> > > > I'm not sure I'd buy into capitalising "Gay" (any
> > > > more than "Straight"), though, neither
> > > > racio-ethnic terms. Those are kind of like
> > > > capitalising "green eyed".
> >
> > I suspect any group subjected to long-term prejudices (at least n the
>USA)
> > is likely to capitolize its label: "Asians", "Blacks".
>
>"Asian" isn't really relevant here - the adjectives (and therefrom derived
>nouns) refering to the continents are always capitalized.
Yes and no - "Asian" has been adopted by a major body of peoples living in
the USA as a social identifier like "Black" - in opposition to the (now
considered racist) "Oriental". This grew from perceived social prejudices
against them as a whole.
> > >I thought is was usual practice to capitalize the more
>scientif[i]quesque
> > >race-
> > >labels like "Caucasoid", "Mongoloid" and "Negroid"?
> >
> > "Appelachians"? "Cajuns"?
>
>I'm afraid I'm missing the point. To my knowledge, neither of those is a
>racial
>term, while they go well enough with the long-standing tradition of
>capitalizing words refering to ethnicities and whatever the word is for
>people
>comming from an area designated with a particular toponym.
Which was my point - the use of capitalization for an identifying label is
not based on scientific abstraction but social convention.
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