’ JK W

Words
An Encyclopaedic
Dictionary of Ethnic Bias
in the United States
Philip H. Herbst

Arranged alphabetically from "Abie" to

"Zulu," The Color of Words is the first ex­
tensive reference book devoted solely
to exploring the biased language of
America's multicultural society. Author
Philip Herbst tells the stories of words
used in the United States to label racial
and ethnic groups or to describe the
multicultural landscape of which they
are a part.
Based on scholarly research and an in­
vestigation of media-from periodicals to
TV to the Internet-this book defines over
850 ethnic and racial terms and expres­
sions that carry (or have carried) ethnic
bias or are commonly regarded today
as controversial or confusing. It explores
how meaning varies by social context
or circumstance and how it changes over
time. Entries are designed to provide as
much information as possible to ensure
a clear understanding of the terms, their
etym ology and th e ir developm ent.
Many include brief quotations from re­
cent writings.

Among the kinds of entries included are

• slang expressions and epithets for
nearly every race and ethnic group
in U.S. society,
An Encyclopaedic
Dictionary of Ethnic Bias
in the United States

Philip H. Herbst

INTERCULTURAL PRESS INC.

For information contact:
Intercultural Press, Inc.
P.O. Box 700 . '
Yarmouth, Maine 04096 USA
207-846-5168

© by Philip H. Herbst

Book design and production: Patty J. Topel

Dust jacket design and production: Patty J. Topel

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in

any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or
reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

01 00 99 98 97 1 2 3 4 5 '

Herbst, Philip H.
The color of words: an encyclopaedic dictionary of ethnic bias/ com­
piled by Philip H. Herbst. .
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
1. Racism—United States—Dictionaries. 2. United States—Eth­
nic relations—Dictionaries. 3. Racism in language—Dictionaries.
I. Title. ;
E184.A1H466 1997
305.8'00973—dc21 97-5024
CIP
____ ___________________________________ ___ _________________________________________________________________ V

FAIR HAVEN / ? 3 0 5 .g
BRANCH LIBRARy B E f t 3 5 "S'

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments..................................................................vii
About this Dictionary..............................................................ix
How to Use This Dictionary............................................. xvii
Pronunciation Symbols......................................................... xxi
Dictionary Entries......................................................................1
Core Works Consulted..........................................................243
Ethnic Epithets in Society................................................... 255
 Acknowledgments

I had substantial support in preparing this book. Numerous experts, scholars,

and other experienced individuals were consulted. In many instances the debt
takes the form of dependence on a great body of published works over which I
pored for hours. Some of the most important of these contributors are acknowl­
edged under “Sources and Methods” in “About This D ictionaryT hese and
many others are listed in “Core Works Consulted” or referenced in the body of
the entries, a regrettably inadequate way of expressing my thanks.
In other ways the debt is more direct and personal. I am particularly grate­
ful to the undaunted staff at Intercultural Press for the patience and resources
they put into the formidable task of producing a dictionary of this nature. Among
those due mention are David S. Hoopes, who saw fit to make the idea a book,
and Judy Carl-Hendrick, who, like David, labored over the manuscript more
times than I care to say. Toby Frank, president; Patty Topel, the designer; Kay
Hoopes; and Sarah Thistle were equally valuable and creative supporters of the
project. To Jann Huizenga, consultant; Jean Alexander, at Northwestern Uni­
versity; and Deborah L. Gillaspie, at the University of Chicago, for their com­
petent reviewing, my thanks go out. I am indebted also to the helpful staffs at
the Evanston and Wilmette public libraries and the Northwestern University
Library. In addition, I relied on a few assistants for helping with specific re­
search tasks. Among these were Amy Bohmell and Paula Bargiel, also due
gratitude.
What our team lacked in lexicographic expertise was undoubtedly com­
pensated for by editorial talent and no small measure of grit. For whatever
errors in both fact and judgment remain, I take full responsibility.
 About This Dictionary

The Color o f Words is about the language that captures the multiethnic temper
of our times. It tells the stories of words used in the United States to label
ethnic groups or to talk about the social landscape of which they are a part. In
particular, these are terms that may reflect ethnic or “racial” bias, bear confus­
ing or controversial meanings, or offend. To my knowledge this dictionary
stands alone: it is, as of the time of publication, the only extensive reference
collection devoted solely to the diverse and often disputed lexicon of American
ethnic life and identity.

Bias and Other Criteria for Entry

Along with U.S. ethnicity, bias is the key criterion for inclusion in this dictio­
nary. A word or expression carries ethnic bias when it expresses or harbors
partial attitudes about ethnic groups (see, e.g., kike, Mexican) or about social
diversity itself (e.g., melting pot, political correctness). Virtually all the words
here will— in one of their senses, in some way or context—restrict, misrepre­
sent, or distort how people are known. Many entries are of the same ilk as
ethnic jokes, scapegoating, and acts or crimes that communicate hatred. Many
are ideologically charged, playing a role in advancing the political interests of
one group against those of another. Because of their bias, such words may
create as well as dramatize the distance between the speaker and the person or
group spoken of, marking boundaries between “us” and “them.”
There are many kinds of biased words entered in this dictionary. The slang
epithets or slurs are among the most common. Slurs tend to identify people’s
flaws—rarely their virtues—as the user sees them (e.g., bigot, Buddhahead).
Slurs may also embody images of salient physical or cultural features, usually
exaggerated, of a group— features that readily fix stereotypes (slanteye, hula
girl). These biased expressions occur frequently between white people and
people of color. When used by a dominant group against minority groups, slurs
create a perception of keeping them “in their place” (e.g., wetback). For minor­
ity groups, chafing at the inequality, a response— such as gringo—provides a
x The Color of Words x x
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -V ;------------ r

way of talking back. This dictionary, however, also treats interminority bias
and theseven more common intragroup bias. Intragroup name-calling can be
used to scold group members for deviating from some group standard (nigger
lover) or for assimilating (apple, vendido). For more on slurs, see “Ethnic Epi­
thets in Society,” pages 255-59.
Group slurs are not the only forms o f bias covered, however. Also dis­
cussed are words that shape our political discourse (welfare mother, quotas),
caricature (Sambo), euphemize (ethnic cleansing), mask demeaning attitudes
(inner city), accuse (genocide), overgeneralize (Asian American), or exclude
(American when referring to a white person who speaks English).
Some of the words entered in the dictionary declare how a group or some
of its members identify themselves or wish others to regard them. These are
preferences that, since our society’s norms call for respecting them, may be
regarded as positive bias (e.g., Chicano, negritude). Like Chicano, other words
that, once pejorative, were reclaimed at some time by the targeted group are
also included (black, redneck).
Terms that are (to people who value civil, nonoffensive speech) acceptable
or neutral alternatives to tainted expressions are often entered under the biased
term (e.g., Romany appears under Gypsy). However, when generally accept­
able designations have been surrounded by some controversy (e.g., Native
American, Jew) or when readers may be in doubt about the current connota­
tions of words (e.g., buffalo soldiers, Brit), they appear as main entries.
Entries also include biased names for ethnic places (e.g., golden ghetto),
ethnic catchphrases and slogans (Black Power), and pseudoscientific “racial”
terms (Mongoloid). Here, too, are buzzwords and related references heard in
political and multicultural discourse (e.g., canon, quotas, third world), words
often freighted with bias or controversial meanings.
Criteria other than ethnic bias and controversy in U.S. usage have guided
the selection and exclusion of entries. In particular, most of the words are more
or less current. A number of words with a long life in U.S. society are included,
some of which may no longer be commonly used, or used with their original
meanings (Chinaman’s chance, plantation negro), but are still heard or seen in
print or exist in our collective passive vocabulary. In addition I have added
some terms used in the United States that refer largely to people overseas (e.g.,
geisha) or words occurring in a foreign language but heard here (la mancha),
though usually only when at least one of their senses applies to people residing
in the United States. The reader will find a few selections from other English­
speaking countries when these terms are also likely to be used here or at least
familiar to us (paki). Biased words that signal social class have been largely
excluded in the interest of sharpening the book’s focus, although a few, such as
disadvantaged, which may evoke ethnicity, are included. For the same reason,
 About This Dictionary_______ xi

terms referring ostensibly to religion have been minimized, although the inclu­
sion of some (e.g.,fish-eater), carrying a strong ethnic sense, seemed manda­
tory.
In many instances, the various entries are not commonly found in standard
dictionaries; some, to the best of my knowledge, are not published in any dic­
tionary. At least, they are not found with the l£vel of detail about usage, ety­
mology, or the social referent itself supplied in many of the entries here.
The book aims to be largely a dictionary—a book about words. However,
it supplements many of its entries with comments about group stereotypes and
their origins, ethnic identities and their vicissitudes, the sociopolitical milieu
in which groups have been defined, and debates in multicultural discourse. As
such, the book exceeds the standard boundaries of a dictionary and, as the title
indicates, skirts the territory of an encyclopedia.

Audience
The Color o f Words is designed for a wide audience: educators and business­
people, writers and editors, speakers and other media professionals, foreigners
and nonnative speakers of English, students of language and society, and any­
one who works or lives in multicultural settings. It will serve as a companion
to anyone who wishes to know more about the meanings and bias or potential
offensiveness of ethnic words. In addition, I have tried to infuse many of the
entries with the kind of interest that would make the book appealing to any
word lover or observer of the ethnic scene seized by a browser’s impulse.

More about What This Book Is—and Isn’t

The 851 main entries in The Color o f Words should serve the needs of the vast
majority of readers. Still, the book is not an exhaustive compilation. I apolo­
gize for any omission of terms some readers or members of certain groups may
have wanted to see and for the inevitable omission of some meaning of a word
that is here. I also recognize that some entries could have been rounded out
more than they were. I plan to remedy such deficiencies, omissions, and incon­
sistencies in any forthcoming edition, for which I welcome suggestions from
readers. ,
At least some of the basic stuff of lexicography— spellings, definitions,
usage notes, etymologies, and cross-references—are found in all the entries.
The goal, however, has not been rigorous lexicography. I am a cultural anthro­
pologist by training, not a lexicographer, and I make no pretense at having
followed the strictest lexicographic standards. This project started as part of
my work as an editor developing social science textbooks, in which I routinely
xii The Color of Words

field questions about the bias of ethnic words. My intention has been to com­
pile a useful collection of entries, many of which serve as brief articles about
biased words, in the format of a dictionary. While the hard-nosed lexicogra­
pher may not be satisfied, readers interested in knowing about the social con­
text of usage and the labeling and stereotyping of ethnic groups will find in
these pages ample stores of information. Readers are also provided with a gen­
erous list of supplemental sources, many of them scholarly, to find what is not
here.
If the dictionary is not meant to represent rigorous lexicography, neither is
it intended to read as a leftist tract on “political correctness.” For one thing, the
words included are not just those used by the powerful to demean or control
minorities. Virtually all group bias is covered. In addition, by holding to a
more-or-less descriptive tack, eschewing the sometimes righteous tones of “PC”
talk, and trying, wherever possible, to balance views, I have sought to compile
a dictionary that will serve readers from a fairly wide range of the political
spectrum. Still, my biases will be evident. The cautions about usage and occa­
sional prescriptive notes and other commentary may strike readers as more
political and moral than exacting and scientific. For this there is no apology. I
expect that the majority of readers who approach this subject matter will value
ethnic pluralism or at least be concerned about it and its consequences in our
society.
This dictionary is hardly the definitive answer to every possible question
about issues of bias and cultural sensitivity. No book can be any more than a
guide around the pitfalls of this challenging and changing area of language. On
this, more needs to be said.
The usages described here take shape in our pluralistic society, where dif­
ferent groups meet and often clash. These socially constructed references are
blown about by political winds, changing as our society changes, varying by
region, and taking on different senses or connotations as the relationship be­
tween user and audience changes. Offensive words may be adopted by the
group that experiences prejudice and used for its own purposes, including self­
definition, solidarity, or irony. Biased words also broaden their target: slurs
originally intended for one group, especially if they lack what Hughes (1991,
136) calls a clear “etymological anchor” (e.g., gook as opposed to Jap), may
come to be aimed at other groups. Some words are used with different mean­
ings for different groups, or the same meaning for different groups. Meanings
are often flexible, shifting, and ambivalent, reflecting a diversity of users, tar­
gets, identities, and social perspectives.
To further complicate matters, a group will not necessarily agree on what
it wishes to be named, if it wishes to be named—or even grouped— at all. Nor
do many individuals (consider, for example, persons of multiracial background)
 About This Dictionary______ xiii

identify with any particular ethnic group, or any single group. Nor does use of
a self-descriptive term always mean true identification with a group; it could
simply be a rhetorical choice. Ethnic naming is often a dicey business.
Readers are also reminded that even words normally rejected by groups
because of bias against them are used in historical contexts (in print today
often with quotation marks), in fiction, or when quoting a speaker. They are
also used in private, when the user and the audience are on familiar terms, or in
other forms of social interaction. When spoken, their meanings are colored by
tone of voice and other paralinguistic factors. The situation and the intentions
of the speaker are always at work, shaping the use and meaning of these words.
There are really few if any hard-and-fast rules about what terms become
biased or when. Responsible communicators will take care to consult their
audience for current preferences and self-definitions. This dictionary will serve
as more than a fruitful beginning.

Clarification of Purpose
This dictionary is not intended for any purpose other than as a guide to under­
standing ethnic usage. The terms are not meant as descriptions of people, nor
are words being promoted that may be offensive to certain members of our
society or those of other countries. If anything, the book should serve to em­
phasize that the entries are labels for the classifications people make in society,
and that these classifications are often made for reasons of manipulation or
mischief. An understanding of the ethnic words discussed in this dictionary
can serve to expose the inequality and other stresses in relations between groups
and to open lines of communication.

Sources and Methods

The sources listed in “Core Works Consulted” at the end of the dictionary
represent a body of nonfiction texts that call for special acknowledgment. Many
were consulted to cull words, their spellings, definitions, and connotations.
Discrepancies between sources were often resolved by resorting to more re­
cent or scholarly sources or, sometimes, by drawing from primary sources.
Among the core reference books especially valuable to me were the fol­
lowing, listed here alphabetically by author or editor: E. Ellis Cashmore’s Dic­
tionary o f Race and Ethnic Relations', Dictionary o f American Regional En­
glish (Frederic G. Cassidy, ed; vols. 1 and 2 were published when research for
this book was under way); Robert L. Chapman’s New Dictionary o f American
Slang\ Stuart Berg Flexner’s I Hear America Talking', Random House His­
torical Dictionary o f American Slang (vol. 1, J. E. Lighter, ed.); H. L.
Mencken’s two volumes, The American Language: An Inquiry into the Devel­
opment o f English in the United States; Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary o f Slang
xiv The Color of Words

and Unconventional English; Abraham Roback’s A Dictionary o f International

Slurs; Richard A. Spears’s Slang and Euphemism; T. M. Stephens’s Dictio­
nary o f Latin American Racial and Ethnic Terminology', and Harold Wentworth
and Stuart Berg Flexner’s Dictionary o f American Slang.
A helpful book that, early in my research, began to shape my thinking
about the social dimensions of ethnic epithets was Irving Lewis Allen’s Un­
kind Words: Ethnic Labeling from Redskin to WASP. Another handy source was
Hugh Rawson’s Wicked Words: A Treasury o f Curses, Insults, Put-Downs, and
Other Formerly Unprintable Terms from Anglo-Saxon Times to the Present.
Clarence Major’s Juba to Jive: A Dictionary o f African-American Slang was
consulted for a number of words in black English.
Wherever possible, for spellings of entry words and other lexicographic
and etymological information, I have tried to follow standard dictionaries used
in publishing, particularly Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary ( 10th ed.,
1993) and Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1986). Also frequently
consulted was The Oxford English Dictionary. All dictionaries used are listed
under “Core Works Consulted.” Many of the words here are not found in these
dictionaries, however. In such cases I relied on other dictionaries and my own
citation file data drawn from various sources. In addition, some spellings pre­
ferred by Webster’s, for example, African-American, may not be preferred by
the group named or by some of its members, who may use another spelling—
in this instance, African American (without the hyphen). When this was true, I
tried to follow the common group preference, especially when reinforced by
trends in publishing (i.e., nonhyphenation).
Many other sources were enlisted to mine background material on ethnic
relations and prejudice in the United States, including how ethnic climate in­
fluences and is influenced by language. For such purposes, texts on ethnic
relations, sociology, and cultural anthropology and standard and specialized
encylopedias were consulted. Other references served to ferret out specific
details about certain usages, including who uses them, for whom, in what con­
texts, and for what purposes. Journals, especially American Speech, the offi­
cial journal of the American Dialect Society, including issues from 1980 through
1996, proved helpful as a source of new words and meanings; and recent issues
of editorial newsletters, such as Copy Editor, helped to keep me current on
issues of spelling and acceptance of words by U.S. presses, as did reading
various publications or consulting with their staff. Sources used only for quo­
tations serving as illustrative examples are not listed in “Core Works Con­
sulted,” though they, too, provided information.
These various documented sources, however central to the research, repre­
sent only a part of the total effort. For a period of more than five years, from
late 1991 through early 1997,1 culled words and gathered information about
 About This Dictionary_______ xv

their usage from current newspapers, especially The New York Times, the Chi­
cago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times (some western and southern news­
papers were also used). In addition, magazines were inspected, including eth­
nic specialty publications, mostly national but some from different U.S. re­
gions. Letters to the editor in newspapers and ethnic publications were some­
times particularly fertile ground for tracking cuifent word preferences and view­
points about bias.
Other media also played a role: novels and short stories, poetry, radio and
television programs, films, song lyrics, bumper stickers, comic books, and the
Internet. In some phases of the research, personal assistants, listed in the Ac­
knowledgments, contributed to specific projects.
In some entries I found myself modifying or reinterpreting what was found
in scholarly sources in order to accommodate some new information about
usage I had uncovered in primary sources.
In a few instances academic specialists, particularly sociologists and an­
thropologists with whom I work regularly as an editor, kindly helped to fill
gaps in my knowledge, sometimes giving me access to information they ac­
quired through fieldwork. I also made a few field trips to ethnic neighborhoods
in Chicago to view graffiti, make inquiries with casual informants about the
use of words, or eavesdrop.
 How to Use This Dictionary

The entries in this dictionary explain words and expressions used in the United
States today that carry ethnic bias or are commonly regarded as controversial
or confusing ethnic usages. Many of the entries present social and historical
background to the terms as well as basic lexicographic information. More on
what constitutes the entries can be found in “About This Dictionary.”
The dictionary has been designed for readability and flexibility. There are
no recondite abbreviations (only singular, plural, and adjective are abbrevi­
ated) or special symbols that require the reader to flip forward or backward in
the book to some key to understand. Nor is there a rigid formatting imposed on
entries. Entries do follow a general plan, however. A boldface entry word (or
words) is always found at the beginning of the entry; a general definition im­
mediately follows the entry word in most instances; and cross-references, if
any, are placed at the end. Following are a few notes about the components,
formatting, and mechanics of entries.

Boldface Entry Words

Entry words, in boldface type, are alphabetized letter-by-letter, without regard
to spaces or punctuation. Articles (a, an, the) that in conversation or print would
appear before the entry word do not appear with the entry word or, if they do,
are shifted to the end of the boldface entry (following a comma) and not taken
into account in alphabetization.
The first entry word is sometimes followed by another boldface word, a
different form of the first word with a related meaning. In such instances, the
two terms are separated by a semicolon (e.g., anti-Semitism; anti-Semite).
The entry word usually presents the standard spelling and is sometimes
followed by boldface variant or nonstandard spellings. Variants are listed roughly
according to use or familiarity today (only a very few are archaic or obsolete,
though still sometimes found in print, for example, in quotations from histori­
cal sources). The reader should be aware, however, that many slang words are
not standardized in spelling; “variant” slang spellings offered may be more or
less equal variants and are not exhaustive.
xviii The Color of Words

Definitions, Usage Notes, and Social Commentary

The boldface entry word is followed directly by an explanation of its meaning.
The focus is on ethnic or multicultural meanings, though many of the words
clearly may have other meanings as well. As with variant spellings, the inclu­
sion of other ethnic senses is not necessarily exhaustive.
Other basic information about the word may include its stylistic status
(e.g., slang, offensive, vulgar, informal), comments or cautions about usage,
and any current body of opinion about the word, often from published schol­
arly sources, including social and political commentary. I have tried to docu­
ment usage authorities unless their views were a matter of common knowledge
and not special to any one authority. In addition the use of a word elsewhere in
the English-speaking world may be noted, as may U.S. regional usage. A phrase
such as “black slang” or “black English” means that the term is commonly
used among African Americans, not necessarily that other groups never use it
or even that it originated among African Americans.

