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Sometimes some sentences suddenly stand out. The sentences seem familiar. But you see them in a different way.

That happened to me when I read the following sentences in Mary Sanchez's "Blurring the Color Line": New estimates for July 2001: 36.2 million people self-identified as black. Thirty-seven million said they were Hispanic. And 37.7 million people identified as black or as black and one other race.

What stood out to me was seeing the word "black" with a lowercase "b" in the same paragraph as "Hispanic" with an uppercase "H." Since both terms referred to a people, I wondered why the word "black" didn't have an uppercase "B" to match the uppercase "H" in "Hispanic." Now, I've seen the use of the word "black," used as another way to say African American, with a lowercase "b" before. But this time I wanted to change the lowercase "b" to an uppercase "B" so it would be "Black."

Here's how I see it. When we use terms such as African American, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans, we uppercase those terms. So why not Blacks? To me, it's an issue of respect, fairness, equality, and parity. When we use a lowercase letter it makes the word less visible, less prominent, and maybe less important. It's the diminutive form. My name is written with an uppercase "A" and "C" for "Aly Colón." I consider that a sign of respect. When I mentioned that I thought black should appear with an uppercase "B" to Julie Moos, the Poynter Online news editor, she took it up with the online staff. After their discussion, she e-mailed me that the staff felt that uppercasing colors associated with race could stop some readers. The staff was most comfortable using lowercase.

Poynter Online uses "black" primarily as a racial identifier, as the Associated Press does, and it uses African American, depending on the context. "Don't hesitate to shout back your concerns on this," Moos told me, as Poynter Online continues to develop policies and procedures. Since Moos mentioned the Associated Press, I thought I would check with their stylebook editor to find out why the word "black" carried a lowercase "b" as part of their style. I also turned to the president of the American Copy Editors Society for some feedback. Norm Goldstein, stylebook editor for the Associated Press, responded to my e-mail inquiry that AP uses the lowercase "black" primarily because it reflects a common language usage found in newspapers and magazines. AP uses the lowercase "black" primarily because it reflects a common language found in newspapers and magazines. "It is also the first-listed form in most standard dictionaries, including AP's preferred Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition," he added in his e-mail. "African-Americans, Hispanics, Arabs, and similar descriptions are considered nationalities (or dual nationalities), while 'black' and 'white' are the more commonly used terms for the Negroid and Caucasian races."

Goldstein noted that AP style changed with usage over the years, as "black" became the preferred term in the ...