Black Capitals, an Editorial Question

Look at this news excerpt:

(Laurens County) March 30, 2007 – Two separate teacher sex scandals brewing in South Carolina Friday night are sharing the spotlight after accusations of racism. Some in the Laurens County community say if the teachers were black, they’d still be in jail.

Why is the “b” in the word “black” in reference to teachers, spelled in the lower case. The teachers in question are not shirts or golf balls. “Black” in this case, connotes ethnicity. As in “Italian”, “Hawaiian”, or “Japanese”. It should be spelled with a capital “B”. The word “Negro” was often capitalized, and even vague terms such as “European” are.  Yet the practice below persists among editors, proofreaders, and those who publish English manuals of style such as the AP and Chicago variety:

(from the Washington Post)

…Melissa V. Harris-Lacewell, a Princeton University professor who has followed Obama’s political ascent, said that he may be forced to choose: “You can be elected president as a black person only if you signal at some level that you are independent from black people” — a move she said would be “guaranteed” to make black people angry. “He is going to have to figure out whether there is a way not to alienate and anger a black base that almost by definition is going to be disappointed,” she said…

Yet earlier in the same article we see:

…Martin, who said he was the only black person in the crowd, was thrilled that Obama, the only African American in the Senate…

This has never been explained to my satisfaction. A black car, I could understand, but a human being ethnically identified in the lower case?

Weigh in.

BCB