Quotation Marks and Italics

Words used as words, foreign words, and certain expressions are in italics,
(e.g., Dutch cure, it’s all Dutch to me, to get in Dutch). Definitions are en­
closed either by quotation marks or by parentheses.

Illustrative Examples
Many entries contain at least one example, often included with or following
the explanation, showing the entry word in a typical or, sometimes, variant
sense. Occasionally the example is of a different but related form of the entry
word. Examples illustrate usage or help to expand or clarify the definition or
attest to a new or variant meaning. Examples are drawn from a wide array of
sources, cited parenthetically after the quotation (see “References” below).

References
There are two types of reference citation: one for illustrative examples and one
for documenting statements from authorities and other sources. Within entries,
full publication data are not given for sources of illustrative examples. They
are attributed by author (except often when a news story or letter to the editor
is cited), work, year (and day and month in the case of periodicals), and—
unless there have been many editions of a book—page number and are en­
closed in parentheses (e.g., Dana Stubenew, A Cold-Blooded Business, 1994,
36-37). Sources for other statements or authorities are cited by the author-date
system: the author’s name and year of publication, followed by a page number
where appropriate, also enclosed in parentheses (e.g., Okihiro 1994,144). Com­
plete information for these latter references is grouped alphabetically by au­
thor under “Core Works Consulted” at the end of the dictionary.
 How to Use This Dictionary______ xix

Etymologies, Histories, and Dates

Within the entry body, etymologies, tracing the use of the word back in En­
glish and from one language to another, commonly appear, especially where
the term has been related to ethnicity from its origin (e.g., Jew, Yankee) or
where there is some etymological controversy that may be of interest to the
reader. Etymologies are kept as simple as possible, though comments about
the status of etymologies are included in a few instances.
Time of origin or common use is frequently designated by a decade, a part
of the century, or a historical period or event, such as a war. Dates of earliest
use are typically dates of earliest known printed or written use. Not all entries
have such dates, indicating either that they did not turn up in the course of
research or, if they did, that they could not easily be confirmed. The absence of
a date may also mean that the usage is fairly recent. There may be further
historical notes about people, the social milieu in which they became the tar­
gets of bias, and the origins of stereotypes defining them.

Pronunciation
In some instances, pronunciation is given, mostly for a non-English entry (e.g.,
gaijin), but also when mispronunciation can change the sense of a word or
become the vehicle of a slur. Pronunciation and stress are shown in standard
symbols, as used in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed., 1993).

Plural, Singular, Feminine, and Adjectival Forms

Plural and singular forms are provided when the reader is unlikely to know
them or they are not readily found in a dictionary. These forms appear after the
boldface entry term and are labeled, respectively, pi. and sing. A slash sepa­
rates a masculine from a feminine ending {Latino/a). Adj. refers to the adjecti­
val form of the word.

Synonyms and Short Forms

Where available and useful to the reader, these may be interspersed within the
entry body or placed at the end.

Cross-References
Following an entry word without an explanation, see is used to refer the reader
to the entry where the term is discussed (e.g., Moslem. See M u s l i m ) . At the
end of an entry, see also references steer the reader to other entries in the dic­
tionary that may also be of interest. See also references point to words with
similar meanings, to other words used for the same ethnic group, to words that
contrast in meaning, or to other related subject matter. Some end-of-entry cross­
references are extensive and have been broken down into subcategories for the
xx The Color of Words

reader’s convenience. See especially is used to refer to words most closely

related to the entry at hand.

A Note on the Use of “Race”

“Race” is a folk, not a scientific category, used for classifying people in our
society. Most scientists today have abandoned the attempt to find any biologi­
cal rationale behind the concept. Instead, for many the idea of ethnicity has
taken priority in classifying people once seen in terms of “race.” If it must be
used, this scientifically dubious and highly politicized term cries out for quota­
tion marks when in print. In this book, however, we have had to be selective in
the use of marks. Because of the necessary frequent use of the term in the
dictionary, the accompanying use of quotation marks would have presented a
design and editorial problem that we could not live with even though the term
is in dispute. A fuller explanation of the problems with the usage can be found
under the entry race in the dictionary.
 Pronunciation Symbols*

3 ...banana, collide n...no, own

ar... further, bird rj...sing, finger
a...m at, patch o.. .bone, know
a...day, drape o...saw, all
a .. .bother, cot p...pepper, lip
b...baby, rib r...red, car
ch...chin, reach s...source, less
d...did, adder sh...shy, mission
e...bet, peck t.. .tie, attach
e.. .beat, nosebleed th...then, either
f .. .fifty, cuff u...book, pull
g---go, big ii...rule, youth
h...hat, ahead v...vivid, give
1...tip, active w...we, away
1...site, buy y...yard, young
j...jo b , gem z...zone, raise
k...kin, cook '...m ark preceding a syllable with
primary stress [a-'par-tat, - tit].
1_lily, pool
,...m ark preceding a syllable with
m...murmur, dim
secondary stress [a-'par- tat, - tit].

♦Symbols and sample words were taken from M erriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed. (Spring­
field, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1995). •

A changed to mean providing com pensa­
ABC. See COON.
Abie, Abbie, Abe, Aby. From the proper
name Abraham, for the Old Testament
Jewish patriarch, a nickname for a Jew­
ish m ale that originated in the early
twentieth century. It may be considered
offensive when used genetically or to
mean a stingy person. It was also once
used for a tailor (Wentworth and Flexner
1975), from the association o f the tai­
loring trade with Jews. M ajor (1994) lists
it as a black usage (1930s-40s) for a
white Harlem tailor, most likely Jewish.
Partridge (1984) gives “Aby, Aby, Aby,
my boy!” as a Jew-baiting chant.
For other words for Jews, see J e w ,
cross-references. See especially A b ie
K a b ib b l e .
A b ie K ab ib b le. A n expression fo r an
unassim ilated Jewish immigrant, some­
tim es also known as a greenhorn, from
the ch aracter in A bie the Agent, the
co m ic s trip (1 9 1 4 -4 0 ) by H arry
Hershfield. It is often considered offen­
sive.
For other words for Jews, see J e w ,
cross-references. See especially A b i e ,
GREENHORN.
Abo. See n a t i v e / n a t i v e p e o p le .
ab origin e, A borigine, A boriginal. See
n a t iv e / n a t iv e p e o p l e .
Acadian. See C a ju n , F re n c h y , fr o g .
ace boon coon. See coon.
ace o f sp ades. See black as th e ace of
SPADES.
affirmative action. Efforts designed to rem­
edy and prevent discrim ination. This
term, dating to 1935, became popular
during the civil rights movement, ap­
pearing in 1961 in an executive order
issued by President John F. Kennedy. At
that time it meant the removal of artifi­
cial barriers to the employment of mem­
bers o f m inority groups and women.
affirmative action 1
L ater in th e 1960s, the u sa g e was
tory opportunities to members of groups
who had been disadvantaged. Today, le­
gal usage focuses on formal efforts, both
public and private, to increase educa­
tional and em ployment opportunities,
including recruiting, hiring, contracts,
and promotion for women and ethnic
minorities, to overcome the present ef­
fects of past discrimination.
However the term is defined, the defi­
nition is likely to reflect one’s view of
such programs: opponents see them as
matters of arbitrary “preferences”; sup­
porters see them as remedies to unlaw­
ful discrimination and a means to inte­
grating the country.
Affirmative action plans have not al­
ways been upheld by court decisions and
are sometimes opposed even by mem­
bers of minority groups. Among the ar­
guments against affirmative action are
that it limits benefits to the more skilled
minorities rather than focusing on the
very poor, that it discriminates and thus
generates resentments in society, that it
can be stigmatizing for those members
o f minority groups who might be sus­
pected o f not getting ahead without it,
and that it amounts to little more than
tokenism.
Opposition, sometimes fervent, has
led to the use of the idea in attack poli­
tics.
Part of Helms’s campaign strategy
apparently was to run a series of
racially incendiary commercials on
television, one of which showed a
pair of w hite hands crum pling
u p ...a jo b rejection letter. The
voice-over led viewers of the com­
mercial to assume that the rejection
was due to affirmative action poli­
cies.
—Levin and McDevitt
1993, 38
Stanley Fish sees affirmative action
as a code word. Thus, he translates David
2 affrishy town
D uke’s words, “W hat we want in this
country is equal opportunity for every­
one, riot affirmative action for a few” as
really m eaning, “T hose niggers and
kikes and faggots have come far enough;
it’s time to stop them before they take
our jobs, cheat our children out of a place
in college, and try to move in next door”
(Fish 1994, 89).
A report by the National Association
of Black Journalists notes the bias in
synonyms such as racial preferences and
preferential treatm ent (Copy Editor,
October/November 1995, 1). The pur­
pose o f affirmative action, the report ar­
gues, is to counter the built-in prefer­
ences for white males. Other emotion-
tinged synonyms include quotas (at the
extreme end o f the affirmative action
scale), special treatment, and reverse
racism, buzzwords designating policies
believed to discrim inate against the
do m in ant group, specifically, w hite
males. “Anti-affirmative-action groups
frequently use the phrase ‘reverse rac­
ism ’ when equating a couple of centu­
ries of real racist policies and a program
like affirmative action” (Marian Marion,
Chicago Tribune, 18 March 1994, 24).
The concept o f affirmative action as
a m eans for solving discrepancies in
power relations and opportunities be­
tween groups is being superseded by that
o f the “management of diversity.” This
phrase refers to the creation of an envi­
ronment in which the groups for which
affirmative action opened opportunities
can work prejudice free and have equal
opportunity for advancement.
See also d iv e r s it y , p r o t e c t e d g r o u p s ,
QUOTAS, REVERSE DISCRIMINATION, TOKEN/
TOKENISM, TWOFER.
affrish y tow n, A ffrishy town. See
TOWN.
A frican. In Roman days, Africa was the
land of the Afers, an ancient people of
North Africa. African comes from the
Latin Africanus, “relating to Africa.”
African today is often understood as
referring to someone indigenous to or
living in Africa, especially black Africa.
In the North American colonies, how­
ever, especially in the eighteenth century,
black people called themselves African.
vThis latter usage survives, especially as
an adjective in the names o f societies or
churches, such as the African M ethodist
Episcopal Church. The word is also used
among Afrocentrics as a synonym for
any diaspora black people and am ong
militant African Americans for A m eri­
can blacks.
The Dictionary o f American Regional
English (1985) notes its euphemistic use
as an allusion to “nigger in the w ood­
pile.” M ajor (1994) says that a former
negative meaning o f African, “anger” or
“bad temper,” is not surprising given the
long association of the term in the United
States and colonial America with nega­
tive images, including “the D ark C onti­
nent.” African enters into several slang
compounds, too, such as African rail­
road, a reference to the predominantly
black-patronized municipal bus line in
San Francisco.
“Because my skin is black you will
say I traveled A frica to find the roots of
my race. I did not— unless that race is
the human race, for except in the color
o f my skin, I am not African” (Eddie
Harris, Native Stranger, 1992, 1).
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references. For words de­
scribing African groups or based on A f­
rican names, see A f r i k a , b u s h ( B u s h ­
m a n ), E t h io p ia n , H o t t e n t o t , K a f f ir ,
M a u M a u , N i g e r ia n , P y g m y , Z u l u . See
also da rkest A f r ic a , ju n g l e .
A frican A m erican, A frican -A m erican . A
n ig g e r
term originally used in the South for a
black person bom in Africa: “I ’d buy all
d e .. .colored African-American citizens”
(F red erick C onverse, O ld C rem ona
Songster [1836], in Hendrickson 1993,
4). It was also in use during slavery for
black people who were free. It is now

commonly used for any black person in
the United States o f A frican descent.
Some black people, however, such as
imm igrants from the Caribbean or Af­
rica, may not identify with the term; ei­
ther they do not wish to be lumped with
U.S. black people or they see the term
as being monolithic, while the cultures
and nations o f Africa and the diaspora
are very diverse. The term is not as
widely used as black, but as both noun
and adjective, it has largely supplanted
Afro-American.
Since the mid-1980s, use o f African
American has increased in the media and
is strongly in favor among many black
people in the U nited States. A frican
A m erican college students and other
young black people; educated, activist,
and professional groups; and Afrocen-
trics or any black people wishing to ex­
press pride in their African origins have
espoused it. The designation has been
recom m ended by the Reverend Jesse
Jackson (who does not always use it him­
self, however) and other African Ameri­
can leaders for its reference to a geo­
graphic and cultural base. “Black tells
you about skin color and what side of
tow n you live on. A frican A m erican
evokes discussion of the world” (Rever­
end Jesse Jackson, in Isabel Wilkerson,
New York Times, 31 January 1989.)
The same kind o f usage applies to
o th e r groups, for exam ple, C hinese
Am erican or Polish American. It substi­
tutes ethnicity for race, avoids the sym­
bolism of skin color, and suggests the
equality o f ethnic groups in a plural so­
ciety. For many, African American con­
veys a more positive image than does the
term black.
Yet the image is not one that all black
people accept:
According to my Teachers,
I am now an African-American.
They call me out of my name.
BLACK is an open umbrella.
Afrika 3
I am Black and A Black forever.
—Gwendolyn Brooks 1991, 5
In a 1988 Chicago Sun-Times call-in
survey, 62 percent o f the respondents
said they preferred African American to
black. However, according to a 1990
survey reported by A ndrew H acker
(1992), only 20 percent of black Ameri­
cans polled preferred to be called A fri­
can American; and a 1993 Roper Center
for Public Opinion Research poll found
that about 30 percent preferred African
American. Many African American pub­
lications still print black (or Black). The
cautious or uncertain w riter may use
African American first, perhaps as a nod
to political correctness, but then rely on
the less cumbersome black. Many pub­
lications alternate the term s, usually
without confusion.
As a noun, but especially as an ad­
jective, African American is sometimes
seen with hyphenation, but many presses
today regard the hyphenation as unnec­
essary. Dropping the hyphen not only
leads to a cleaner typographical look but
may also help to cancel the connotation
of marginality that comes with hyphen­
ation.
See also A f r ic a n , A f r ic a n g o d d e s s ,
A f r ic a n r e f u g e e , A f r o - A m e r ic a n ,
A f r o c e n t r is m , b l a c k , c o l o r e d , h y p h e n ­
ated A m e r ic a n , N e g r o / N e g r e s s , p e o p l e
OF COLOR.
African bunny. See j u n g l e bunny.
African goddess. A term used by lesbians
for an attractive, dark-skinned black
woman, connoting eroticism.
See also s n o w q u e e n .
African railroad. See A fric a n .
African refugee. Southern white deroga­
tory reference to a black person.
For other traditional southern words
for black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences.
Afrika, Afrikan. A spelling o f Africa used
by some black w riters in the U nited
4 Afro
--------------------------------- ^7--- ;----
States today (not to be confused with
Afrikaans, the Dutch-derived language
spoken in South Africa). It also occurs
in rap lyrics, as in D ef Je f’s lines: “To
uplift Afrikan people/Through violence
or nonviolence, I don’t care/As long as
we get there w e’re (W here?)” (“Black
to the Future,” in Stanley 1992, 76.)
Replacing the c in Africa with a k has
been regarded, since at least the Black
Power movement of the 1960s, as a way
o f eliminating linguistic colonialism.
See also A f r i c a , A m e r i k a .
Afro. An adjective often used as a combin­
ing form, meaning “African” (black) or
“Afro-American,” applied especially to
sty le s in m u sic o r c lo th in g (e.g .,
“Afrobeat,” “Afro-style”). When used as
a noun, Afro usually refers today to the
full bushy haircut, also known as a “natu­
ral,” popular in the 1960s among both
males and females, a symbol o f black
pride and a reaction against years of
black people imitating white styles.
Back in the late sixties and through
most of the seventies, when the
large Afro was the hairstyle of
choice among politically and cultur­
ally sincere black students, the hair
would nonetheless be trimmed if
one wanted to work in Wall Street.
— Stephen L. Carter, in Early
1993, 73
In the 1960s the Afro haircut became
popular among other groups, too. Pat­
terned on Afro was Isro, the name for a
bushy haircut worn by a Jew (also called
a Jewfro), and Anglo, the name given to
the same hairstyle on a non-Jewish white
person. But as nonblack people began
to shape their hair to match black styles
as an emblem of the counterculture, the
Afro lost its significance in black cul­
ture, becoming little more than a parody
o f black pride.
Afro is seldom heard as a noun for a
black person or an English or American
person o f African descent. It is often still
seen, however, as a combining form in
such terms as Afro-American or Afro-
Asian. Even the euphemistic Afro-Cau-
casian has gained in circulation: “I met
Victoria Rowell (the Afro-Caucasian star
o f ‘The Young and the R estless’)” (In ­
terrace, September/October 1993, 7).
v Afro may be shortened to fro.
' See also A f r i c a n , A f r o - A m e r i c a n ,
BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL, BLACK POWER.
A fro-A m erican, A froA m erican. A term
for an A m erican o f black African de­
scent. Although sometimes said to date
from the early 1850s, Flexner (1976,53)
dates it to the 1830s and says it was used
largely by northerners or applied to free
black people during the era o f enslave­
ment. M encken (1962, suppl. 1, 621)
cites a black leader, Dr. Kelly Miller,
who in 1937 argued that Afro-American
was coined in 1880 by T. Thom as For­
tune, editor o f Age. M iller also claim ed
that in the early twentieth century an En­
glish e x p lo re r o f A fric a, S ir H arry
Johnston, shortened Afro-American to
A fram erican, su g g ested perh ap s, as
Mencken (1962,622) notes, by the coin­
age Amerindian', but A fram erican'was
never very popular.
In any case, Afro-American was re­
vived by the 1960s. Donald Warden, a
black activist o f the 1950s from Oakland,
California, “was viewed as a revolution­
ary, a man ahead o f his time, because he
used the term ‘A fro-A m erican’” (Van
Peebles, Taylor, and Lewis 1995,21). By
the late 1980s the term was largely su­
perseded by African Am erican. H ow ­
ever, Afro-American is still used by the
Library o f Congress for cataloging pur­
poses and is retained also in nam es o f
organizations or programs, such as Yale
University’s African and Afro-American
Studies. In addition, some writers pre­
fer A fro-A m erican for the sym m etry
between it and Euro-American: “ ...h is
[Malcolm X ’s] pronouncements on ‘the
Black Revolution’ were guaranteed to
produce vastly different responses from
E uro- and A fro-A m erican listen e rs”
 Afro-Saxon 5

