Authors have been told to capitalise the word “Black” but never “white” when writing about race because of “political connotations”.
Edinburgh University Press has produced a guide to the “inclusive language” it expects in the books it publishes – a guide that itself comes with a warning about “potentially triggering” words.
The guidance states that “Black” should be capitalised because the racial term refers to “a distinct cultural group and a shared sense of identity and community”.
This is not the case for the racial term “white”, according to the guidance, and authors are told: “Please do not capitalise ‘white’ due to associated political connotations”.
Sweeping terms like ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ not allowed
The stipulation about referring to white people is set out in a section of the guide entitled “Terminology related to whiteness, which does not define the unwanted political connotations.”
Rules for referring to black people are repeated several times in the guide, which stresses the need to “acknowledge” the existence of black cultural grouping.
Elsewhere, such broad cultural groupings are discouraged, and the guide urges authors not to use sweeping terms like “Eastern” and “Western”.
Other language issues are covered by the guide for authors working with Edinburgh University Press, which is owned by the leading Scottish university, and publishes around 300 books each year.
The online guidance tells authors to avoid using the term “illegal” when referring to illegal migrants, and urges them to use the terms “unhoused” instead of “homeless”.
It also states that socio-economic terms such as “poor” should be replaced by terms like “under-represented”, or “currently dealing with food insecurity” or possibly “economically exploited”.
Preferred pronouns
Edinburgh University Press tells authors to avoid suggesting a gender binary through the terms like “opposite sex”. Authors are told to use preferred pronouns or “they” when unsure, and to avoid gendered nouns such as “postman” and “chairman”.
The guidance ends with advice on providing trigger warnings in texts, covering topics including violence, animal cruelty, and drugs use, along with transphobia and classism.
The use of racial terms and gendered language has become contested in recent years following Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, and ongoing debates over the implications of gender ideology – the belief that people can self-identify as their preferred gender.
There has been a move across numerous institutions to replace the term “ethnic minority” with “global majority” when referring to the non-white population of Britain. There have also been efforts to undermine what is termed “whiteness”, the behaviours associated with white culture.
The issue of ‘embedded whiteness’
The Telegraph revealed this year that the London Museum advised staff to challenge “embedded whiteness” in the workplace.
Last year, it emerged that some teachers in training would be taught to challenge “whiteness” in lessons, and urged to “disrupt the centrality of whiteness” in schools.
Many institutions, often on the advice of activities groups, have also sought to strip away traditionally gendered language to be more inclusive of those who identify as transgender or non-binary. Some NHS trusts dropped the term “mother” for terms such as “birthing person” and “people who have ovaries”.
Some services suggested that “chestfeeding” by transgender women, who are biological males, was comparable to new mothers feeding with breast milk.
The Press has been contacted for comment.
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