AP Style tips for race-related writing

It is important to be thoughtful when writing about race and ethnicity and to respect how individuals prefer to describe themselves. The Associated Press maintains a chapter on race-related coverage to help you choose the most appropriate and precise language in your writing. While not all U of M communicators use AP Style in their daily work, the following guidance may be useful to consider.

• Include racial or ethnic information only when clearly relevant to the story.
• Be as specific as possible when describing someone’s race (e.g., She has a white mother and a Black father). Terms like biracial or multiracial are acceptable when describing groups.
• Don’t use a hyphen for dual heritage terms, including African American, Asian American, Arab American, etc.
• Use “people of color” in broad references to multiple races other than white. Don’t use “person of color” to describe an individual.
• Avoid the term “Black, Indigenous and people of color”—though it promotes inclusivity for Black and Indigenous folks, it diminishes the experiences of other people of color.
• Capitalize “Black” as an adjective in a racial, ethnic, or cultural sense (e.g., Black people, Black culture, etc.). African American is also acceptable for those in the U.S., but be specific if someone prefers a term such as Somali American or Caribbean American.
• Use the term “Native American” when referring to people of different tribal affiliations in the contiguous U.S. and use the proper name of a tribe when referring to a single person or multiple people from the same tribe. For those in Alaska and Hawaii, use “Alaska Native” and “Native Hawaiian.”

For more information, see the “race-related coverage” chapter in the AP Stylebook (login with your UMN ID through the UMN Libraries). For daily University writing, see the University Relations editorial style guide, Chicago Manual of Style website (login with your UMN ID through the UMN Libraries), and the College of Liberal Arts Center for Writing. If you have additional questions on race-related coverage, contact the University Relations public relations team at unews@umn.edu.