(Van Deburg 1992, 2). Along with many strong proponents

See also A f r ic a n A m e r i c a n , A fro, of Afrocentrism, there have been critics,
black, E u r o - A m e r ic a n . both white and black, who, for example,
Afro-Caucasian. See A fro . deny the premise that black people need
to be protected against contact with
Afrocentrism , Afro-centrism . From the
w hite people and w hite institutions.
1980s and 1990s, a noun, with its adjec­
They/may also oppose the concept of
tive form, Afrocentric (also African-cen­
history as therapy for black people and
tered), referring to an ideology and ap­
contend that the racial focus of Afrocen­
proach among some African Americans.
tric history does not prepare black chil­
A frocentrism takes pride in the customs
dren for a place in the larger society. In
o f African cultures and teaches their in­
addition, there have been many charges
fluence on African Am erican culture,
of irresponsible scholarship that falsifies
focuses on understanding the African
history (see, e.g., Mary Lefkowitz, Not
perspectives in culture and history, and
Out o f Africa, 1996). The Afrocentrics
reflects the contributions of Africans in
rebut that it is not protection o f black
history. For exam ple, the pervasive
people and glorification o f African cul­
theme in D etroit’s Paul Robeson Acad­
tures that they seek but a nonethnocentric
emy, in which each room is named after
view that provides accurate information
an African country, is “African-centered,
and balances the prevalent Eurocentric
o r A fro c e n tric , e d u c a tio n ” (K eith
p erspective (see, e.g ., M olefi K ete
Henderson, Christian Science Monitor,
A sante, in Pincus and Ehrlich 1994,
23 February 1993,11). Nevertheless, the
307-13).
term has not yet established meanings
Afrocentric may be used to refer to
evident to everyone.
the movement, to a person in the move­
Molefi Kete Asante’s The Afrocentric
ment, or to a black person’s identity as
Idea (1987) discusses the point of view
an African Am erican, A frica being a
that stresses African cultures and their
place in the mind as much as in geogra­
effects on the histories and cultures of
phy.
black people around the world. His
See also id e n t it y p o l it ic s , n e g r it u d e .
A fro cen tricity (1988) led the charge
against Eurocentric history. The African Afro-Saxon. The name for a black person
A m erican sociologist and civil rights who adopts the ways of a white person
leader W. E. B. Du Bois was an earlier or aspires to be like one. It was part of
proponent o f Afrocentrism. the African American vocabulaiy during
Interest in and identification with the 1960s, as in Nathan Hare’s The Black
A frica vary am ong A m erican black Anglo-Saxons (1965), which critiqued
people. W hile the U.S. nationalistic the African American middle classes, but
movement toward group consciousness its use is often attributed to Continental
A fricans (Smitherman 1994). Among
and cultural pride in Africa has been ar­
black users who do not support integra­
gued to be a source of self-esteem among
African Americans and a counter to the tion or assimilation into the mainstream,
d am ag in g p sy c h o lo g ic al effec ts o f it connotes an Uncle Tom, a term of
strong censure. Less frequently heard is
E u r o c e n t r is m , not all African Americans
Afropean (for more on this word, see the
subscribe to its main premises. Martin
San Francisco Examiner, 22 September
Luther King Jr., for example, said that
1991, A3); m ore recent is European
“The Negro is an American. We know
Negro (Smitherman 1994).
nothing o f A frica” (in W arren 1965,
For other words black people use for
216).
6 agringado
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially B a p , B l a c k
A n g l o - S a x o n , b o o j ie , b u p p i e , c h a l k e r ,
OFAY, OREO, STEPOUT, UNCLE TOM , WANNA­
BE, WHITE PADDY. • to be elitist or cocky to deflate his ego
agringado [a-grir)-vga- tho']. A Spanish
word meaning “like a foreigner” or “imi­
tating one”— that is, “gringolike”— sug­
gesting acculturation. A similar word is
inglesado, referring to a Latino/a’s use
o f English in place of Spanish.
In some contexts and in some Latin
American countries, the term is used for
a person whose features resemble those
of a blond North American or European;
it m ay also refer to any non-N orth
A m erican who behaves like a North
American or appears to have been in­
fluenced by U.S. culture. Mexicans use
the term derisively for Mexican Ameri­
cans whose Spanish is poor. Some Mexi­
can Americans have used it pejoratively
for those Mexican Americans who are
upwardly mobile and assimilating.
A few of these individuals overtly
reject the Mexican American way
of life and openly seek to identify
with Anglo culture. They adopt
Anglo symbols of dress and man­
nerism, frequently refuse to ac­
knowledge their ability to speak
Spanish, and seek Anglo goals and
Anglo association. These are the
agringados.
—William Masden, in Minako
Kurokawa, ed.,
Minority Responses, 1970,214
For other words Mexican Americans
use for other Mexican Americans, see
M a lin c h e , M e x ic a n o f a l s o , p o c h o /a ,
v e n d id o /a . See also A n g lo , g rin g o .
akata. A term used largely by some West
Africans for African Americans. It ap­
parently derives from at least one o f the
English-oriented pidgin or Creole lan­
guages of West Africa. In Krio, for in­
stance, spoken in Sierra Leone, akata
m eans a “hardened th ie f ’ (Fyle and
Jones 1980). Although one Nigerian in­
formant told me the term is not neces­
sarily an insult, another noted that in the
United States black Africans may use the
term for a black American they consider
or call his bluff. In Leon Ichaso’s 1994
vfilm Sugar Hill, a black A frican’s use o f
akata triggered a fight with an A frican
American:
First black African: “It won’t work.
You do your thing, I do my thing,
you know. It won’t work. We can’t
work with akata.”
First African American: “.. .What is
this akata business?”
Second black A frican: “B lack
American.”
Second African American: “.. .cot­
ton picker!”
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences
Aleut. See E s k im o .
alien, illegal alien. An alien is a person vis­
iting or residing in a nation o f which he
or she is not a citizen. This term has ap­
plications in U.S. law as a reference to
immigrants, immigrant workers, foreign
students or scholars, or any noncitizens.
Yet, the term is open to bias, its conno­
tation o f strangeness and foreignness
causing offense. In A m erican history,
foreigners, especially a large influx of
them, have commonly been stereotyped
as threats to the social fabric, dangers to
the nation’s economic well-being, and
trouble for the government. They are
faceless (often viewed as detached from
the rest o f the society) and seemingly
clannish (attached to their own culture).
A. M. Rosenthal captured the bias o f
alien. At the age o f seventeen, he dis­
covered that his father, an escapee of
Czarist Russia, had died before becom ­
ing a U.S. citizen, leaving the boy a for­
eigner having to carry an alien registra­
tion card. “Ever since, I have detested

the word ‘alien.’ It should be saved for
creatures that jum p out o f bellies in
films. Imm igrant is a better word, his­
torically proud” (New York Times, 9 Feb­
ruary 1993, A 15).
Illegal alien also occurs in legal dis­
cussion, but may be regarded as even
more offensive than alien. Elie Wiesel,
once asked what he thought of the term,
said that he had never met a human be­
ing w ho w as illegal. O wing to com ­
monly unjustified assumptions about the
illegality of the status o f an immigrant
w ithout papers— it is only a m inor of­
fense to cross the border without them—
the term is often put inside quotation
marks. The irony communicated, how­
ever, may be used in turn to dismiss ille­
gal immigration as a legitimate issue.
Many presses have replaced illegal
alien with undocum ented worker, un­
docum ented resident, or simply undocu­
m ented (used as a noun), and sometimes
collectively, undocumented workforce—
term s that emerged in government bu­
reaucracy as the number o f immigrants
in th e U n ite d S tate s w ith o u t visas
swelled into the millions. Undocumented
worker, originally designating Mexicans
who crossed the Rio Grande w ithout
papers, now designates persons of any
nationality entering the U nited States
w ithout visas. Safire (1994) notes, how­
ever, that because a visitor whose visa
runs out while in the United States is not
tru ly “undocum ented,” and because
those who are not aliens are not required
to have documents, the Immigration and
N aturalization Service has reluctantly
returned to using illegal alien. The Los
Angeles Times Style and Usage Guide
(1995) allows the use o f illegal immi­
grant, preferring it to illegal alien.
Hidden immigrants (i.e., those who
la b o r in v is ib ly in an u n d e rg ro u n d
economy, often exploited by their em­
ployers who do not acknowledge their
rights) and immigrant workers are re­
lated usages. Sin papeles, “without pa­
alligator 7
pers,” may be appropriate for a Span­
ish-speaking audience.
Among other related terms are resi­
dent alien, referring to someone allowed
perm anent residence by a nation in
which he or she is not a citizen, and en­
emy alien. The “enemy alien” category
in the United States was created by the
Alien Registration Act of 1940. Enemy
aliens are persons living in U.S. terri­
tory who by nationality are associated
with a country considered by the United
States to be belligerent. After the United
States declared war on Japan in 1941,
for example, this law identified Japanese
living in the United States and, ironi­
cally, their enemies, Koreans, as enemy
aliens.
See also f o r e ig n e r , i m m ig r a n t , m e n ­
ace, OTHER.
alligator. A white person who listens to jazz
but does not play it; also, a white jazz
musician. This term, possibly coined by
jazzm an Louis Armstrong to “describe
white musicians who stole (‘followed’)
the ideas of black players” (Major 1994),
was popular among black musicians,
especially in New Orleans, during the
earlier part of this century. It can, in some
instances, be disparaging, though it may
not be perceived as such by white people.
The rhyming phrase “See you later, alli­
gator” (first recorded as the title of a song
by R. C. Guidry in 1957) is said to de­
rive from this usage (D ictio n a ry o f
A m erican Regional English, [1985]).
Gator and gate are shortened forms.
The alligator as a representation o f a
nemesis o f black people dates to at least
the early nineteenth century. According
to Turner (1994,32), chronicles of Davy
Crockett dating to the 1830s claim that
the folk hero boasted that he was “half
horse, half alligator, a little touched with
snapping turtle” and was therefore ca­
pable of “swallowing a nigger whole if
you butter his head and pin his ears
back.” Just before the Democratic Na­
8 alligator bait
tional Convention o f 1984, white report­
ers, chastising Jesse Jackson for such
things as having changed his itinerary
without letting the press know, appeared
before the candidate with toy alligators,
squeezing them to m ake click-clack
sounds. Jackson protested that he was
“sick of the alligators,” referring to the
reporters as well as to their toys. “I think
the fact that he began to refer to the white
rep o rters as allig ato rs indicates his
awareness that they were out to get him,
in more ways than one” (Turner 1994,
39-40).
A lligator was also once used for a
frontiersman or Indian fighter, alluding
perhaps to his toughness or manliness,
and it has been a humorous nickname
for a resident of Florida.
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See also a l l ig a t o r b a i t .
allig ato r b ait, alligator-bait. Strongly de­
rogatory term for a black person from
the first half of the twentieth century. The
usage is largely southern, although M a­
jo r (1994) notes a Harlem use. The im ­
plication is that black people are good
for nothing but bait for luring alligators.
The Dictionary o f American Regional
English (1985) notes special usage for
black southern children, supposedly
afraid of alligators— and of being tossed
to them by mean white people. Short­
ened to ’gator bait.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See also a l l ig a t o r .
am algam ation, s e e a s s im il a t io n .
A m erasian ; E u ra sia n . From the 1950s,
Amerasian is a blend o f American and
Asian, patterned after Eurasian. A per­
son of mixed Asian and American de­
scent, originally the offspring o f an
A sian woman and a w hite Am erican
m an. It has referred especially to a
mixed-race person fathered by a U.S.
serviceman, usually white or black, sta­
tioned in an Asian country. N ot to be
confused with Asian American.
In recent U.S. imm igration history,
Amerasians include the group o f refu­
gees created by the presence o f U.S. ser­
vicemen in Vietnam during the Vietnam
vWar. These biracial progeny have expe­
rienced the disparagem ent o f both the
Vietnamese (they are called “dust of life”
in Vietnam) and the A m ericans. A m ­
erasians are also found in at least eight
other nations as a result o f an American
presence. The nam es applied in these
countries all indicate that these mixed
people are targets o f prejudice. In Japan,
fo r exam ple, they are hanyo, “h a lf
p e o p le ” ; in K o rea, p a n ja n t, “h a lf ­
breeds.” The term Amerasian itself is not
derogatory, however.
Eurasian, from the 1830s, blending
European and Asian, means a person o f
mixed European and Asian descent. For
the English, a Eurasian is often som e­
one o f European and Asian Indian de­
scent, whereas for A mericans the term
is used m ore generically. “E u rasian
Brandon Lee (son o f Bruce Lee; white
mother) died under suspicious circum ­
stances” (Jamoo, Interrace, September/
O ctober 1993, 12). Som e persons o f
mixed European and Asian descent may
be sensitive to pejorative connotations,
as was Han Suyin, o f Chinese and E u­
ropean descent: “I am Eurasian, and the
word itself evokes in some minds a sen­
sation of moral laxity. People never think
about words, they only feel them ” (A
M any-Splendored Thing, 1952, 167).
See also b ir a c ia l , h a l f - b r e e d , h a l f ­
caste, HAOLE, INTERRACIAL, MISCEGENA­
TION, MIXED, MONGREL, MULTIRACIAL.
A m erican. From Am erica (the continent),
w h ich d eriv e s fro m A m e r ic u s, th e
Latinized form of the Italian Amerigo,
first nam e o f th e Ita lia n n a v ig a to r
Amerigo Vespucci. Vespucci explored
America on voyages made between 1499
and 1504. In a treatise o f 1507, the Ger­
man geographer M artin W aldseemuller

gave Vespucci’s first name to the land
he had explored. (The name has also
been said to come from Richard Ameryk,
the name o f a patron of explorer John
Cabot.) The adjective form describes
anything in the Western Hemisphere, but
the adjective and noun have many mean­
ings relating to people in particular.
A lthough colonial M assachusetts
Puritan m inister Cotton M ather used
Am erican as a noun to designate a set­
tler from England, the term was com­
monly used to refer to American Indi­
ans. According to Vaughn (1982), before
the eighteenth century the term was syn­
onymous with Indians, and people of
E uropean descent in N orth A m erica
were known largely by their nationality
(English, French, etc.) or as Christians.
Not until the European colonial popula­
tion began to swell, continues Vaughn,
did Am erican come to be applied more
to European immigrants and their de­
scendants. By the eve of the American
Revolution, Americans of European de­
scent had defined American wholly in
terms of themselves, both Native Ameri­
cans and black people being excluded.
Today, Am erican is applied to any
citizen or inhabitant o f nations in either
N orth or South America, although in
common, long-established (and no doubt
occasionally chauvinistic) usage, it re­
fers to a U.S. citizen. Although some
C anadians and Latin Americans have
found this U.S. usage irksome, none of
the peoples o f the Americas outside the
United States have coined a name for
citizen s o f the U nited States that is
widely recognized except for Yankee,
which is frequently pejorative and can
also be confused with the name used for
N ew E nglanders, o r som etim es any
northerner. A number of guidebooks to­
day, however, are recommending U.S.
citizen s for people from the U nited
States, especially to distinguish them
from Central and South Americans and
Canadians.
American 9
In many references in English, quali­
fiers are often used with American, for
example, Central American', or else spe­
cific national groups are named, such as
Costa Rican or Peruvian. In Spanish,
however, America may be used for the
Western Hemisphere, Latin America, or
the United States; a citizen of the United
States is known as un/a norteamericano/
a, “North American,” though this term
has the dual disadvantage of lumping
Canadians with U.S. citizens and fail­
ing to recognize that Mexico is part of
North America.
As a term once used in the United
States only for residents of European
descent, American may become stereo­
typical when it implies ethnic or racial
affiliation. Real American, good Am eri­
can, true American, all-American, and
100 percent American have often been
equated with white, native-born, En­
glish-speaking residents, excluding oth­
ers. Because of the term’s connotations,
Americans o f Asian descent or other
m inorities may feel the need to call
themselves “real American” to empha­
size their Americanness. American char­
acter, appearing when the user pleads
for “national unity” or “preservation of
our heritage,” may, in some circum ­
stances, carry code-word characteristics,
allowing the audience to safely give full
rein to their prejudices against im m i­
grants and nonwhite people without spe­
cifically naming them as such.
Exclusive usage o f such terms, how­
ever, may occur without any real intent
to insult. Talking about a new Vietnam­
ese restaurant in her hometown, a white
woman once wrote to William Wong of
the Oakland Tribune that “We were there
the other night and we were the only
Americans there.” Wong replied regret­
fully, “She probably m eant the only
white people” (from William Wong, in
Takaki 1989, 6).
American as a biased term is hardly
restricted to political conseryatives, na-
10 A m erican Indian „ ,
----------------------------------^ ^ ----
tivists, or bigots. Since the 1960s at least,
many on the left politically have accused
w hite'm ainstream citizens of being un-
Am erican because of their rightist or
supposed racist tendencies.
A m erican has also been used by
Latinos to name white non-Latinos. See
also A n g l o .
English as it is used in the United
States is sometimes known elliptically
as American, though more commonly as
Am erican English or United States En­
glish.
See also A m e r ic a n iz e , A m e r ic a n w a y ,
A m e r ik a , Y a n k e e .
A m erican Indian. See I n d ia n .
A m erican ize, A m erican izatio n . A m eri­
canize means to make American, in the
sense of making American in character,
assimilating to U.S. customs, or natural­
izing as an American citizen. In the early
twentieth century, the “Americanization”
movement, as it was known, sought to
facilitate the assimilation of new immi­
grants through such means as English-
language education and classes in citi­
zenship and A m erican history. “The
problems of Americanization usually are
conceived as questions of assimilation
o f the European aliens and this book
devotes space proportionately to the
technic of Americanization in this field”
(W inthrop Talbot, ed., H andbook o f
Americanization, 1920, 74).
The Americanization movement be­
came largely coercive and sometimes re­
pressive, many business interests turn­
ing against trade unionism and other
forms of socialism (as they were known)
as foreign threats. Im m igrants, espe­
cially those from eastern and southern
Europe, were regarded as being of infe­
rior stock, and the Ku Klux Klan used
Americanization in its promotion o f a
policy that called for the deportation of
“undesirable” non-Americans. The En­
glish-only m ovem ent today in some
ways echoes the early Americanization
movement. To the extent that Am erican­
iza tio n is s till h e a rd , it m ak es
multiculturalists nervous, “ ...so-called
Americanization not only threatens to
destroy the minorities’ cultural heritage,”
writes Alex Thio (Sociology; 1994,311),
speaking of the condemnation o f cultural
imperialism, “but also encourages teach­
ers to stereotype minority students as
‘culturally deprived.’”
In England, A m ericanize has been
used in party politics with intent to scorn.
See also A m e r i c a n , A m e r ic a n w a y ,
ASSIMILATION.
A m erican way. An ambiguous phrase, a
“n a tio n a lis tic R o rsc h a c h te s t,” as
Norman Solomon (1992) calls it, whose
meaning varies with politics, class, or
one’s status relative to the mainstream.
For members o f People for the A m eri­
can Way, it means fairness, justice, and
tolerance; for those at the more conser­
vative end o f the political spectrum, it
has suggested such things as a praise­
worthy value system in opposition to
communism (for those such as Senator
Joseph McCarthy, it meant total intoler­
ance o f com m unism ). Safire (1993b)
links it with a patriotic characterization
o f free enterprise but says the phrase is
now restricted largely to Fourth o f July
oratory. According to M encken (1962,
suppl. 1, 306 n.10), the Am erican way
o f life w as p o p u larized by W endell
Willkie during his Republican presiden­
tial campaign o f 1940 but had been used
by Franklin Roosevelt and others before
him.
See also A m e r i c a n , A m e r i c a n iz e .
A m e r ik a , A m e r ik k k a {adj. A m e ri-
k[kk]an). Originating in the 1960s and
deriving from the G erman Amerika, this
term is used for U.S. society, seen espe­
cially by black people as racist and op­
p re ssiv e . In th e v a ria n t sp e llin g
Amerikkka, the three k ’s represent the
initial letters of Ku Klux Klan. In 1990
the rap performer Ice Cube recorded the
fierce “Am erikkka’s M ost Wanted.”

