In my opinion, it’s far more damaging to the forum when moderators stifle all discussion of this issue. There are respectful and productive things to be said about it.
For one thing, the consensus among major newspapers on the capitalization of white/black is not absolute; the New York Times only capitalizes “Black,” while the Washington Post capitalizes both “Black” and “White.” For another thing, many white people find the selective capitalizing demonstrated in this article to be demeaning. I am one of them. Silencing that voice in particular strikes me as prejudiced moderation. Finally, non-Americans may be curious about this recent change in vernacular. They are entitled to answers.
It is prejudiced moderation in the sense that we're prejudiced against generic topics, ideological flamewar, and extreme repetition. This topic covers all three.
As long as it remains unresolved among publishers and society at large, I expect that this topic and questions related to it will continue to come up. Is there a gold-standard earlier discussion you could link when such questions do arise, to explain the situation to newcomers such as the GP commenter with less chance of a flame war?
Flamewar topics will always come up. Intellectual curiosity is plainly not motivating the desire to bring them up or argue about them, so they're not what HN is for. I don't see why HN needs to host 'gold-standard' discussions about this, or why people are entitled to answers can't look elsewhere.
For one thing, the consensus among major newspapers on the capitalization of white/black is not absolute; the New York Times only capitalizes “Black,” while the Washington Post capitalizes both “Black” and “White.” For another thing, many white people find the selective capitalizing demonstrated in this article to be demeaning. I am one of them. Silencing that voice in particular strikes me as prejudiced moderation. Finally, non-Americans may be curious about this recent change in vernacular. They are entitled to answers.