| Source | Year | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Annie E. Casey Foundation | 2013 | Use |
| Global Center for Journalism & Trauma | 2021 | Use with care |
| Sierra Club | 2021 | Use |
| NABJ | 2022 | Use with care |
| Diversity Style Guide | 2023 | Use with care |
| Racial Equity Tools | 2023 | Use with care |
| American Psychological Association | 2023 | Use with care |
“For nouns: African American, Asian American, black, Hispanic, Latino, Native American, non-Hispanic white, white (do not use Caucasian)”
The Annie E. Casey Foundation's manual lists preferred noun and adjective forms for racial and ethnic groups and rejects "Caucasian." Written in 2013, it lowercases "black" and "white," pre-dating the 2020 capitalization consensus that many guides have since adopted.
“Include references to an individual's race or ethnicity only when it's relevant to the story. … When someone's race or ethnicity is relevant, avoid broad terms such as "minority". Instead, ask your source how they would prefer to be identified…”
The Global Center for Journalism & Trauma pairs the relevance test with self-identification: invoke ethnicity only when it matters, then drop catch-all terms like "minority" and ask the source how they prefer to be described, being as specific as possible.
“Familiarize yourself with the key terms and concepts of race and ethnicity, and how categories that describe these can intersect ("white Argentine," "a person of mixed Choctaw and African American descent," Latinos who identify as "some other race").”
Sierra Club asks communicators to learn how race and ethnicity categories intersect — illustrating with combinations like "white Argentine" — and, in the same section, to ask the person or group how they identify whenever possible.
“The mention of a persons race should not be used unless relevant. This also applies to references to ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion. … Race and ethnicity may be relevant in some stories…”
The National Association of Black Journalists states the relevance rule in language that closely tracks the Diversity Style Guide: mention race or ethnicity only when it bears on the story, with the same caveat for sexual orientation and religion. It lists firsts and groundbreaking achievements among the cases where ethnicity may be relevant.
“A person's [ethnicity] should not be mentioned unless relevant. This also applies to references to ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion. … Race and ethnicity may be relevant in some stories…”
The Diversity Style Guide's usage rule is restraint: name a person's ethnicity only when it bears on the story, the same standard it applies to sexual orientation and religion. Its companion "ethnic group" entry adds that the term is vague and self-defined, noting that 19th- and 20th-century writers often called ethnic groups "races."
“A social construct that divides people into smaller social groups based on characteristics such as shared sense of group membership, values, behavioral patterns, language, political and economic interests, history, and ancestral geographical base.”
Racial Equity Tools, drawing on Adams, Bell, and Griffin's Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, defines ethnicity as a social construct rooted in shared culture, language, history, and ancestry — the cleanest statement of the distinction the page turns on, where ethnicity describes a cultural grouping rather than a racialized category.
“African American and Black are not always interchangeable; African American refers to the ethnicity, whereas Black is a racial group/category.”
The American Psychological Association draws the race-versus-ethnicity line concretely: "African American" names an ethnicity, while "Black" names a racial category, so the two are not always interchangeable. It cautions against using "African American" as a worldwide umbrella that would obscure other national origins.
Across these seven sources, ethnicity is treated as a cultural grouping distinct from race. Racial Equity Tools states it plainly: a social construct that sorts people by shared group membership, values, language, history, and ancestral geography. The American Psychological Association draws the line concretely. “African American” names an ethnicity, “Black” names a racial category, so the same person can be described by both terms while the words mean different things. That distinction is the page’s spine.
On usage, the sources converge on two rules. The first is restraint: mention a person’s ethnicity only when it is relevant to the story. The Diversity Style Guide and the National Association of Black Journalists state this in nearly identical language. Both extend the same standard to sexual orientation and religion, and both reserve race and ethnicity for cases where they genuinely bear on the news. The Global Center for Journalism & Trauma says the same. The second rule is self-identification: when ethnicity is relevant, ask the person or group how they identify rather than assigning a label. GCJT and Sierra Club both make this explicit, and GCJT adds that broad catch-alls like “minority” should give way to the specific term a source prefers.
The sources split along the definitional-versus-journalistic axis rather than in disagreement. Racial Equity Tools and APA supply the conceptual distinction; the Diversity Style Guide, NABJ, GCJT, and Sierra Club supply the editorial discipline for applying it. The Casey manual sits slightly apart as a list of preferred group terms, useful for the forms it endorses (“do not use Caucasian”) and a reminder that capitalization conventions are time-stamped: its 2013 lowercase “black” and “white” pre-date the 2020 capitalization consensus. A communicator can hold all of it at once: ethnicity is cultural, not racial; raise it only when it matters; and let the person’s own self-description settle the term.