See also A f r i k a , w h it e p o w e r s t r u c ­
ture.
Amerind, Amerindian, Am erind, Amer.
Ind. Contraction o f Am erican Indian.
According to Mencken (1962, suppl. 1,
622 n.2), Amerindian was first proposed
in 1899 by John Wesley Powell, of the
Bureau o f American Ethnology, and was
soon abbreviated to Amerind. Perhaps
o n ce th o u g h t u se fu l to d istin g u ish
American Indians from people from In­
dia, the terms are infrequently used to­
day and are sometimes regarded as jar­
gon. Among some advocates of politi­
cal correctness, they may be viewed as
problem atic labels because of their use
by social scientists. However, the terms
were com mon among U.S. social scien­
tists only in the 1970s (as Axtell [1988]
notes, though they are still in use among
Canadian social scientists).
Amerindian may still be used in ref­
erence to Indian populations outside the
United States. For a Latin American con­
text, Am erindian may be used, while
Native Am erican might seem inappro­
priate. Ana Castillo chooses Amerindian
in her Massacre o f the Dreamers (1994),
a contribution to ethnic and w om en’s
studies: “C astillo... here reflects on the
place of Mexic Amerindian women and
on the need for Xicanisma, a politically
active and socially committed Chicana
fem inism ....” (Booklist, 15 September
1994, 88).
See a l s o I n d ia n , N a t iv e A m e r i c a n .
A m os ’n ’ Andy. Derogatory slang word
used by whites to refer to black people.
Amos Jones and Andy Brown were char­
acters from the radio show Am os V
Andy, which ran from 1928 to 1960, and
the television program, running from
1951 to 1953, which it inspired. Created
by two white men, these shows featured
comic situations involving stereotypical
black attitudes, situations, and language
regarded as insulting to black Ameri­
cans. The protests o f civil rights groups
helped bring the program to an end.
Anglo 11
“Slave dialect might sound demeaning
to modem sensibilities, like an ‘Amos
’n ’A ndy’ skit” (Walt Harrington, Cross­
ings, 1992, 27).
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially S a p p h ir e , S t e p in
F e t c h it .
Angela. A term used within the black com­
munity (especially the Congressional
Black Caucus) to identify any black fe­
male leader who is hardened in her views
and unlikely to compromise on issues.
It was modeled on the first name of the
African American activist and w riter
Angela Davis, known especially for her
connection with radical groups in the
1970s. “And there are an equal number
of ‘Angelas,’ sisters to the ‘M alcolm s’”
(Howard Fineman, Newsweek, 5 July
1993, 26).
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially M a l c o l m .
Anglo. From Late Latin Angli (English),
originally a combining form, this term
is short for Spanish angloamericano and
English Anglo-American (dating back to
the late eighteenth century). It was first
used as a free form in the early nine­
teenth century.
From the early 1940s, it has com ­
monly been a part of Mexican American
slang for white, non-Mexican Americans.
“In the 1800s, Anglos migrated illegally
into Texas, w hich was then part of
Mexico, in greater and greater numbers
and gradually drove the tejanos (native
Texans of Mexican descent) from their
la n d s ...” (Gloria Anzaladua, Border­
lands/La Frontera, 1987, 4). Similarly,
Cubans in Miami have applied the term
to white non-Cubans. In the southwest­
ern United States, it has been used by
Native Americans as well as Chicanos or
Hispanics to designate anyone not native
to the area— anyone not Spanish-speak­
ing or Native American— carrying the
broad sense o f “others.” “Murphy [won­
12 Anglocentrism
dered] what it would be like for a Pueblo
boy to bring an Anglo into his world, an
outsider, especially someone he cared
about.. (Donald R. Gallo, ed., Join In,
1993,34). The term as used among Mexi­
can Americans is usually limited to the
dominant society of white people, often
connoting privilege, but it may also ap­
ply to nonwhite people.
A lthough the term often refers to
w hite, E nglish-speaking A m ericans,
those so named may not be o f Anglo-
Saxon descent, for example, the Irish,
who in fact do not like being called
“Anglos.” The Los Angeles Times Style
and Usage Guide (1995) prefers white
as a more accurate term than Anglo.
Anglo was probably originally used
by Latin groups as a pejorative for non-
Latin white people (Flexner 1976; Allen
1990, 58-9). W hite, English-speaking
A m ericans, out o f self-confidence or
perhaps guilt (or simply unawareness of
any derogatory connotations the term
might carry), have adopted it to refer to
themselves in contrast to Americans of
Latin descent. The term is commonly
seen in newspapers and social science
texts without negative connotations. The
form of English spoken by Anglos in the
Southwest is sometimes called “Anglo
English,” as opposed to “Chicano En­
glish.”
Among its other uses, Anglo may also
apply more specifically— and, accord­
ing to some guidebooks to biased lan­
guage today, m ore correctly— to an
American bom in England or o f English
descent and culture. It may also refer to
any American, especially a U.S. inhab­
itant, whose first language is English,
and to a Canadian whose first language
is E n g lish as d istin g u ish e d from a
French-speaking Canadian. In Canada,
anglo, sometimes used in contrast with
franco, is a shortening of anglophone, a
native English speaker; an alternative is
A n g lo -C anadian. F rench C anadians
may use Anglo as a term o f contempt.
See also A m e r i c a n , A n g l o c e n t r is m ,
A n g l o - S a x o n , g r in g o / a , w h i t e .
A nglocentrism . The view or assumption
that white, English-speaking Americans
are at the center o f U.S. civilization. This
view is often associated today, especially
' among cultural pluralists, with racism
and cultural imperialism. “Until recently,
American history texts were resolutely
Anglocentric, beginning the im m igra­
tion story with the first successful En­
glish settlements” (Time, 142, no. 21,
Fall 1993, 29).
See also A f r o c e n t r is m , A n g l o , c u l ­
t u r a l i m p e r ia l i s m , E u r o c e n t r is m , n a -
t iv e - c e n t r i s m , r a c is m .
A nglo-Saxon. From the Latin A ngli plus
Late Latin Saxones, for the Germanic
peoples who ruled England from the fifth
century to the Norman Conquest. It is
now often a reference to a native o f En­
gland or a white gentile o f an English­
speaking nation, though in a broader
sense it may include anyone o f English,
Scots, or Irish descent (in the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, however,
those who equated U.S. culture with
Anglo-Saxon culture attem pted to ex­
clude from the dominant society all but
those of English descent). In a linguis­
tic context, it formerly meant Old En­
glish (the E n g lish lan g u ag e b efo re
1150), but as it is often used now it
means blunt or vulgar language.
A lthough the term itself does not
norm ally carry any bias, its referent,
am ong the E nglish and m any w hite
A m ericans, has long been associated
ethnocentrically with civilization and
with those who rule. Sam Houston, who
led Texan Americans into the M exican
War (1846-47), “consistently thought of
the struggle in his region as one between
a glorious Anglo Saxon race and an in­
ferior Mexican rabble” (Horsman 1981,
213). A ttributing w hat is seen as the
greatness of U.S. culture to Anglo-Saxon
influences remains predominant in the

thinking of many today, including Arthur
M. Schlesinger Jr. (1992), who identi­
fies the Anglo-Saxon traditions as the
source of most o f our common valued
ideals, and Richard Brookhiser (1991),
who extols the ways of the WASR
See also A fro-S axon, A nglo, B lack
A nglo-S axon, WASP, w h i t e .
an ti-C h ristia n . See C h r is t ia n .
an tisem itism , anti-Sem itism ; antisem ite,
anti-Sem ite. Antisemitism is prejudice
and discrimination against Jews. Semite
derives from Shem, the name of the old­
est son o f Noah in the Old Testament.
Antisemitism was probably coined by an
anti-Jew ish propagandist said to have
been a converted Jew, W ilhelm Marr,
founder of the Anti-Semitic League in
Germany, in a pam phlet published in
1879. At that time in Germany, usage
conveyed the idea that hatred for the
Jews was hatred for a race, serving to
further open the way to pseudoscientific
theories that gave Jew-baiters a rationale
for their prejudices. Indeed, today, as
Chanes (1995, xv), citing the writing of
historian Yehuda Bauer, notes, with the
hyphenation and capitalization the term
emphasizes a fictitious “Semitism” that
suggests a racially rather than linguisti­
cally defined group. Chanes prefers an­
tisemitism, a preference followed in this
book. (Others opt for anti-Jewism.) A l­
though Semite refers to Arabs as well as
Jews (or to anyone speaking a Semitic
language), historically antisem ite has
been used for those who are prejudiced
or hostile toward or who discriminate
against Jews specifically.
The practice of antisemitism and be­
liefs of antisemites have shown a wide
range of expression in time and place,
from the refusal of the Roman Empire to
admit most Jews to Roman citizenship,
to the walled ghettos and persecutions of
the Middle Ages, to the nineteenth-cen­
tury theories about the racial inferiority
of Jews that culminated in the official
antisemitism 13
antisemitic policy of Nazi Germany in the
1930s and the systematic extermination
of nearly six million Jews in the Holo­
caust. In U.S. and world history, thread­
bare notions of Jewish conspiracies to
control vital institutions are recycled with
a monotonous lack of imagination. Thus,
given an abundance of m anufactured
“evidence,” we are told that Jews have
been behind all revolutions and wars and
that Jewish bankers exercise widespread
international power. Antisemitism is, as
Elie Wiesel once said, a light sleeper.
Along with the difficulties o f the
seemingly timeless issues of antisemi­
tism has gone the difficult problem of
defining the term. Not surprisingly, for
many Jews the term antisemite carries
with it the memories of Nazism and the
smell of mass murder. M ore broadly, the
antisemitic label has been used to refer
to those who are prejudiced against Jews
seen as a race or against Judaism, the
religious beliefs and the observation of
Jewish practices. In the “new” antisemi­
tism described by Forster and Epstein
(1974), it means those who criticize the
policies of Israel or institutions that op­
pose those policies. The historian Gavin
Langmuir (1990) restricts antisemitic to
the projection o f lurid fantasies on Jews
(e.g., the Jew as the devil incarnate, ac­
cording to age-old imaginings), while
using anti-Judaic to refer to resentments
or reactions toward Jews as people in real
social or economic roles.
In addition, there is overt antisemi­
tism, social or political (e.g., persecu­
tion, aggression, denial of entry into
organizations or country clubs); apoca­
lyptic antisemitism (the Holocaust); and
other varieties, such as those described
as “polite” or “thinly veiled.” There are
also the nationalist, Marxist, Fascist, and
M uslim fundamentalist varieties. D is­
agreement over some of the usages (es­
pecially, whether opposition to Israeli
policies necessarily constitutes anti­
semitism) resounds in such discussions
14 Apache
as William Buckley’s In Search o f A nti­
Semitism, 1992.
Fof some, antisemitism is a euphe­
mism, “a nonword that is hardly com ­
mensurate with the feelings and reali­
ties behind it” (Evelyn Torton Beck, in
Kramarae and Treichler 1992). The pre­
ferred substitute may be the more ex­
plicit Jew-hating.
See also g e n o c i d e , g h e t t o , H o l o ­
ca u st, J e w , J e w is h p l o t , Z io n is m .
Apache. A Native American people o f the
southw est U nited States and northern
M exico; a m em ber o f this group o f
people; or any o f the A pachean lan­
guages, belonging (with Navajo) to the
Southern Athabascan linguistic family.
This Spanish American name probably
comes from aZ uni word, ?apacu, mean­
ing “enemy,” but the Apache people’s
name for themselves is Inde, or Nde, “the
people,” also Tineh, Tinde, or Dini. Span­
iards, through whom the name is widely
known, knew the Apache encountered
in New Mexico as Apaches de Nabaju.
Apache appeared in American English
by the mid-eighteenth century.
B ecause o f strong A pache re sis­
tance— under such Chiricahua Apache
guerrilla leaders as Cochise, Geronimo,
Mangas, Coloradas, Victorio, and Juh—
to white encroachment on their territory
in the nineteenth century, the Apache
acquired a reputation for fierceness and
relentlessness. This found expression in
such pejorative phrases as wild Apache
or savage as an Apache. “The flight of
G eronimo’s party across Arizona was a
signal for an outpouring of wild rumors.
Newspapers featured big headlines: THE
APACHES ARE OUT! The very word
‘G eronim o’ becam e a cry for blood”
(Dee Brown, Bury M y Heart at Wounded
Knee, 1970, 408). Thieving Apache,
commonly heard in old TV Westerns, is
a demeaning stereotype.
The term has often been used to al­
lude to the primitiveness of urban life
and its street “warriors” and rowdies. As
Allen has pointed out (1993, 212), for
example, French interest in “Red Indi­
ans” o f the American wilderness led to
the appearance o f Apache in nineteenth-
century French slang for a Parisian gang­
ster (a sim ilar usage also appeared in
' Brussels) and later for a style o f dance,
supposedly invented in low Parisian ca­
fes. In the United States, A lfred Henry
Lewis wrote The Apaches o f New York
(1912), an account o f gangs in New York
City. Similarly, the 1981 Daniel Petrie
film, Fort Apache, the Bronx, depicts a
police precinct house as a fort in the
“hostile territory” of South Bronx.
The word has also been used in the
sense of a “Mohawk,” a kind o f haircut
worn by men, and in homosexual slang
for a gay man who uses cosmetics.
See also G e r o n im o , r e d m a n , s a v a g e ,
tonto.
apartheid [3-vpar- ta“t, -,tTt]. From A fri­
kaans, apart plus hood (separateness),
this word denoted the governm ent of
South A fric a ’s n o w -d efu n ct o fficial
policy o f white supremacy and racial
segregation. Specifically, it referred to
political and economic discrimination
against non-Europeans, including black
people, “Coloureds” (mixed race), and
Asians. South African premier Daniel F.
M alan, said to have coined the term ,
defended it on the ground that it sug­
gested a state o f affairs as opposed to an
active practice, such as segregation (Pei
1969, 166).
Generically, the word has been used
to refer to the social or educational seg­
regation o f people anywhere. “It’s time
to d ism antle ap arth eid on ca m p u s”
(“Editorial Notebook,” New York Times,
28 May 1993, A14).
See also s e g r e g a t i o n , w h i t e s u ­
prem a cy .
ape, African ape, black ape. Derogatory
slang label for a black person, more com­
monly used in the South, dating from the

late 1800s. In sim ilar pejorative use is
chimpanzee. R acial slurs used by the
white Los Angeles policemen involved
with the beating o f African American
Rodney King in 1991 included refer­
ences to “gorillas in the mist.”
A frican A m ericans have long been
regarded by racists as being “nearer the
animal” in the scale of life— in particu­
lar, the ape, as suggested by such mis­
leading indicators as dark skin, progna­
thous jaw, and “everted” lips. The alleged
animality of black people has also been
tied over the years to what white racists
stereotype as the bestial sexuality of black
people. In his Historie o f Foure-Footed
Beastes, 1608, Edward Topsell compared
black Africans with apes: “ ...the men
with their ‘low and flat nostrils’ were ‘Li­
bidinous as Apes,’ and their thick lips
were like the lips o f apes” (in Takaki
1993,52). In the rural South, particularly,
white fear of sexual relations with black
people, stigmatized as having only sub­
human control over their sex drives, was
paramount in interracial relations.
The revival o f this and other offen­
sive racist terms in the 1980s and 1990s
has been attributed to a backlash against
black people and other minorities result­
ing from attempts by businesses to hire
more minorities, coupled with the wave
o f downsizing in corporations that has
made white people feel even more inse­
cure about their jobs.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially b a b o o n , d a r k e s t
A f r ic a , ju n g l e , ju n g l e b u n n y , m o n k e y .
A p p alach ian. A label for an ethnic people
living in the southern region o f the Ap­
palachian M ountains. As a reference
mainly to white working-class and poor
residents, it is, at best, a euphemism for
hillbillies, which carries with it a stereo­
type of “barefoot and backward.” Both
terms may also connote fierce indepen­
dence, pride, and God-fearing attitudes.
Actually, not all the people of this re­
Arab 15
gion are poor; yet the name, associated
with the well-publicized poverty of Ap­
palachia in the 1960s, came into use in
that decade, carrying connotations of the
rural poor (it may also be associated with
certain arts and crafts o f the region).
Allerf, who characterizes the term as a
stigma, suggests Appalachian Southern­
ers as a descriptive substitute (1990,91).
“ .. .not until they arrived in the North did
people from these different backgrounds
think of themselves as members of a ho­
mogeneous group; they had never used
the term ‘Appalachians’ (let alone ‘bri­
ars’ or ‘hillbillies’) to identify them ­
selves” (J. Jones 1992, 239).
A ppalachian English, the English
spoken by people living in the Appala­
chia region, is often stigmatized as a lan­
guage of illiterate mountain people.
See also c l a y - e a t e r , C o n c h , c o r n -
CRACKER, CRACKER, HILLBILLY, PECKER-
W OOD, POOR W HITE TRA SH , REDNECK,
RIDGERUNNER, SOUTHERNER.
apple. Term used by Native Americans as
a form of censure for a Native Ameri­
can who identifies with white people and
adopts their values (red on the outside
and white on the inside).
See also U n c l e T o m (Uncle Toma­
hawk). For similar words for other eth­
nic groups, see b a n a n a , c o c o n u t , o r e o .
A rab, a ra b , ay -rab . An Arab may be an
inhabitant of the peninsula that includes
Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and the
Persian Gulf states; an Arabic-speaking
person; or a m em ber o f the Sem itic
people who originally inhabited the Ara­
bian Peninsula and have since spread
across Southwest Asia and North Africa.
Arab is derived from Latin Arabus, from
Greek Arab-.
The term Arab American (or Arab-
Americari) is usually used for a person
o f Arab descent who is living in the
United States as a citizen, as someone
intending to becom e a citizen, or as
someone planning to spend the rest of
16 Arab
his o r her life in the U nited S tates
(American-born Arab, when appropri­
ate, or simply Arab have also been used).
It is an umbrella term employed com­
monly only since the 1980s and covers
different religious and national groups.
Though many now identified as Arab
Americans are Muslim, until recently
m ost A rab im m igrants to the United
States were Christians of Eastern Rite
churches.
Western stereotypes of Arabs abound.
One stereotype is someone who lives in
the desert and rides camels. Hence, the
Arab or anyone from the Middle East or
even the Indian subcontinent is some­
times ridiculed as a “camel jockey” or
“camel jammer.” Arab people have also
been thought o f as unbridled (“free as
an Arab”) or unruly (“wild as Arabs”),
and the image o f barbarism has also long
been part o f the stereotype. The 1993
a n im a te d W alt D isn ey p ro d u c tio n
Aladdin offered a song with the follow­
ing controversial lyrics:
O, I come from a land
From a faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam,
Where they cut off your ear
If they don’t like your face
It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.
The two lines about cutting off ears were
changed in the home video version of
the film because of pressure from the
A m erican-A rab A nti-D iscrim ination
Committee.
A cco rd in g to S abbagh (1990),
American popular fiction has also ste­
reotyped Arabs (males being the focus
o f the stereotype) as filthy rich (from oil)
“sheiks” (an offensive title when inap­
propriately applied), sex maniacs (prac­
ticing white slavery), and a regressive
force opposed to science and pragma­
tism but succumbing to a blind belief in
G od’s will. Recently, however, some of
these images have become less blatant.
Prejudice against A rabs gained an
aura o f respectability in the United States
in the 1980s and 1990s because o f inter­
national politics. This involved U.S. re­
lations with Iran; the dem onization o f
Saddam Hussein (known in the press as
the “Butcher o f Baghdad”); and the at­
tention the media gave to M iddle East-
'em terrorists, including the conjecture
imm ediately after the O klahom a City
bom bing in 1995 that A rab terrorists
were responsible. The reflexive repeti­
tion of expressions such as “Arab ter­
rorism” in the media drew criticism in
the 1980s and 1990s for being what Ar­
abs consider a negative ideological tag
pinned on a whole population.
T he B ritish, A ustralian, and U.S.
slang term arab is used derogatorily to
mean a wild person or waif, originally
because of prejudices against Arabs (par­
ticularly “street arabs”) held by m em ­
bers of the British armed forces stationed
in colonies. It has also been applied, usu­
ally by uneducated speakers, to any for­
eigner. In addition, it has been used with
some affection for an unkem pt child. In
the U nited States m eanings have also
included a huckster or street peddler;
som eone o f m ixed A m erican Indian,
black, and white descent (known as a
t r ir a c ia l m ix ); a Jew; a Turk; and a Sikh,
probably because male Sikhs w ear a tur­
ban. Usage often connotes dark com ­
plexion. In H arlem in the 1940s and
1950s, according to M ajor (1994), those
Muslims who wore robes were called
“street Arabs.”
The alteration in pronunciation to AY-
rab (or a”-rab), once considered jocular,
may indicate a desire to slur a Muslim
or someone from the M iddle East. Lipski
(1976,113-14), however, notes that this
pronunciation may also result from the
stressed vowel o f Arabia. Others have
also noted that the pronunciation in black
English as AY-rab is not intended as a
slur but is probably m odeled on other
African American pronunciations, such
as D E-troit (Smitherman 1994). Jews o f
East European descent may repudiate

