Steve, you are on point with your discussion w/ Celine. Two points to that I think add nuance here:

(1) Not all biases are created equal. Humans are driven to make tribal associations and make them matter. AND humans have a perceptual system that by default attend to certain sensory inputs over others. e. g. if you traveled to a foreign land where some folks treated you with great respect and others tried to kill you. Among the various differences observed you notice all folks were either dressed in all white or in all black. Likely you would attend to this difference before noticing the different shoes they were wearing, etc. So it is natural that skin tone would be a frequent attribute for random attribution of importance. as opposed to other visible differences. (and of course less visible differences would be even less likely to be selected.) (NOTE: I am merely explaining why this particular random attribute would be preferentially selected at important, I of course am not trying to argue that it actually IS important.)

(2) You are right to notice that capitalizing Black is a racist thing to do. Just understand, the majority of blacks that I have discussed this topic with, actually WANT to maintain this distinction. They view Blackness as a point of commonality as a key part of their identity.

The would NOT want to remove that part of their identity, further they see banding together with other blacks as an important power move which strengthens them and is a key part of SOLVING the injustices perpetrated against African Americans.

This is sort of a "fight fire with fire" kind of approach. I definitely agree with you, that using this approach does perpetuate racism itself, since it highlights and ensconces the centrality of this color distinction. Rarely do I get understanding of this unintended consequence. Occasionally I do managed to get acknowledgement of the unintended consequence, but even when I do get acknowledgement of this. The black listener is generally UNWILLING to part with this identity, nor part with having a black-based response to racism.

your thinking on this matter is singular in my experience. but 'birds of a feather' .... perhaps you have met and know others who feel as you do???

you should ask them if they would be ok just erasing their black identity. e.g. they still have their same tastes and friends, but now, no one even conceives of any of this as being connected to skin color... that is just erased as an identity. would they be ok with this. I think most would not.

Btw, I hold no judgement on this point. We all have identities that are more happenstance than essential. So who am I to judge another's identity? I am just NOTICING what each person is holding as central.

--d

(2)