Across the Great a social category people are assigned to, based on shared physical traits (like skin color, eye shape, and hair texture) that they’ve inherited through genealogy. Examples: white, Black, Asian, Latino. Race:
the bundle of language, nationality, culture, and religion that make up a person’s background. Examples: Yoruba, Han Chinese, English, Turkish. Ethnicity:
an ethnicity made up of Americans who have significant African ancestry. The term usually refers to U.S.-born descendants of enslaved people, though African immigrants sometimes also adopt it. African American:
a racial group made up of people with significant ancestral ties to SubSaharan Africa (as opposed to North African countries like Egypt and Morocco). The term also refers to the cultural traits and expressions that are shared among a wide variety of Black people. Black:
a Latin-American of African ancestry; the largest clusters of AfroLatinos live in Brazil, Colombia, and the Caribbean. Afro-Latino:
This past summer, many national news organizations — including The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker — announced they would begin capitalizing the term “Black” when it referred to the racial group, the same way they’ve always capitalized terms like Asian, Hispanic, African American, and Native American. Starting with this issue, Jacob’s Well will do the same. Editor’s note:
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