Sephardic Jews by calling them Ay-rabs,
suggesting that Jews who have adopted
some Arab ways are not true Jews (Aman
1996, 60).
See also A r a b is t , b a r b a r ia n , c a m e l
jo c k e y , M o h a m m e d a n , M u s l im , r a g -
head, U ncle T om (Uncle Ahmad), w og.
A ra b A m e ric a n , A ra b -A m e ric a n . See
A rab.
A rab ist. Someone who studies Arab lan­
guages or cultures or who supports Arab
foreign relations positions. An Arabist
is usually someone who has passed a
number of years in a professional capac­
ity in the Arab world. “After World War
II Arabists whose families had lived in
the Middle East for generations hoped
for stronger ties betw een the United
States and the young A rab nations”
(from a review of Robert Kaplan, The
Arabists, in Booklist, 15 October 1993,
399).
Robert Kaplan points out that Arabist
can be a loaded term . W hen Israel
achieved statehood in 1947, the term
acquired antisemitic overtones. During
the G ulf War, anyone who even sug­
gested support for Arabs was called an
“Arabist” abusively. Yet, Arabists remain
“a self-assured breed, for whom the
word ‘A rabist’ implies a tight-knit fra­
tern ity w ithin the diplom atic corps,
united by their ability to speak a ‘super-
hard’ language and by a vivid, common
experience abroad that, as one Arabist
told me, ‘we can’t even properly explain
to our relatives’” (Kaplan, in Gioseffi
1993, 193).
See a l s o A r a b .
A ry a n . From a Sanskrit word m eaning
“noble,” a speaker of one of the Indo-
European languages (a large grouping
of languages including Hindi, Spanish,
Greek, French, Polish, German, Gaelic,
and English). Under Nazism, a non-Jew-
ish Caucasian, particularly one who was
blond, blue-eyed, and w hite-skinned.
A ryan was also used in the nineteenth
A ryan 17
century for the common ancestor of a
number of Asian Indian and European
languages and later was applied to the
Indo-Iranian branch o f the Indo-Euro­
pean family. However, biased use in
Nazism, in addition to alternative uses
withrh linguistics of the term Aryan by
itself, has led to its restriction in linguis­
tics to the com bination Indo-A ryan,
meaning a branch of the Indo-European
family o f languages spoken primarily in
India and neighboring countries or a
speaker of one of those languages. An
earlier spelling was Arian.
French writer and historian Joseph
Arthur, Comte de Gobineau, in Essay on
the In e q u a lity o f H u m a n R a ce s
(1853-55), proposed the superiority of
the white race, in particular, the people
o f Scandinavia and northern Germany,
whom he called the “Aryan race.” The
N azi interpretation o f A ryan derived
from G obineau’s racial theories. An
Aryan was also known as a person of
“Nordic” stock (Nordic, from Old En­
glish north— a reference to the Germanic
peoples o f northern E urope). In the
United States, a racist thesis similar to
Gobineau’s was advanced by Madison
Grant, author of what has been called
the American racist’s bible, The Pass­
ing o f the Great Race (1916). This tract
bemoaned the fate of “Nordics” as they
mixed with southern and eastern Euro­
pean immigrants.
Racist usage generally suggests one
who by virtue o f being Caucasian is be­
lieved to be superior in racial makeup to
others, thus destined to rule the world,
as implied in the Nazi slogan “Aryan
M aster Race.” Aryan appears, for ex­
ample, in the name of the U.S. white
supremacist movement, the White Aryan
Resistance (WAR, as it was named by
white separatist Tom Metzger in 1983),
which preaches the master race concept.
Early in the twentieth century, when
the issue of granting U.S. citizenship to
Asian Indians was being debated, some
18_______ Asian American________y _
attention was given to what was consid­
ered a racial kinship between Asian In­
dians and Europeans. They were be­
lieved to be descended from a common
Aryan stock. Those opposed to granting
citizenship to Asian Indians insisted on
a racist distinction: the forefathers of
white Americans, the Western Aryans,
becam e the “Lords of Creation” (i.e.,
those behind “progress” and “civiliza­
tion”), while the Eastern Aryans were
seen as the “slaves of Creation”— “ef­
feminate, caste-ridden and degraded”
(Proceedings o f the Asiatic Exclusion
League, San Francisco, April 1910, in
Takaki 1989, 298).
See also b l o o d , C a u c a s ia n , c iv il iz e d ,
race.
A sian A m erican, A sian-A m erican. A per­
son of Asian descent living in the United
States as a citizen, as someone intend­
ing to become a citizen, or as someone
planning to spend the rest of his or her
life in the United States. The term can
apply to people from the Indian subcon­
tinent and Southeast Asia as well as East
Asia. It is favored over Asiatic, which
began to be regarded as objectionable in
the 1940s, and Oriental, which came to
be regarded as offensive only in the past
ten to fifteen years or so.
Although use of Asian American may
reflect a common identity or shared ex­
perience of discrimination, it also some­
times signals a tendency to ignore the
unique cultures, histories, socioeco­
nomic differences, and national identi­
ties of specific A sian groups. Asian
Americans comprise more than twenty
different nationalities; some of these
groups are divided by strong animosi­
ties, while others simply do not identify
with each other. ‘“ Will I pay less taxes
if I call m yself an Asian A m erican?’
Narin Kem, editor of the Cambodian-
language paper Serey Pheap, asked sar­
castically” (Hanh Hoang, Transpacific,
November/December 1992,100). Where
possible or appropriate, specificity is
preferred. Specific names include Chi­
n ese, Ja p a n e se , T a iw a n ese. H ong
Konger. Vietnamese. Filipino. Asian In­
dian, Korean, Laotian. Thai. Combo-
dian, Hmong, Pakistani, or Indonesian.
A more recent alternative name, es­
p ec ia lly for someone from the Asian ar­
eas o f the Pacific Basin, is Asian-Pacific
American. Another neutral term that has
popped up in print is A siA m (A sian
American). Also AsAm.
Although a second- or third-genera­
tion descendant o f a European im m i­
grant to the United States will almost
always be called an American, a second-
or third-generation descendant o f an
Asian immigrant may be referred to by
a co m p o u n d nam e (e .g .. J a p a n e se
American). Americans of Asian descent,
of course, are Americans.
References to Asian immigrants or
Asian influence in the United States are
sometimes laced with the metaphors of
war. America becomes a beachhead, as
in “Tokyo’s fashion invasion." The Asian
American Handbook (1991, 4.1) notes
that a magazine that used that headline
in an article also included articles about
German designers that made no infer­
ences to a war metaphor, even though
Germany, too, was a World War 11 en­
emy.
In nam ing the part o f A sia from
which an Asian or person of Asian de­
scent comes, certain terms arc now con­
sidered dated or, because o f the use of
the noun East, may be regarded as Eu­
rocentric. These include East, Near East
(Levant), and Far East (which may con­
note the stereotypical “exotic O rient" or
simply being far from the West, viewed
as the center of civilization). Middle East
is still com m only used inoffensively.
Neutral references to the continent in­
clude the term Asia, as in East Asia,
South A sia, or West Asia.
See also A m e r a s ia n , A s ia t ic , b a n a n a ,
brow n, F a r E a s t e r n , h o o k , m o d e l m i­
n o r it y , O r ie n t a l , s l a n t , si.oin:, wot;. yai\

YELLOW, YELLOW-BELLY, YELLOW HORDES,
YELLOW PERIL, ZIP.
For words applied in reference more
or less to particular Asian A m erican
groups, see A s ia n I n d i a n , B r u c e L e e ,
B u d d h a h e a d , C a m b o , C h a r l ie , C h e r r y
B l o s s o m , C h in a d o l l , C h in a m a n / C h in a ­
woman, C h i n e e , C h in e s e , C h i n k , c h o p ­
s t i c k s , c h o p s u e y , c h o w , c o o l ie , d in g e ,
d in k , d o g - e a t e r , d o t h e a d , d r a g o n l a d y ,
F i l ip in o / a , F O B , f o r t u n e c o o k ie , g e is h a ,
g in k , g o o d A s ia n s , g o o - g o o , H o n g k i e ,
I n d ia n A m e r ic a n , J a p , J e w s o f t h e O r i ­
ent, J o h n C h i n a m a n , K o t o n k , l it t l e
brow n b r o t h e r s , m ic e - e a t e r , m ic k e y
v ic k e y , M is s S a ig o n , M is t e r P a r k m a n ,
N i p , P a t , p ig t a il , r ic e - e a t e r , t o j o .
Asian flu. See A s ia tic f lu .
Asian Indian, Asian-Indian American. A
person from India or of Indian descent
living in the United States as a citizen
or intending to become a citizen. Asian
Indian is not biased, yet it is worth bring­
ing up here as a term that was adopted
by the 1980 census as a result of the rec­
om m endation o f A sian Indian im m i­
grants. It serves to distinguish this com­
munity from American Indians and also
from Bangladeshis and Pakistanis and
is used only in the United States. The
form often appearing in the popular
m edia is Indian American.
The government and other sources
form erly referred to m em bers o f the
community as East Indians. East Indian
is used without bias to refer to a person
living in the Caribbean (the West Indies)
who is descended from immigrants from
the Indian subcontinent. E ast Indian
applied to people from India may, how­
ever, be Considered colonialist and of­
fensive.
The Bureau o f the Census once clas­
sified Asian Indians as “white/Cauca­
sian.” Asian Indians in the United States,
in spite of the relatively dark skin of
many of them, have at various times been
considered white, and many have iden­
Asiatic flu 19
tified with white society. Whether they
are to be considered members of a mi­
nority group has been a matter of debate
among them, though many acknowledge
that they are disadvantaged as a result
of racial discrimination.
TKe term Asian Indian masks a wide
diversity of cultural, linguistic, and reli­
gious backgrounds (not all Indians, e.g.,
are Hindu, which a common stereotype
would lead us to think). For that matter,
it includes a great diversity of nationali­
ties, since many Asian Indian immigrants
lived in or were even bom in countries
other than India, including Kenya, Fiji,
Tanzania, Burma (Myanmar), Malaysia,
Uganda, Canada, and Great Britain.
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , b r o w n ,
B u d d h a h e a d , d o t h e a d , H i n d u , I n d ia n ,
I n d ia n A m e r ic a n , p a k i , r a g h e a d , w h it e .
Asiatic. As a designation for an Asian indi­
vidual or group, this word, which Rob­
ert W. Chapman reported in 1939 in his
Adjectives from Proper Names as hav­
ing “virtually displaced Asian as A fri­
can displaced Afric,” is now regarded as
objectionable by many Asian people. In
the 1940s Asiatic was called into ques­
tion as a term of British and American
colonialism . A ccording to M erriam -
Webster’s Dictionary o f English Usage
(1989), in that decade, the Communists
switched their slogan from “Asia for the
Asiatics” to “Asia for the Asians.” Since
the 1980s, especially, Asiatic has seen
little use.
Asiatic has also meant “deranged” or
“crazy,” as in the expression “gone A si­
atic,” a description of someone in the
armed forces who has been in service in
Asia for too long. In addition, Asiatic has
been used pejoratively for Eastern Eu­
ropeans.
See also A s ia t ic f l u , O r ie n t a l .
Asiatic flu. The popular name for a type of
influenza caused by a mutant strain of
the influenza virus first identified in
Hong Kong in 1957. A siatic flu was
20 assimilation
changed to Asian flu as a result o f the
increasing awareness o f the offensive­
ness o f the term A siatic (M orris and
Morris 1985).
See also A s ia t ic . '
assimilation. The absorption into a culture
and b ein g ren d e re d sim ila r (L atin
assimulare, “to make similar”). Origi­
nally, in the social sciences, this was
thought o f as a one-w ay process by
w hich outsiders (usually imm igrants)
gave up much of their own culture and
took on the characteristics of the domi­
nant culture. Later research, however,
su g g e ste d a p ro c e ss o f re c ip ro c a l
changes between host and imm igrant
communities. Nevertheless, in common
usage, it still connotes replacing the old
ways, especially the ways of marginal­
ized people, with those of the dominant
or mainstream culture.
In the United States assimilation has
been associated with conformity to the
A nglo-Saxon culture, although some
have thought of it as a process of “melt­
ing” into some new American pattern. It
is largely equated with Americanization.
Assimilation was “tainted from the be­
ginning by its association with the domi­
nant European American group’s ideol­
ogy that the only ‘good groups’ were
those that assimilated (or could assimi­
late) in Anglo-conformity fashion” (Joe
R. Feagin and Clairece Booher Feagin,
in Pincus and Ehrlich 1994, 34). Some
U.S. groups have never fit into the ex­
treme monoculturalist’s model of Ameri­
can culture. “In his speech Imperial Wiz­
ard Evans [of the Ku Klux Klan, 1923]
grouped Negroes, Catholics and Jews as
undesirable elements ‘defying every fun­
damental requirement o f assimilation’”
(in Myers 1960, 234).
An assimilationist is one who holds
to a policy or conviction of furthering
ethnic assim ilation. The long-range
goals of assimilationists are usually in­
tegration of the group into mainstream
society and participation in its institu­
tions (short-range goals may involve the
airing of and dealing with grievances).
Through loyalty to the dominant culture,
it is believed, and through hard work,
minority persons can find their way into
th e m ainstream (giving up their “un-
Americanness”) and thus overcome their
problems.
In the 1980s, especially, the w ord
assimilation fell from whatever grace it
enjoyed in political discourse in the
United States. Among those who resist
the melting pot image o f America, the
term suggests the overvaluation o f the
dom inant culture and the forging o f
peoples and their ethnic traditions into
an undesirably bland alloy. To the ex­
tent that ethnic diversity is seen as a
richer, more promising cultural alterna­
tive, many have criticized the loss o f
identity involved in assimilating and the
questionable subordination o f group tra­
ditions to a culture o f consum erism .
They fear the physical, symbolic, and
cultural annihilation of marginal groups,
especially those minorities who, for rea­
sons such as social background or color,
encounter m ore barriers to assim ila­
tion— segregation, blocked access to
power, taboos on intermarriage— than do
others. The contemporary debate over
multiculturalism revolves to a significant
degree around notions o f the merits or
disadvantages of assimilation.
Opposition to assimilation has pro­
voked substantial criticism. T he com ­
monly voiced attack focuses on the al­
leged divisiveness o f ethnic diversity.
“We used to say e pluribus unum. Now
we glorify pluribus and belittle unum.
The melting pot yields to the Tower of
Babel” (Itabari Njeri, Los Angeles Times,
13 January 1991, E l). Others note that
assimilation does not preclude freedom
to maintain separate cultural identities.
R eferring to im m igrants in the early
twentieth century, Bernstein (1994,152),
speaking to the various degrees o f quali-

fication, writes, “A ssim ilation did not
mean joining the Episcopalian church.”
T he synonym am algam ation was
current in the early twentieth century and
is associated with the “m elting pot”
m etaphor. D eculturalization (a word
newly minted in the debate over multi-
culturalism) is also similar in meaning
to assimilation, although the idea is not
so much one of absorption into another
c u ltu re as the strip p in g aw ay o f a
person’s native identity and cultural be­
lie fs by a d o m in a n t sy stem . F elix
Boateng spoke of this process in Going
to School (ed. Kofi Lomotey 1990, 14):
“In the public-school system, the orien­
tation is so Eurocentric that white stu­
dents take their identity for granted, and
A frican-A m erican students are totally
deculturalized.”
Although Americans have attempted
to come to terms with their cultural di­
versity, the picture for the present is one
o f increasing diversity, or at least (self)
consciousness of it, including the pros­
pect o f a numerical majority o f people
o f color in the next century. The debate
over assimilation and multiculturalism
is likely to intensify in coming years.
See also A m e r ic a n iz e , c u l t u r a l i m ­
p e r ia l i s m , d iv e r s it y , h y p h e n a t e d A m e r i­
c a n , m a in s t r e a m , m e l t in g p o t , m u l t ic u l ­
t u r a l i s m , n a t io n a l is m , p a s s in g , p l u r a l ­
is m .
Aunt, auntie, aunty. In ethnic discourse,
an extension of the kinship term, used
generically since at least the early nine­
teenth century, first by white people but
also by black people, for an old black
w o m a n ,- e s p e c ia lly , a c c o rd in g to
Wentworth and Flexner (1975), a nurse­
maid or one who looks after children.
U sed in the South with affection or re­
spect by planters (or so they thought) and
other white people, it is considered of­
fensive today because the name origi­
nated in the context o f servitude. W hite
people called black people by their first
Aunt Jemima 21
nam es only until late m iddle age, at
which time uncle or aunt was applied
(as in Aunt Jemima). W hite people, on
the other hand, were addressed as M is­
ter or Miss from about the age of ten.
I espied an ample-beamed colored
woman parked in a blunt-nosed
bateau in the middle of the cove.
She puffed composedly at a clay
pipe as she fished.... I smiled and
indulgently called a half-hearted
inquiry: “any luck, auntie?”
— Havilah Babcock, My
Health Is Better in November,
1960,49
Aunty was a brand name appearing
in advertising earlier in this century, of­
ten associated w ith a robust, d ark ­
skinned woman with a handkerchief
wrapped around her head.
For other historical words in south­
ern use for black people, see b l a c k ,
cross-references. See especially A u n t
J a n e , A u n t J e m im a , A u n t T o m , m a m m y ,
U ncle.
Aunt Jane. A female Uncle Tom. This term
came into use among black speakers in
the mid-1900s for a black woman who
sells out her race or adopts elements of
white culture. In this sense, it is the
equivalent of Aunt Thomasina or Aunt
Jemima. In a neutral use, the term refers
to a female member of a black church.
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially A u n t , A u n t
J e m im a , A u n t T o m , m a m m y , U n c l e T o m .
Aunt Jemima. Largely a historical refer­
ence to a black woman and an early ad­
vertising stereotype of the happy servant
mammy. Forbidding the use of titles of
respect for slaves, southern white people,
following an old tradition of applying
aunt to any older woman, affixed it to
the first names of black women.
Flexner (1976, 266) says that the
commercial brand of pancake mix, Aunt
Jemima, developed in 1889, was named
after a popular vaudeville song, “Aunt
22 Aunt Tom
Jem im a.” In 1893 the D avis M illing
Company, producer of the mix, had an
exhibit at the Columbia Exposition fea­
turing Nancy Green, a skilled black cook
from Kentucky, m aking pancakes as
“A unt Jemima.” The image was trans­
form ed into a m ore positive A frican
American Betty Crocker type because
o f pressure exerted by black groups on
the advertiser in the post-civil rights ra­
cial climate. The term may still be used
today by African Americans for a female
Uncle Tom or for a very dark-skinned
black woman.
“Draped in calico from head to toe,
Aunt Jemima and her cronies pose no
sexual threat to their white mistresses.
They want to nourish rather than seduce
white men” (Turner 1994, 25).
For other historical words for black
people or words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref-
erences. See especially A u n t , A u n t J a n e ,
A unt T om , m am m y, U ncle T o m .
A u n t Tom , A u n t T h o m a sin a , A un t
Thomasine. From the mid-1900s, pat­
terned on Uncle Tom. The first term is
vused for a woman whose views are con­
trary to those o f the wom en’s movement
(thus, who is thought o f as being sub­
servient to men). The second and third
terms have been used for a black woman
who is servile to white people or accom­
modating to white society.
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially A u n t , A u n t J a n e ,
A u n t J e m im a , m a m m y , U n c l e T o m .
aversive racism. See ra c is m .
Ay-rab. See A r a b .
Aztec hop, Aztec revenge, Aztec two-step.
See M o n t e z u m a ’ s r e v e n g e .

