
The style guide also laid out their reasoning for capitalizing the word “black” when referring to a racial category.
“There was clear desire and reason to capitalize Black. Most notably, people who are Black have strong historical and cultural commonalities, even if they are from different parts of the world and even if they now live in different parts of the world. That includes the shared experience of discrimination due solely to the color of one’s skin,” the style guide reads.
“There is, 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, we are a global news organization and in much of the world there is considerable disagreement, ambiguity and confusion about whom the term includes.”
The AP style guide has implemented a number of tweaks that reinforce a leftist worldview in recent years, including the phasing out of the term “illegal immigrant.” These issues — as well as the outlet’s refusal to honor Trump’s “Gulf of America” name change — have been at the center of the administration’s spat with the AP.
Associated Press reporters have been barred from the Oval Office and been stripped of additional privileges they had enjoyed under previous administrations as a result of the style guide controversy.
