In yet another stumble from the self-styled champions of unity, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and her team found themselves under fire this week after a post from her official campaign account, @TeamAOC, sparked outrage for its glaring double standard on racial identifiers.
The controversy erupted after the account posted a video clip from the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour — an anti-Trump roadshow featuring Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders — with a caption preaching solidarity: “Do not let them trick you into thinking we can be separated into rural and urban, Black and white and Latino. We are one.”
But users quickly noticed that while “Black” and “Latino” were given the honor of capitalization, “white” was left lowercase — a seemingly minor typographical choice that struck a deep chord, given the post’s supposed message of unity. The irony was too rich to ignore.
“If we are one, why did you capitalize ‘Black’ and not ‘white’?” one X user shot back, a reply that swiftly eclipsed the original post in popularity. Others were less restrained, calling the post “racist,” “hypocritical,” and an insult dressed up in the language of inclusion.
Even psychology professor Geoffrey Miller chimed in, hammering the inconsistency: “You literally just separated us into ‘Black and white and Latino,’ 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.”
This uproar taps into a larger cultural debate that’s been brewing since 2020, when the Associated Press and other style arbiters decided to capitalize “Black” but not “white” when referring to race.
The AP defended its choice by arguing that Black people share “strong historical and cultural commonalities” tied to discrimination, while white people allegedly do not — a rationale that has drawn plenty of criticism for its ideological slant and selective rewriting of historical realities.
The AP’s style decisions — and others like it — have cemented a perception that supposedly neutral institutions are aligning themselves with progressive social agendas.
From eliminating the term “illegal immigrant” to refusing to acknowledge the Trump administration’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” the Associated Press has fueled accusations of bias, and even found its reporters barred from privileged White House access under President Trump.