B through enslavement, then later through
Babel, Tower of. An allusion sometimes
used as an attack on the multicultural-
ization o f the U nited States. “W hite
Separatists are not interested in attempt­
ing to build another Tower of Babel”
(White Aryan Resistance position paper,
Internet, June 1996). Babel comes from
the Hebrew name for Babylon. The H e­
b rew s p ro b ab ly derived it from an
A kkadian word bab-ilu (gate of god),
referring to the tower of the ancient city
o f Shinar, whose construction was said
to be abandoned because of the confu­
sion o f the many languages o f the build­
in g c re w s. A t B a b e l, “ th e L o rd
d id .. .there confound the language of all
the earth” (Genesis 11:9).
For views that express concern about
the country becoming a “Tower of B a­
bel,” see, for example, E. D. H irsch’s
Cultural Literacy (1987), which argues
that the multiplicity of cultures in the
U n ite d S ta te s is fra g m e n tin g , or
balkanizing, the society; see also Allan
B loom ’s The Closing o f the American
M ind (1988).
See a l s o m u l t ic u l t u r a l is m .
baboon. Anyone considered to be oafish or
subhuman; also, an offensive reference
to a black person, connoting a life-form
o f the jungle. Rawson (1989) notes that
at its origins, before being used for a kind
o f monkey, the term (its Indo-European
root baba imitating the babbling o f a
baby) may have been applied to people
regarded as simpletons or ninnies.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references. See especially
APE, JUNGLE, JUNGLE BUNNY, MONKEY.
Babylon. For Rastafarians, and later, for
black people in general, a term that has
come to mean white society, its whole
system o f domination over black people
or, m ore specifically, the police. The
theory o f Babylon holds that since the
sixteenth century, white people have at­
banana 23
tempted to control black people, first
conspiratorial mechanisms such as edu­
cation that persuaded them to accept
ideas of their inferiority and religion that
was designed to dull their consciousness.
As in the Old Testament, where the city
of Babylon was doomed because o f the
godlessness of its people, the self-serv­
ing, exploitative modem white society
is seen as doomed to destruction. “As
more and more black youths becam e
involved in the m ovem ent...the theory
o f the Babylonian conspiracy gained
currency” (Minority Rights Group Ltd.,
London, Report No. 64, The Rastafar­
ians, 1984, 7).
See also A m e r i k a , m a n , m a j o r it y ,
WHITE POWER STRUCTURE, WHITE SLAVE
MASTER, WHITE SUPREMACY.
bagel, bagel-bender. Slurs on a Jew based
on the association of this food with Jews.
See also J e w .
ball-face. Derogatory black usage from the
nineteenth century for a white person,
especially a very unappealing one. The
reference is to the testicles.
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences.
banana. Term used by East Asians to de­
scribe or scold an A s i a n A m e r i c a n who
acts like white people or takes their point
of view (yellow on the outside and white
on the inside). Its use may sometimes
be jocular, but com bined with other
means of social control, it may have an
antiassimilationist effect. “ .. .established
A sian A m erican s are b an an as who
would rather identify with White people
than with one another” (Transpacific,
November 1993, 18). Whereas banana
connotes somone who is upwardly mo­
bile in the white world, top banana is
used when the designated Asian Ameri­
can is co-opted by white people. For a
discussion of divisions among Chinese
Americans, see, for example, Shih-Shan
24 Bap
Henry Tsai, The Chinese Experience in
Am erica, 1986.
Twinkie, related to the trade name
Twinkies, for a pastry with a yellowlike
outside and cream filling, has been heard
on some college cam puses as a syn­
onym.
See also A s ia n A m e r ic a n . For simi­
lar words for other ethnic groups, see
APPLE, COCONUT, OREO.
Banana has also been used for a light­
skinned black woman.
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially h ig h y e l l o w ,
m u l a t t o / a , p in k y , s c h o o l b u s , y e l l o w ,
YELLOW SUBMARINE, ZEBRA.
Bap, BAP. A black American princess (pat­
terned on J e w i s h American Princess) or
prince. This is a black person who may
expect to be treated royally because of
high family status, light skin, or personal
initiative and expectations o f succeed­
ing in mainstream society. The epithet
is usually used by black speakers. “I am
a Black American Princess.... As a BAP,
I am a child of privilege” (Teresa Wiltz,
Chicago Tribune, 20 November 1995).
Nelson George (1992) defines the Bap
as one of four African American char­
acter types originating as early as the
1970s, in the post-soul era. The other
types are the buppie (black urban pro­
fessional), the B-boy (originally an ab­
breviation for break boy, the name for
an inner-city black youth who dances
acrobatically to music with a break beat),
and the Boho (a black “whose range of
interest and taste challenges both black
and white stereotypes o f African Ameri­
can behavior” (George 1992,2). Accord­
ing to George, all were crucial in the de­
velopment o f American society in the
seventies and eighties.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references. See especially
BUPPIE.
b a r b a r i a n . E ty m o lo g ic a lly , so m e o n e
whose language and culture are differ­
ent from those o f the speaker; in the
West, historically, a person not a m em ­
ber of Greek, then Roman, then Chris­
tian society.
v Since ancient tim es, this epithet,
com m only applied to foreigners, and
also meaning an enemy, has connoted
“uncivilized ” and “unrefined.” “T he
M uslim world in its heyday saw itself
as the center o f truth and enlightenment,
surrounded by infidel barbarians whom
it would in due course enlighten and civi­
lize” (Bernard Lewis, in Facing the ’90s,
1990, 8). At one time, viewing barbari-
anism as an early, primitive state o f cul­
ture, many English writers confessed to
the b arbarian h eritag e o f th e ir ow n
people, having been introduced to civil­
ity through the invading Romans. Ger­
mans, regarded as barbarians by the E n­
glish, in turn condemned the English as
such: “T h e m a sse s, th e s e ty p ic a l
E n g lish m en ...th eir com plete lack o f
m anners!.. .how hateful these red-haired
barbarians, eating their underdone b e e f ’
(Heinrich Heine, from Lutezia [1842],
in Fikes 1992, 46). T he C hinese and
Japanese have similarly thought of West­
erners as barbarians (in Japan, e.g., keto,
meaning “hairy barbarian,” is a slur on
W esterners), and M exicans w ho cel­
ebrate la raza cosm ica (“the cosm ic
race,” i.e., mestizos) have tagged Anglos
as barbarians. In earlier centuries in the
United States, any Americans considered
uneducated or uncultured were called
barbarians, as were, especially in the
nineteenth century, Native Americans.
In the United States today, the word
is likely to be hurled at specific targets
outside the country, usually leaders o f
countries believed to threaten our na­
tional interests. Less frequently, in the
expression “new barbarians,” it has re­
ferred to terrorists and others o f the late
twentieth century who kill for nation,
land, or religion.

See also c iv il iz e d , f o r e ig n e r , m e n a c e ,
PRIMITIVE, SAVAGE, TURK.
barrio. A term used in Spanish-speaking
countries for a suburb or an area of a
city; from the Arabic ba rn (of the open
country). In the Americas, the Spanish
conquistadores gave the name to Indian
quarters or settlements.
In the United States (it is especially
com mon in the Southwest), a barrio re­
fers to an urban, S panish -sp eak in g
neighborhood, which is often poor and
crow ded (see, e.g., Ernesto G alarza’s
Barrio Boy, 1971). A related use is to
identify the territory o f a Chicano urban
gang.
Barrio carries no pejorative overtones
as o f now. According to Wilson (1993),
however, “the status o f Hispanic words
in A m erican English environm ents is
particularly subject to change today, and
if the term becomes synonymous with
poverty or ethnic issues, its semantics
could change suddenly.” Anglos have
sometim es referred to barrios as “Little
M exico” or by more derogatory terms,
such as “M extown” and “spic town.”
See also M e x t o w n . For words desig­
nating the neighborhoods o f other eth­
nic groups, see b l a c k b e l t , C h in a t o w n ,
ghetto , golden ghetto, H a i t i , n ig g e r
tow n. See also e t h n ic n e ig h b o r h o o d .
-bashing; -basher. The former, a malicious,
unprovoked attack on a designated coun­
try, culture, or group when the group
nam e is prefixed to the word, as in Ja­
pan-bashing or immigrant-bashing. Said
by Safire (1993b) to have originated in
Britain, this term has been popular since
the 1980s. A m erican Speech (Spring
1993) notes its prominent use in politi­
cal speech making, especially that of the
1992 presidential campaign. Bashing
can also be aimed at principles or insti­
tutions. A basher is one who makes the
attack.
See a l s o x e n o p h o b i a .
bigot 25
bato ['ba-to]. Spanish w ord m eaning a
sim pleton, ninny, or rustic. The bato
vago, a variant of the cholo or pachuco
(econom ically oppressed, also gang
member), was a poor person who fol­
low ed Pancho V illa in the M exican
Revolution. Bato has had use among
black people in South Central Los A n­
geles as a pejorative for a Latino (M ajor
1994).
See also C h ic a n o / a , c h o l o / a , L a itno / a ,
M e x ic a n A m e r ic a n , p a c h u c o .
B-boy, B-Boy. See B a p .
bean-eater. (1) A Bostonian, from Boston’s
reputation for baked beans (see also
Y a n k e e ) . (2) A M exican, M exican
American, or other Latino/a (also beaner
bean, or beano). The second, from the
early part of this century and alluding to
a diet of refried beans (frijoles), is the
more derogatory. Pat Buchanan “seems
to be fearful that if we don’t seal our
southern border, eventually we will all
be forced [to] dine on refried beans....
So liberals...suspect that in private he
refers to Hispanics as beaners” (Mike
Royko, Chicago Tribune, 27 February
1996, 3). M ajor (1994) gives bean as
recent black (South Central Los Ange­
les) usage for a Chicano or Latino.
See also C h ic a n o / a , L a t in o / a , M e x i ­
c a n , M e x ic a n A m e r ic a n . See especially
taco, tam ale, T io T a c o .
Belgeek. A mild slang epithet for a Belgian.
The term originated as a phonetic spell­
ing of the French word Belgique, for
Belgium. Partridge (1984) lists it as a
World War I army colloquialism; Spears
(1991) as W orld War I I , B ritish and
American. Its bias is reinforced by the
epithet geek, “an unlikable person.”
Belgie has also been used for a Belgian,
especially in England,
berdache. See In d ia n .
bigot. From an Old French word used as a
term of abuse for the Normans, and ap­
pearing in English at the end of the six­
26 biracial
teenth century to mean a superstitious
or religious hypocrite. Its sense o f a
prejudiced person appeared around the
mid-seventeenth century. Today it refers
generally to anyone who is obstinately
devoted to his or her own opinions, based
more on stereotypes and biased sources
than on evidence, and intolerant of oth­
ers and their views. M ore colloquially,
M artin Ritt wrote of a bigot as “a per­
son with a red neck and a small brain”
(in Conrack, 1974). It is usually applied
to a racially prejudiced white person as
perceived by the speaker and may be a
part of attack politics.
Respectable bigotry is the somewhat
dated name given by M ichael Lem er
(1969) to prejudice directed at white
ethnics— as reflected in Polish jokes that
are tolerated, as opposed to antiblack
humor, regarded as in poor taste.
See also f a s c i s m , r a c is t , r e d n e c k ,
southerner.
biracial. Being of, combining, or represent­
ing two different races. The parents o f a
biracial person may be of different ra­
cial heritages, or one or both parents may
have a mixed ancestry. The racial iden­
tity o f a biracial person may actually be
fluid and dynamic, as the person who is
free to do so shifts affiliations from one
group to another, or from one time to
another. An identity that is relatively
fixed often revolves on more than one
axis, including the tone of one’s skin,
the texture of the hair, and the social and
cultural background of one’s parents.
Pressure from others, including labeling
by the dominant or minority group, may
also be involved. For example, persons
who are part black and part white and
claim to be biracial may draw criticism
from black people who think the bira­
cial identity presum es superiority to
them or who may wish to have biracial
individuals identify as black for reasons
o f consolidating political clout.
An American obsession with classi­
fying people into neat racial categories
has traditionally produced a set o f epi­
thets for biracial people that are sub­
sum ed und er the m o n o racial term s.
Thus, people of m ixed white and black
'd esc en t are reck o n ed as “ n ig g e rs,”
people o f mixed Asian and white ances­
try, “gooks.” Other rhetoric has forced
mixed people into a special category
stigmatized as “unnatural” or “degener­
ate.” For more on biracial people, see
R o o t 1992, e s p e c ia lly C y n th ia
N akashim a’s “An Invisible Monster.”
For different reasons, not all persons
o f dual racial descent wish to be called
biracial. Those who do wish to affirm
their biracial or multiracial heritage may
avoid those epithets that are ambiguous.
“I will continue to proudly refer to my
part-Black and part-W hite daughter as
biracial and...w ill not stoop so low as
to refer to her as a ‘little m ule’” (letter
to the editor addressing the meaning o f
mulatto/a, Interrace, Novem ber 1993,
V).
An old racist belief, still alive today
among some, holds that hybridization
results in the deterioration o f a race.
Anthropologist Ashley M ontagu (1974,
194) easily rebuts the notion: “Indeed,
if there were any truth in the suggestion
that hybridization results in degeneration
or decadence, man should have died out
long ago or else sunk to the level o f a
deformed idiot, for he is one o f the m ost
highly hybridized creatures on earth.”
Another anthropologist adds, “It seems
slightly ludicrous that the main expo­
nents o f the theory o f...p u re strains
should be inhabitants o f Europe, one of
the m ost h y b rid iz ed reg io n s in the
w orld....” (Ralph Linton, The Study o f
Man, 1936,351).
See also b r e e d , C r e o l e , h a l f - b r e e d ,
h a l f - c a s t e , in t e r r a c ia l , m e s t iz o /a ,
m e t is / m £ t is s e , m is c e g e n a t io n , m ix e d ,
m ix e d n u t s , m o n g r e l , m u l a t t o / a , m u l t i­
r a c ia l .

black, Black.
I want to be black, to know black,
to luxuriate in whatever I might be
calling blackness at any particular
time— but to do so in order to come
out the other side, to experience a
humanity that is neither colorless
nor reducible to color.
— Henry Louis Gates Jr.,
Colored People, 1994, xv
From a word in Old English, black,
according to The Oxford English Dic­
tio n a ry (1989), has long referred to
things deadly, malignant, foul or soiled,
wicked, disastrous, or existing outside
o f grace. W inthrop Jordan (1969) has
written about the perceptions that the
English, who were eventually to bring
Africans to the New World in chains, had
o f the black people they first encoun­
tered. Even the light-skinned peoples o f
northern A frica seemed so dark to the
English that they tended to call these
people, too, by the monolithic term black
(similarly, they came to apply it to Na­
tive Americans in the British colonies).
It was “an exaggerated term which in
itself suggests that the Negro’s complex­
ion had powerful impact upon their per­
cep tio n s” (5). Jordan illustrates how
English perceptions combined sexuality
with blackness, the devil, and the judg­
m ent o f a God who had created original
“man” as both angel-like and white. He
finds these equations rooted deep in
Elizabethan culture.
With the global explorations o f Eu­
ropeans, beginning in the fifteenth cen­
tury, and with the European colonization
o f lands outside the West, the old nega­
tive associations of blackness were pro­
jected onto the dark-skinned peoples
Europeans met in Africa, India, Asia,
Australia, and the Pacific Islands. “Al­
though slavery had previously been a
condition into which members o f any
race m ight fall, from the [seventeenth
century] onward it became in European
eyes a condition o f ‘black’ people, also
black 27
widely regarded as ‘benighted’ heathen
in need o f conversion” (The O xford
Companion to the English Language,
[1992], 132).
Black was often regarded as a slave
term am ong African Americans, who
avoided it after the Civil War. Black
Americans had preferred African, free
person o f color (by the 1840s, free black
people took pride in the in itials/ m.c. and
fw .c ., “free man o f color” and “free
woman of color,” used after their signa­
tures), Afro-American (first recorded in
1853), and colored (which dates from
the earliest slave days). Around the turn
of the nineteenth century, Negro (initially
with a lowercase n, later capitalized),
already preferred by many black people,
and colored, especially popular in the
couple of decades after the Civil War,
com peted as acceptable terms. Negro
emerged as the preferred usage.
In the late 1960s, the noun and ad­
jective black was converted by black
people, especially younger ones, from
an epithet used by white people to an
ingroup preference. As a word that con­
notes “sinister,” “evil,” or “angry,” black
was appropriate for a militant strategy
that sought to make black people feared
(as opposed to controlled, persecuted, or
patronized) and to present “blackness”
as deliberately in opposition to “white­
ness.” In this way, the day o f happy
niggers and U ncle Toms was being
brought to an end. Black did not become
well established in publishing, however,
until the 1970s and 1980s. Its appear­
ance in U.S. discourse generated a suc­
cession of popular terms, such as black
English, black history, and black stud­
ies.
In the early 1970s black began to give
way, in some circles, to Afro-American
and then, in the 1980s, to African Am eri­
can, which many black people and white
people now strongly prefer. Some pub­
lishers today restrict the use of African
American to U.S. black people and ap­
28 black
ply black (often capitalized) to anyone
o f Iplack African descent. This practice,
however, may lead to problems, since
some dark-skinned people outside of
Africa, as in Australia or Melanesia, or
any group that identifies with the politi­
cal status o f people subjected to oppres­
sion may also see themselves as “black.”
Athough some black people protest
the strong racial sense o f the term, black
is likely to persist for its simplicity and
its symmetry with the still commonly
used white. In part a reflection of being
in regular use over the past few decades,
and a living legacy o f the Black Power
movement, black is still the most com­
mon usage in print and speech. Some
black slang or colloquialisms— such as
stay black, meaning “don’t yield to white
pow er or culture”— would lose their
punch if African American were substi­
tuted. According to a 1990 survey re­
ported in A ndrew H acker (1992), 78
percent of U.S. citizens of African de­
scent prefer to be called black (that fig­
ure, however, dwindled to about 40 per­
cent in a 1993 Roper Center for Public
Opinion Research poll). Black is also
currently used by the federal government
in gathering census data. “Being Black
speaks directly to my heart, while being
African American speaks to my head”
(in Russell, Wilson, and Hall 1992, 71).
M ore than an identification of a group,
black is a way o f life that sees itself in
opposition to white society.
When black is capitalized, as it still
is in some current dictionaries and by
many w riters, it may bring the black
culture in parallel with other ethnic or
national groups whose names are also
capitalized and suggest the importance
of the term as a social and cultural iden­
tity. Smitherman (1994, 32) argues that
“First, Black as a racial designation re­
placed Negro, and Negro was capitalized
(at least since 1930), whereas white was
not. Second, for people of African de­
scent in America, Black functions to des­
ignate race and ethnicity....” Yet, w hat­
ever the typographical, historical, or cul­
tural ju stifica tio n fo r ca p italizatio n ,
Black loses its symmetry with the usu­
ally lowercase white, opening the way
to certain subtle connotations. For ex-
v ample, Black may suggest militancy on
the part of black people or reflect a white
w riter’s paternalism or projection o f
sense o f o t h e r . To capitalize white as
well as black in turn raises the question
of whether the typography isn’t reinforc­
ing a sense o f hardened confrontation
betw een tw o seem in g ly m o n o lith ic
races. This simple dichotomy does not
reflect the complexity o f ethnic-racial
life in the U n ited S tates, in clu d in g
multiracialism. N or does it reflect the
attem p t o f m any A fric an A m erican
scholars today to break away from the
hold o f identity politics.
The Association o f American Univer­
sity P resses (1995) low ercases both
white and black, considered generic or
descriptive terms. The Chicago M anual
o f Style (1993) recommends lowercasing
designations based only on color but
notes that black and white are often capi­
talized. On the other hand, the Publica­
tion M anual o f the Am erican Psycho­
logical A ssociation (1994) capitalizes
both terms.
Som e editors cau tio n ag ain st the
noun forms, a black and blacks, prefer­
ring instead a black person and black
people. Members o f the N ation o f Islam
prefer Black woman or B lack m an to
black used as a noun. Black Am erican is
generally acceptable for a U.S. citizen
o f black African descent, but it is less
used.
The U.S. cultural, legal, and Census
Bureau definition of black has been “any
person with any known black ancestry”
(also known as “the one-drop rule,” in
reference to the small portion o f A fri­
can “blood” in one’s ancestry that is be­
lieved to determine one’s group identity).
This principle o f defining people by any

degree o f ancestry, however small, does
not apply to any other group in U.S. so­
ciety. F or a reference, see F. Jam es
D av is’s Who Is Black? One N a tio n ’s
Definition (1991). See also t o u c h o f t h e
TARBRUSH.
For com mon or once-common gen­
eral words for black people, see A f r i ­
can, A f r ic a n A m e r ic a n , A f r o - A m e r i­
can, B l a c k A f r ic a n , b l a c k f a c e , c o l ­
ored, N e g r o / N e g r e s s , N e g r o id , n o n ­
w h it e , p e o p l e o f c o l o r .
For words used often, but not exclu­
sively, by black people for other black
people, see A f r i c a n ; A f r i k a , A f r o -
S a x o n ; akata; A n g e la ; A u n t T o m ; ba­
nana; B a p; B lack A ng lo -S a x o n ; black
b i t c h ; b l a c k y ; b l o o d ; b o o j ie ; b r o w n i e ;
b r o w n s u g a r ; b u p p ie ; c h a l k e r ; c h o c o ­
late; co o n ; E t h io p ia n ; h ig h y e l l o w ;
HNIC; h o u s e n e g r o ; l ig h t , b r ig h t , a n d
s o m e t im e s w h it e ; M a l c o l m ; m o se/
m o s e l l a ; n ig g e r ; o fa y ; o r e o ; p a n c a k e ;
p ic k a n i n n y ; r u n - r o u n d m a n ; s c h o o l b u s ;
s t e p o u t ; s t u d io g a n g st a ; tar baby;
U n c l e T o m ; w a n n a - b e ; w h it e p a d d y ; y e l ­
l o w ; y e l l o w s u b m a r in e ; z e b r a .
For words used largely, but not ex­
clusively, by w hite people for black
people, see a l l ig a t o r b a i t , A m o s ’ n ’
A n d y , a p e , A u n t , A u n t J e m im a , b a b o o n ,
b l a c k a s t h e a c e o f s p a d e s , b o o g ie , b o y ,
bu ffalo, bu r rh ea d , cha rcoa l, cho co­
l a t e , c o o n , c o o n a s s , d a r k m e a t , d in g e ,
d in k , e ig h t b a l l , E t h io p ia n , f u z z y w u z z y ,
g r o id , H o t t e n t o t , J e z e b e l , jig a b o o ,
JUNGLE BUNNY, KAFFIR, MIDNIGHT, MONKEY,
MOSE/MOSELLA, MUD PEOPLE, MULATTO/A,
n e g a t iv e , N ig e r ia n , n ig g e r , n ig g r a ,
P y g m y , R u s s ia n , S a m b o , S a p p h ir e ,
s h a d e , s h if t l e s s , s n o w b a l l , s p a d e ,
SPEARCHUCKER, SPOOK, UPPITY, WOOLY
head, Z ulu.
For traditional or historical southern
words for black people, or those at least
still largely associated with the South,
used by white or black people, see A f r i ­
c a n r e f u g e e , a l l ig a t o r b a it , A u n t , b l a c k
m a n , b l u e , b o y , b u c k , c o t t o n p ic k e r , C re-
black as the ace of spades 29
o l e , c r o w , d a r k y , g u in e a , G u lla h , house
negro, J im C r o w , m a m m y , n ig g e r , n ig g r a ,
octoroon, R astu s, S a m bo .
Black African. An African of black ances­
try. This term is used descriptively for
an Afrfcan who com es to the U nited
States, often as a student, with no inten­
tion of staying. Black Africans may ap­
pear to white people to be part of the
African American community, but they
differ culturally and sometimes enjoy a
higher status, including the sense of dig­
nity they bring from being a majority in
their own countries (Becker 1973). They
may also see African Americans as so­
cial inferiors (see a k a t a ) .
See also A f r ic a n , b l a c k .
Black American. See b la c k .
black American princess. See B ap.
Black Anglo-Saxon. A black person who
acts white or identifies with white up­
per classes.
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially A f r o - S a x o n ,
B a p , b o o j ie , b u p p ie , c h a l k e r , o f a y , o r e o ,
U n c l e T o m , w a n n a - b e , w h it e p a d d y .
black as the ace o f spades. An expression
alluding to the blackness of spades in
playing cards, referring to black people,
esp ec ially very d ark -sk in n ed ones.
Meaning varies depending on the color
of the user; when used by white people,
it may be derogatory and is likely to be
taken with offense. Also used for a black
person are the derivatives ace o f spades
and spade. Eric Partridge (1984), quot­
ing Paul Beale, notes that this term for
“utterly black,” though used now largely
for black people, has also been used for
such things as weather conditions.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially A u n t J e m i m a ,
BLACKY, PICKANINNY, SAMBO, SPADE, TAR
baby. See also color. ■
30 black belt V' x
black belt, Black Belt. A region having a
largely black population, such as A la­
bama and M ississippi, but also having a
rich, black soil. According to Booker T.
W ashington, the latter m eaning came
first; the growth of the black population
in the area reinforced the idea o f its
blackness, “ ...since the [Civil] War, the
term seems to be used w holly...to des­
ignate the counties w here the black
people outnumbered the whites” (1901,
128). W. E. B. Du Bois wrote, “Below
M acon the world grows darker; for now
w e ap p ro a ch the B lac k B e lt— th a t
strange land of shadows, at which even
slaves paled in the p a s t...” (in Brown
and Ling 1993, 10). The term has also
been used to refer to an African Ameri­
can ghetto (see also d a r k t o w n , n i g g e r
TOWN, INNER CITY).
black bitch. A black woman, usually de­
rogatory. When used by black people,
bitch refers to an ill-tempered or mali­
cious female or, not infrequently, to any
black woman (sometimes even to a black
m ale). M eaning m ay vary w ith the
speaker or the intent o f the speaker and
may be regarded as especially pejorative
when used by males. African Americans
have been known to adopt white slurs
but give them a different or inverted
meaning, so that ‘T h at woman is a bitch”
or “She a tough bitch” may, among A f­
rican American males, be intended as
com plim entary (D illard 1976, 121).
How it is taken, however, is another
matter. In the 1990s concern was ex­
pressed among black people that the use
of bitch in rap music was degrading both
to African Americans and to women in
general. “So what about the bitch who
got s h o t...? ” (NWA, “Straight O utta
Compton,” in Stanley 1992, 244).
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially b u c k (wench).
blackface, black-face. Historical term for
a black person. In the context of min­
strel shows, now regarded as racist, it
means the dark facial makeup used by
an actor in playing the role o f a black
person, for example, “the brouhaha over
Ted D an so n ’s blackface roast o f his
friend W hoopi G oldberg....” {Nation, 8
' November 1993,517). Today it can also
be used to refer to a technique o f mar­
keting that uses black models to target
A frican A m erican consum ers. “W alk
through any poor to working-class A fri­
can American community and you’ll see
these products shoved at its residents via
‘blackface’ m arketing” (George 1992,
121).
Michael Rogin {Blackface, 1996) dis­
cusses Jewish immigrants’ curious adop­
tion of blackface masquerade early in the
twentieth century and their use o f it in
stories about their identity in the U nited
States.
For other historical words for black
people, see b l a c k , cross-references.
black fay, black ofay. See o f a y .
Black Indian. Descriptive term for a per­
son w ith a m ixed black and N ative
Am erican ancestry or a black person
who has lived among Native Americans
and adopted some o f their ways. The
origins of Black Indians, according to
William Loren Katz (1986, 6-7), can be
found in “the seizure and mistreatment
o f Indians and their lands and the en­
slavement o f Africans.”
For more on individuals o f mixed
African American, Native American, and
also white background, see t r ir a c ia l
m i x e s . See also b ir a c ia l .
black is beautiful, Black Is B eautiful.
Political slogan from the sixties, prob­
ably derived from the Song o f Solomon
1:5, “I am black but beautiful.” It was
used by leaders in the B lack Pow er
movement to rally A frican Americans
around black identity and enhance their
pride in color, and it helped to spread
acceptance of the ethnic term black. In
1967 M artin Luther King Jr. used the

slogan in a poster campaign. The expres­
sion, however, soon developed into a
n o n p o litica l phrase referring to the
physical attractiveness o f black people,
especially black women. By the 1980s,
it was largely nostalgic in the African
A m erican youth culture.
See a l s o A f r o , b l a c k p o w e r .
B lackm an. See W h it e m a n .
black m an, the B lack-M an. An old, largely
southern U. S. colloquial term for some­
thing evil or frightening, as a bogeyman
meant to scare or discipline children. Its
racial offensiveness is clear.
For other traditional southern words
for black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially b o o g ie , s p o o k .
B lack M uslim . A term for an adherent o f a
black nationalist religious movement, a
U.S. sect that preaches a form of Islam.
M embers o f the Nation of Islam, how­
ever, call themselves simply Muslims,
as do other Muslims in the United States,
who are largely of Arab and Asian de­
scent. A t one time the press in the United
States tended to refer to sect members
as “Black Muslims,” often disparagingly.
“Black Muslims, as they were once
known, were equal opportunity offend­
e rs” (G eorge E. Curry, “Farrakhan,
Jesse, and Jews,” Emerge, July/August
1994, 34).
The sect traces its origins to the early
1930s, when it was founded by Wallace
D. Fard. It was developed by Elijah
M uhammad and brought to prominence
by M alcolm X. During the sixties, espe­
cially, it was regarded as an extremist
group, a fanatical antiwhite movement
th a t so u g h t se p a ra tio n from w hite
people. Later, however, it acquired a
reputation also for developing the eco­
nomic self-sufficiency o f its members.
T he m ovem ent’s self-designation,
originally The Lost-Found Nation o f Is­
lam, was changed to The World Com­
munity o f Islam in the West in 1976.
Am erican M uslim M ission came into
Black Power 31
use by 1980. The A m erican M uslim
Mission was dissolved in 1985 by Warith
Deen (Wallace D.) Muhammad, leaving
a splinter group under Louis Farrakhan,
who retained the earlier name, Nation
o f Islaiji.
See also b l a c k , b l a c k p o w e r , M u s ­
l im , NATIONALISM.
B lack P an th er. See B l a c k P ow er.
B lack Power, black pow er. An expression
made prominent in the mid-1960s and
often credited to Stokely Carm ichael
(now Kwame Toure), a major black ac­
tivist in the student protest movement
and head of SNCC (Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee). In June 1966,
speaking at a rally during a SNCC-or-
ganized m arch through M ississippi,
Carm ichael led the chant, “We want
black power!” The expression, however,
had turned up in a speech by Adam
Clayton Powell, an African American
congressman, two weeks before and had
been used in cultural and political con­
texts by other black leaders much ear­
lier (Wright 1954).
“Black Power” became a slogan of
the sixties, along with “I’m Black and
I’m Proud” (a 1968 hit soul number by
James Brown) and “black is beautiful,”
part of the movement that also led to the
change in name from negro to black. The
slogan served African Americans in ral­
lying around black identity and trying
to take control of their lives and self­
image. The term was widely used by a
broad range of black activists and by the
white media.
The expression takes some o f its po­
tency from its ambiguity and multiple
m eanings. It has been d escrib ed as
meaning antiwhite rebellion and milita­
rism , use o f political and econom ic
muscle to advance the interests of black
people, opposition to racism, pride in
race, shared power, and a chant that
would serve to carry African Americans
back to their African homeland. In ad­
32_______ black problem
dition, it has embraced the idea of sup­
porting the study of African languages
and cultures. Among white people, the
connotations have usually been negative,
associated with black domination and
violence (Van Deburg 1992, 18). From
the point of view of those involved in
the movement, however, it was not char­
acterized by violence but by traditional
pragm atism , organizing to get things
done for the black community. As Van
Deburg (22) has pointed out, lexico­
graphic confusion over use of the expres­
sion was seen as part o f a conspiracy to
taint the movement.
As part o f the Black Power move­
m ent, the radical left political party
known as the Black Panthers (abbrevi­
ated to BP) becam e known in the press
especially for what the Panthers called
“the rhetoric of the gun,” though they
also taught self-reliance and responsibil­
ity. The name, taken from the emblem
used by an African American indepen­
dent political party in Alabama, symbol­
ized their militancy. “The black panther
is an animal that when it is pressured it
moves back until it is cornered, then it
com es out fighting for life or death”
(John Hulett, in Van Peebles, Taylor, and
Lewis 1995, 25).
As a general reference to black po­
litical influence, black pow er is lower­
case.
See also b l a c k , b l a c k is b e a u t if u l ,
b r o w n , C h ic a n o / a (Chicano Power), R e d
P ow er.
b lack problem . An expression frequently
meant to represent a whole panoply of
social and economic problems identified
with black people and for which they
m ay be blam ed (the user is usually
white). In the first half of the century,
this was rendered as “the Negro prob­
lem,” a phrase used even by scholars.
The Swedish w riter Gunnar M yrdaFs
classic 1944 study o f African American-
white relations was titled An American
Dilemma: The Negro Problem and M od­
e m Democracy.
Many believe that the attribution o f
blame in black problem confuses cause
w ith effect and ignores the circ u m ­
stances and conditions— enslavem ent,
ghettoization, discrimination, poverty—
that have been the real problem s in the
lives of black people. The result is a de­
nial o f white responsibility and a ren­
dering of black suffering as invisible.
Others, however, will counter that the
phrase is only som ething at w hich to
throw public money.
Cornel W est (1993) has criticized
those who regard black people as “prob­
lem p eo p le” rath e r than as “fello w
American citizens who have problems.”
Expressing outrage at w hite people’s
behavior, black sociologist W. E. B. Du
Bois wrote o f southerners, “They ap­
proach me in a half-hesitant sort o f way,
eye me curiously or com passionately,
and then instead o f saying directly, How
does it feel to be a problem? they say, I
know an excellent colored man in my
to w n ...” (West 1993, 2). '
The same idea has found expression
vis-a-vis many other ethnic groups—
“ I n d ia n p r o b l e m ,” “M exican problem,”
“ J e w is h p r o b l e m ,” “Puerto Rican prob­
lem,” and so on, all usually offensive.
See also b l a m i n g t h e v i c t im , r a c e
p r o b l e m , s o c ia l p a t h o l o g y , u n d e r c l a s s ,
VICTIM, WELFARE MOTHER.
blacky, blackie, blackey. From the early
nineteenth century, a diminutive used for
an African American, som etim es as a
nickname. It may also be a derogatory
African American reference to a very
dark-skinned black person.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references. See especially
BLACK AS THE ACE OF SPADES, SPADE, TAR
baby. See also color.
b lam ing the victim . An ideology whereby
racial minorities, the poor, women, and
the inhabitants of underdeveloped coun-

tries, for example, are said to contain
within themselves the causes of their low
status, injustices suffered, or poverty.
“Blaming the victim” first turned up as
a slogan o f psychologist William Ryan
in the 1960s. He coined it in response to
a report by Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
“The Negro Family: The Case for Na­
tional A ction,” know n usually as the
M oynihan Report, released by the White
House in 1965.
A lthough the report was a product of
a liberal who supported social programs
aimed at providing African Americans
with assistance, Ryan, like many other
civil rights activists, interpreted it, es­
pecially as the press treated it, as a rec­
ommendation for doing nothing for the
urban poor. As the activists saw it, the
em phasis on personal and family “pa­
thology” implied that these people were
responsible for their own social plight.
Ryan developed his thesis in his book
Blam ing the Victim, and the expression
since becam e popular as a way of de­
scribing the process of explaining social
problem s by finding faults in those who
are made to suffer, the victims. Like the
dated conservative ideology that found
genetic origins for people’s social or
economic inadequacies (thus justifying
social inequality), “blaming-the-victim”
ideology finds the defect “within the vic­
tim, inside his skin” (Ryan 1976, 8), al­
though the stigma is acquired rather than
genetic.
C onservatives, on the other hand,
who claim to view social and other en­
vironmental factors more nondetermin-
istically, denounce talk of “victim s” ;
they argue that cultural and psychologi­
cal defects, such as lack of initiative at
w ork or o f determ ination to stay in
school, are real barriers to people’s ad­
vancement. Yet these views may be seen
as expressing another kind of determin­
ism, a psychological one derived more
fro m m a in strea m U .S . values than
grounded in science. W riting of the re­
blood 33
actions o f some white people to the race
riots of the summer o f 1967 and allud­
ing to the tendency to find within the ri­
oters the conditions that give rise to ri­
ots, Stephen Jay Gould asked, “Shall we
concentrate upon an unfounded specu­
lation for the violence of some— one that
follows the determinist philosophy of
blaming the victim— or shall we try to
eliminate the oppression that builds ghet­
tos and saps the spirit o f their unem ­
ployed in the first place?” (in Gioseffi
1993, xxviii). As with other politicized
terms, blaming the victim, heard either
on the Right or on the Left, can be handy
invective for someone who wishes to
dismiss an opponent’s point o f view.
See also b l a c k p r o b l e m , r a c e p r o b ­
le m , v ic tim .
bleach. To be made white, or to become
white, that is, for people o f color to give
up their identity as people of color to
make it in white society. “I would not
‘bleach [a] Negro soul in a flood of white
Americanism’ any more than Du B ois’s
American Negro would, for I have seen
that happen, and I know that it causes
spiritual death” (Kristin Hunter Lattany,
in Early 1993, 163). Major (1994) lists
“unbleached A m erican” as an 1860s
white slur for a black person, though it
is also used humorously by black people.
Joseph Owens (1982, 61-2) notes that
in traditional Rastafarian thinking, white
represents a bleaching out of black, the
color from which all other colors are
thought to derive. Bleached ebony has
been used for a mulatto/a.
See also a s s i m i l a t i o n , p a s s i n g , w h i t e .
blood. A term used figuratively for racial
ancestry and social lineage and to iden­
tify the source of behavioral traits, in­
cluding so-called racial traits, said to be
“in the blood.” In the Western world, but
also in other cultures, both in folk theory
and in social science, ethnicity is com ­
monly seen as a bond that exists through
“blood” or “seed.” The word has been
34 blue x.
used by racists as a shibboleth in solidi­
fying the concept o f race and by rom an­
tics (sometimes one and the same with
racists) to glorify their nation or group
or lineage.
Among other related terms are blue
blood (aristocratic families); royal blood
(royal families); peasant blood (common
families); pure blood (of one race; not
half-caste); and Aryan blood (Nordic,
non-Jewish) and blood and soil (Nazis
and Nazi ideas), terms by which Nazis
made their emotional appeals. Also of
this ilk are Negro blood (once particu­
larly distrusted by white people seeking
blood donors) and white blood (thought
to be best when “untainted” or— as first
the Nazis, then the neo-Nazis ranted—
“unpoisoned” by that of other races). O f
any kind, metaphorical blood is said to
be in your veins, never in your arteries.
In A frican A m erican usage today,
blood is a term of address for fellow
black people, especially young men, a
shortened form of blood brother, imply­
ing ethnic kinship (M ajor 1994).
See also m ix e d / m ix e d b l o o d , r a c e .
blue, blueskin. Derogatory slang from the
South for a black person. Blueskin ap­
peared around the late 1700s (now ob­
solete), blue coming into use later. As
applied among black speakers, blue has
referred especially to a dark-skinned
black person. Usage calls up an image
o f blue-black skin, and that coloring may
account for the origin of the term.
Blue is used among African Ameri­
cans in Louisiana (and in Florida and
Virginia, according to different sources)
for someone who is a mix of black, Na­
tive American, and white, also known
as a t r i r a c i a l m ix . M ajor (1994) says
that in this sense, the reference is to the
visibility of blue veins in the light skin.
T he blue-vein society (or circle) of
southern black culture comprised cliques
o f very light-skinned African Americans
possessing higher status than other black
people.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references. See also c o l o r .
blue-eyed devil. D erogatory expression
used among some black speakers for a
white person. M embers o f the N ation o f
Islam have held the belief that founder
Wallace D. Fard, supposedly an ortho­
dox Muslim bom in M ecca around 1877,
was an incarnation o f Allah, com e to the
United States to save the black race from
“blue-eyed devils.” M ajor (1994) gives
blue-eyed soul brother/sister as a white
person w ho sym pathizes w ith black
people or with their struggle.
For other words in black use for white
people, see w h it e , cross-references. See
especially d e v il , w h i t e d e v il . See also
d e m o n iz e .
blue-eyed Negroes. See t r ir a c ia l m i x e s .
BN IC. See HNIC.
b o at people. People fleeing a country in
boats for political reasons and often
without adequate provisions. Appearing
in the mid-1970s, the term has often re­
ferred to the million or so refugee's who
have fled Indochina since 1975, includ­
ing Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians,
and Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese. In
the United States, boat people have in­
cluded, in particular, the Vietnamese but
also Haitians and Cubans seeking ille­
gal entry into the country. “As a former
‘boat person’ who fled Vietnam in 1978
Tony Lee has built a successful career
in the U. S. . ( Transpacific, November
1993, 30).
The association o f boat people with
ill fortune and poverty may lead some
immigrants of the same nation or cul­
ture, such as the Haitian Americans who
arrived in the United States by plane, to
wish not to be lumped with boat people
just because o f their sim ilar ethnic ori­
gins. A flood o f boat people, usually
unwelcome in the United States, can fuel
prejudice among many U.S. citizens and
trig g e r g o v ern m e n t ac tio n . “O v e r­

whelmed by the wave o f Haitian boat
people fleeing violence and hunger, the
Clinton administration is under mount­
ing pressure to advance its timetable for
a U.S.-led invasion to overthrow Haiti’s
military regim e....” (Chicago Tribune,
4 July 1994, 1). Eoyang (1995, 126)
observes that boat people as we know
them today are “immigrants,” often ob­
je cts o f hostility, w hereas those who
came here on the Mayflower, the hal­
lowed boat people of the seventeenth
century, are “exiles.”
Yacht people, a term patterned on
boat people, refers to people whose en­
try into the United States is a very dif­
ferent matter. The 1990 Immigration Act
included the provision that a potential
imm igrant to the country would be al­
lowed automatic entry if establishing a
busin ess w ith a m illion dollars that
would provide jobs for at least ten work­
ers. T hese w ealthy im m igrants have
been known as yacht people.
See also H a it ia n , im m ig r a n t , M a r ie l
C uban.
Boche. See k ra u t.
Bohem ian. See G y p sy .
Boho. See B ap.
bohunk, Bohunk, hunk. Often disparag­
ing term from the late nineteenth or early
twentieth century, derived from Bohe­
mian plus hunk (alteration of Hungar­
ian). It originally meant an unskilled la­
b o re r fro m A u stria -H u n g a ry or
Bohem ia, later any central or eastern
European imm igrant o f working-class
background— a Czech, Slovak, Pole, or
Lithuanian, for instance. Also used have
been hunk and hunkie or hunky, for an
unskilled immigrant worker from cen­
tral Europe. These terms may be derived
from either Bohunk or hunk(y) (from the
Flemish hunke), the latter referring to a
man with the muscles— not brains— req­
uisite for manual labor. Bohunk and hunk
were used to suggest that the immigrant,
e s p e c ia lly a m a le, w as stu p id o r
boogie 35
clumsy— an oaf—or even less than hu­
man, and have since been used in that
sense genetically also. “During the post­
World War I labor strikes, one steel­
w orker labelled ‘H u n k ies’ as ‘only
cattle’ ” (Jerome Davis, from The Rus­
sian Im m igrant, 1922, in Perlm utter
1992, 35). Bohunk or bohink were un­
flattering references to Czech or other
Slav languages.
In black usage a bohunk is a white
person. H o n k y may derive from it.
See also c h e s k y , L it , P o l a c k , P o l e ,
POSKI, VULGARIAN, YAK.
bonehead. In ethnic discourse, a deroga­
tory n ic k n am e giv en by n o n ra c is t
skinheads for the racist variety. The term
is no doubt an allusion to the close-
cropped heads of skinheads, but as a ref­
erence to a particular kind of skinhead
scorned for racist views, it takes its con­
notations from the older slang term
meaning a stupid person. “One black
skinhead claimed that as far as he was
concerned, there was no such thing as a
ra c is t sk in h e ad . ‘We c a ll them
boneheads’” (M ichael Kronenwetter,
United They Hate, 1992, 80).
See also s k in h e a d .
boogie, boogy, boogey; bogeyman. Boogie
means a goblin or phantom, possibly
from the English and Gaelic bogle. As
in bogeyman (also boogeyman), it sug­
gests someone frightening. In the early
1920s, boogie came into derogatory use,
first in criminal and hobo groups, for a
black person. “Which one of them is the
head boogeyman?” (the dim-witted U.S.
president in Buck H enry’s First Family
[1980], upon being greeted by a delega­
tion of black African people). It has also
been suggested that boogie derives from
southern slang for syphilis, reflecting an
old stereotype that African Americans
carry venereal diseases. African Ameri­
cans may use the term sarcastically, call­
ing attention to others’ tendencies to find
a black person— society’s bogeyman—
36 boojie \
behind any bad events, such as crimes.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially b l a c k m a n , s p o o k .
b o o jie, b o o jee, boojy. Pejorative used
among black speakers in the South since
' has also been used for any male who
the second half o f the twentieth century
for a wealthy or elitist black person who
imitates white people. It derives from
bourgeoisie. In Mario Van Peebles’ 1995
film Panther, an African American man
accused another of being a “phony-ass
b o o jie nigger,” thus questioning his
black identity.
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially A f r o - S a x o n ,
B a p , B l a c k A n g l o - S a x o n , b u p p ie ,
CHALKER, OFAY, OREO, STEPOUT, W ANNA-BE,
W HITE PADDY.
boon coon. See coon.
BP. See b l a c k
Bootchkey, Butchski. See c h e s k y .
b ra c e ro [bra-'ser- o]. Spanish A m erican
b o r in k i. A n ic k n a m e , fro m S p an ish
Borinqueho, from Borinquen (the origi­
nal name of Puerto Rico), often humor­
ous, used in Hawaii for a P u e r t o R i c a n .
boss C harlie. See C h a r l ie .
boy. A term with a long history in English
to mean someone of low or menial sta­
tus. It was used by white colonists in
North America for males who were in­
dentured servants, Indians, or black
slaves and was later restricted more to
black male slaves o f almost any age (but
see U n c l e ), with emasculating conno­
tations. It was used commonly in the
South when the black m an’s first name
was not known, since white people did
not traditionally use titles o f respect for
black people.
This pejorative is still used today for
African American males over age eight
or nine, though less so because of stron­
g e r ta b o o s a g a in st o v ert slu rs. O f
Frederic Morrow, a black assistant to
President Eisenhower and the first black
assistant to a president of the U nited
States, David Halberstam wrote, “When
he attended social events as a m em ber
o f the W hite House staff, people occa­
sionally gave him their coats, saying
‘Boy, take care o f this’” (interview in
Booklist, 15 Septem ber 1993,105). Boy
works in a position such as that o f a por­
ter or an elevator operator, suggesting
his low status.
W h a te v e r th e in te n tio n s o f th e
speaker, black males (or others that white
people have targeted) understandably
hear the sense o f “inferior” when the
term is used to address them . B lack
people may return the insult with such
black English slang forms as grayboy
(see g r a y ) and w h it e b o y .
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially A u n t , g i r l , U n c l e .
pow er.
word meaning “day laborer.” D erived
from Spanish brazo (arm), suggesting
the strong arm of the field hand, and u sed
in the Southwest. A bracero is a tem po­
rary, legal m igrant w orker contracted
especially to do agricultural work, as
during W orld W ar II w hen M exican
farmhands legally entered the U nited
States for limited periods to help harvest
crops. Under the provisions o f the Los
Braceros program, supervised jointly by
the United States and Mexico, provisions
for m inim um stan d ard s o f h ousing,
wages, and health care sometimes gave
the braceros, who were M exican nation­
als, an advantage over the Chicanos.
“Frustrated after six weeks o f intense
police action by the U.S. Border Patrol
along the Rio Grande here, M exican of­
ficials have proposed a return to a sys­
tem sim ilar to the Bracero program of
the 1940s and ’50s” (San Antonio E x­
press News, 31 O ctober 1993, 1A).
The term may be used to disparage
the social status of these workers: “She

often called other lower-income M exi­
cans ‘braceros,’ or ‘wet-backs,’ referring
to herself and her family as ‘a different
class o f people’” (Cherrfe Moraga, in
Andersen and Collins 1992, 21).
See also C h ic a n o / a , M e x ic a n A m e r i ­
can, PEON, WETBACK.
b rad y . See h o m e b o y .
B rah m an ; B rahm in. From a Sanskrit word
meaning “having to do with prayer” or
“sacrifice-priest,” a term referring to a
member o f the highest caste among H i n ­
d u s , one concerned with guarding reli­
gious writings and rituals. Brahmin is the
preferred spelling for a socially elite or
highly cultivated person, especially a
m em ber of old New England stock, as
in Oliver Wendell H olm es’s The Brah­
min Caste o f New England (1859). In
this sense, it is sometimes used dispar­
agingly.
See a l s o Y a n k e e .
B rass ankle. See t r ir a c ia l m ix e s .
brave. A reference to an American Indian
first appearing in the early 1800s, origi­
nally m eaning any w arrior or soldier.
From M iddle French brave, meaning
“valiant, splendid,” from Italian bravo
(fine, bold) and Spanish bravo (wild,
savage). Possibly, says Barnhart (1988),
from Latin barbarus (foreign) or Medi­
eval Latin bravus (cutthroat, daring vil­
lain).
Waldman (1994) says it was first ap­
plied to Native Americans by the Span­
ish, who used the phrase Indios bravos
“in reference to the fierceness the Indi­
ans demonstrated in battle.” It eventu­
ally designated any male Native Ameri­
can, whether a warrior or not. Today the
term sounds dated, and to many Native
Americans its use may seem disrespect­
ful, whatever the Western film’s gloss of
romance.
For the controversial use of brave as
a sports mascot, see I n d i a n . See also
buck, N a t iv e A m e r i c a n .
Brit 37
breed. A shortened form of half-breed from
the late nineteenth century, especially as
used in the West. It is usually a dispar­
aging reference to a person of mixed
descent, especially one who is half Na­
tive American (but sometimes also black
or Latino) and half white. To Native
Americans or others so targeted, the term
is likely to be offensive. “Even a few
college intellectuals call them selves
‘breeds’ because they have lost their
identities and don’t know anymore who
they are” (Gabriel Horn, Native Heart,
1993, 81).
See also b ir a c ia l , h a l f - b r e e d , h a l f ­
ca ste, INTERRACIAL, MESTIZO/A, METIS/
METISSE, MISCEGENATION, MIXED, MULTIRA­
CIAL.
briquet. See C reole.
B rit. A shortening of Briton (which few
British use to refer to themselves) or
British (indicating citizenship rather than
cultural heritage). The Old English term
is Bret, probably from the Celtic Brittos.
A lthough not w idely used until the
1970s, Brit is reinforced by such usages
as Scot (Scottish) and Dane (Danish) and
is unmarked for gender (unlike English­
man and Englishwoman). Yet this infor­
mal usage may have a slightly offensive
tone or, as used by Irish nationalists, sig­
nify an overt anti-British attitude. It may
be somewhat more derogatory in Aus­
tralia than in the United States. However,
often no more than a nickname, it may
be used neutrally, affectionately, or, by
virtue o f its brevity, in newspaper head­
lines in the U nited K ingdom or the
United States. M erriam-W ebster’s D ic­
tionary o f English Usage (1989) ob­
serves a trend in U.S. and British usage
that “seems to suggest that Brit is on its
way to becoming a relatively neutral,
informal term used in place of the longer
Briton, Britisher, or Englishman.” Par­
tridge (1984) lists as another colloquial
meaning (usually in plural form) a mem­
ber of the British Israelite sect.
See also B r it is h e r , l im e y .
38 Britisher N,
Britisher. A resident of or person bom in
Great Britain (sometimes also someone
from a Commonwealth nation). This usu­
ally informal term is probably of U.S.
origin. It became popular in the United
States at the time o f the American Revo­
lution, or just after it, and may have been
derogatory, perhaps originally used to
distinguish a British army of occupation
from colonists bom in England or to la­
bel a colonist of avowed allegiance to the
King. It may be used now as an ironic jab
at stuffy English titles. ‘T h e term,” says
The Oxford Companion to the English
Language (1992), “is both widely used
and widely disowned. It was the first of
the inclusive terms for people from Brit­
ain who may or may not be English....”
Britisher is usually not biased.
See also B r it , l im e y .
brown. Pertaining to a racial category seen
as having a skin color between that of
white and black people. This term has
m uch British use, although it is also
heard in the United States, usually asso­
ciated with minority status. It often re­
fers to an Asian, especially o f Indian
origin. As a reference to a mulatto or
light-skinned black person or to a Mexi­
can or a Puerto Rican, it can be deroga­
tory, especially if the speaker is white.
However, the Harlem Renaissance of the
1920s glorified brown skin colors, and
in the barrios of the 1960s, the term was
used with pride in the Chicano slogan
“Brow n Power,” patterned on b l a c k
p o w e r . The Brown Berets were militant
organizers in the movement. The brown­
ing o f America, used among demogra­
phers, refers to the growth of the non­
white population in general in the United
States.
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , b l a c k ,
B R O W N IE , B R O W N S U G A R , C H IC A N O /A ,
color, M e x ic a n A m e r ic a n , P u e r t o
R ic a n .
brownie. In black English, a young black
person or mulatto/a, especially a girl­
friend. Also used for a brown-skinned
Asian. May be offensive if used by white
people.
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially b r o w n s u g a r ,
' m u latto/ a .
brown sugar. Black slang originating in the
early twentieth century for a black per­
son whom one is attracted to, as a boy­
friend or girlfriend (M ajor [1994] re­
stricts black use to a woman). The term
alludes both to color and to sweetness.
T he n in e tee n th -ce n tu ry slan g w ord
sugar, meaning “money,” might add to
the sense o f something to covet. Brown
sugar may be considered derogatory if
used by white people.
For other words black or white people
use for black people, see b l a c k , cross­
references. See especially b r o w n ie , d a r k
m eat, I n d ia n p r i n c e s s .
Bruce Lee. Based on the name o f the Chi­
nese martial arts movie actor, this epi­
thet, when used generically to refer to a
Chinese or any Asian male, may betaken
with offense.
See also A s ia n A m e r ic a n , C h in a m a n ,
C h in e e , C h in e s e , C h in k , c h o p s t ic k s ,
chow , c o o l ie , J o h n C h in a m a n , m ic e -
eater, m o n k ey , P a t , p ig t a il .
brunette. From the late nineteenth century,
referring to dark hair and a relatively
dark complexion, a term for a black per­
son; also used earlier in this century for
a Native Am erican. A lthough L ighter
(1994) sees both usages as jocular, they
will likely be viewed as having racist
overtones.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references. See also b u f ­
f a l o s o l d ie r s .
Bubba, bubba. A m an’s nickname, prob­
ably from a ch ild ’s pronunciation o f
brother. M ajor (1994) lists bubba as a
nineteenth-century term in black use as
a form o f address for a male sibling. It
is still in use as a nickname among black

people and, nonpejoratively, among pro
football players.
It is also commonly associated with
a white southern male, also known as a
g o o d o l d b o y . Outside the South, the
image is negative— an unsophisticated,
boorish white man: “Look at the south­
ern characters on television in the 1960s:
the Beverly Hillbillies, Gomer Pyle, the
R e a l M c C o y s ...m o ro n s on e and
all...many o f them sporting such yokel
names as Bubba, Slick Mavis, or Billie
Joe Bob” {Jane & M ichael S te m 's E n­
cyclopedia o f Pop Culture, 1992, 415).
American Speech (Spring 1993,100­
02) says that Bubba has been in use in
the form ation o f a num ber o f recent
terms, especially during the 1992 presi­
dential campaign: the Bubba vote, refer­
ring to the white working-class south­
erners who offered substantial support
to then Arkansas governor Bill Clinton;
Bubba and brother (or Bubba and the
Brotha), a political coalition between
white southerners and black people; and
a less frequently heard female version,
Bubbette, a white southern female o f the
sam e ilk as a Bubba. In Bubba Talks
(1993), Dan Jenkins offers a colorful
redneck image: A Bubba can be found
anywhere in the United States, as long
as it’s afternoon and the place is called
D ottie’s Paradise Lounge.
See also A p p a l a c h ia n , c l a y - e a t e r ,
c o r n c r a c k e r , c r a c k e r , h il l b il l y , p o o r
w h it e t r a s h , r e d n e c k , s o u t h e r n e r .
buck; b uckw heat. By extension from its
first dictionary sense (an adult male ani­
mal such as a deer, antelope, or goat),
buck has been a disparaging term since
co lo n ial tim es fo r any m ale N ative
American, especially youths and young
adults, as in buck Indian.
See a l s o b r a v e , I n d ia n , N a t iv e A m e r i ­
can.
Buck or buck nigger was also used
during the enslavement era for a black
m?n, especially a young strong one, and
thus may connote sexuality. Advertisers
buckra 39
for Paul R obeson’s portrayal o f The
Em peror Jones (1933) prom ised that
“your heart will beat with the tom-toms
at the tragedy of a roaring buck from
H arlem , w ho sw ap p ed a p u llm an
porter’s cap for a tyrant’s crown” (in
W illiatn L. Van Deburg, Slavery and
R ace in A m erican P opular Culture,
1986, 124).
A comparable term applied first to a
female child, but later taking on the sense
of a female servant, slave, or mulatta
(also a lewd woman), is wench. “In overt
contempt for slaves, the masters used
buck and wench till they became trade
terms, like ‘filly’ and ‘shoat’” (Furnas
1956, 120). Ironical usage o f either of
these terms occurs today among African
Americans. Buckwheat, referring to wild
wheat, came to be an epithet for black
A m ericans, though used also am ong
African Americans on familiar terms.
For other traditional southern words for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences.
Buck has also been used for any spir­
ited young man and is usually not dis­
paraging in this sense.
b u ck ra , b a c k ra , b u c k ra h , b u c k ru h . A
white man, or master. As an adjective, it
means “of the white race.” The term
comes from the Gullah language, a kind
o f plantation Creole developed by black
slaves and based on the languages of
their African homelands, pidgin English,
and the English spoken by slave own­
ers. There have been numerous alterna­
tive spellings. Buckra is often deroga­
tory and can refer to a poor white or any
white person. “The black people of the
South Carolina and Georgia Sea Islands
have always been private, distrustful of
outsiders, especially the buckra, the
white man” (Walt Harrington, Crossings,
1992, 74).
Toni M orrison’s Song o f Solomon
(1977,303) suggests the idea o f oppres­
sor behind the word:
40 buckwheat
O Solomon don’t leave me here
Cotton balls to choke me.
O Solomon don’t leave me here
Buckra’s arms to yoke me.
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See also G u l l a h .
buckw heat. See buck.
B u d d h a h e a d , B u d d h a -h e a d , b u d d h a
h ead , b u d d ah e ad . Twentieth-century
slang for someone of Asian descent, sug­
gesting the wearing o f a turban, used
primarily for Asian Americans in Hawaii
and California. It is also in use as a main­
land Japanese American epithet for their
Hawaiian counterparts, stereotyped as
traditional and unsophisticated (the epi­
thet is also used by non-Japanese on the
m ainland). A synonym for this latter
sense is p in e a p p l e . Buddhahead has also
been used for any Japanese pejoratively
or, as in this citation, affectionately:
“One night I told you that bein’ married
to that Budda-head was livin’. It ain’t.
It’s something much finer than livin’”
(James A. Michener, Sayonara, 1953).
See also A s ia n A m e r ic a n , A s ia n I n ­
d ia n , DOTHEAD, KOTONK, RAGHEAD.
buffalo. Derogatory slang, from at least the
early part of the twentieth century, for a
black person, especially males. In more
historical use, the term was applied to
Unionists in North Carolina during the
Civil War and to poor white people in
that state. When used as a shortened form
o f buffalo soldier, it does not carry any
derogatory connotations.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references. See also b u f ­
falo SOLDIERS.
buffalo soldiers, B uffalo Soldiers. Native
American pidgin English for black sol­
diers who fought in segregated regiments
in the U.S. Army after the Civil War.
Explanations offered for the origin of the
term include the following. (1) The In­
dians against whom the black soldiers
fought found them strong and brave in
battle. Leckie (1967, n.26) argues that the
buffalo was a sacred animal to Native
Americans, and they would not likely
have bestowed the name on an enemy
for whom they had no respect. The black
troopers probably understood this, which
' is why they wore the name proudly. (2)
The soldiers wore garments made from
the buffalo (see the account by Charles
Alexander Eastman in Brown and Ling
1993, 4). (3) Their hair resembled that
on a buffalo’s neck (see Katz 1986,174—
5). Leckie (1 967,25-26) notes that buf­
falo soldiers were also called various
other names, mostly derogatory, includ­
ing moacs, brunettes, niggers, and A fri­
cans, by all manner of people. For the
role o f African American soldiers on the
frontier after the Civil War, see Clinton
Cox, The Forgotten Heroes, 1993.
See also A f r i c a n , b l a c k , b r u n e t t e ,
BUFFALO, NIGGER.
buppie, Buppie, buppy. Black, urban (or
upw ardly m obile) p ro fessio n al. T he
term, derived from yuppie and attributed
to sociologist Harry Edwards, came into
use in the early to mid-1980s for young
African Americans with high incomes
or aspirations and middle-class, integra-
tionist values that other black people
may see as a rejection o f their roots. For
this reason, the term may, at least among
black users, connote something o f a sell­
out. A n ideal type w as the character
Greer Childs, played by John Terrell in
Spike L ee’s 1986 film S h e’s Gotta Have
It. A successful, health-conscious young
black man, Childs drove a European
sports car and talked about finding a
white woman. He was a “pseudoblack-
m an” in the eyes o f B-boy character
Mars Blackmon, played by Spike Lee.
Nelson George (1992) sees the buppie
as one of four African American char­
acter types, along with the BAP, the B-
boy, and the Boho, originating in the
1970s and crucial in the development of
American society. Referring to the 1991
nomination o f Clarence Thomas to ju s ­

tice of the Supreme Court and to the live
telecast o f sexual harassment charges of
A n ita H ill ag ain st T hom as, G eorge
notes, “Never has America seen so many
real-life Buppies on TV. Unfortunately,
they’re all Republicans” (1992, 40).
See also A f r ic a n A m e r ic a n , A f r o -
S a x o n , B a f, bla ck , B lack A n g lo -
S a x o n , b o o j ie , c h a l k e r , o f a y , o r e o , p a s s ­
in g , STEPOUT, WANNA-BE, WHITE PADDY.
b u rrh e a d . Derogatory reference to a black
American or Pacific Islander, based on
hair texture.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
en ces. See esp ecially f u z z y - w u z z y ,
WOOLY HEAD.
bush; B ushm an; B ush Negro. Bush means
a w ild e rn e ss. M e r r ia m -W e b s te r ’s
(1993), deriving bush from Middle En­
glish, notes that it is akin to Old High
German busc (forest). Mencken (1962,
suppl. 1,191) claims that in the sense of
“wild land” the A m erican usage was
probably influenced by the Dutch bosch.
In English it has also been used to refer
to something provincial, backward, or
substandard; it often evokes images of
“uncivilized” rural areas. The American
bush league refers to something second-
rate, and bush ape means someone who
lives in the backwoods. Americans, as
well as the English and Australians, have
applied the bush to remote, so-called
butchski 41
tribal or third world areas stereotyped
as p r i m i t i v e , as reflected in the usages
Bushman and Bush Negro.
Bushman comes from the obsolete
A frikaans boschjesm an, used by the
Dutch who colonized South Africa for
black people inhabiting “the bush.” The
term refers to the short-statured, tradi­
tionally foraging people of southern Af­
rica or to their language. Once used
among social scientists to refer to these
people’s hunting-gathering economy, the
term, though still in print, is now criti­
cized for its Eurocentric bias. Its conno­
tations may be contemptuous or affec­
tionate. T hese people, who have no
single term that covers all their groups,
refer to themselves as “true people,” but
are called San by neighboring related
people and now by anthropologists as
well.
Bush Negro is a pejorative name for
a member o f any o f the black or mixed
black and Indian populations of the West
Indies or Guiana that comprise descen­
dants of fugitive slaves o f the seven­
teenth and eighteenth centuries (the
n o n b ia sed nam e is M aroon). B ush
nigger refers pejoratively to any black
person who is wild, loud, or obnoxious.
S ee also A f r i c a n , E t h i o p i a n ,
H o t t e n t o t , K a f f ir , M a u M a u , N ig e r ia n ,
P ygm y, Z ulu.
butchski. See chesky.

C a Cambodian. Associated with military
cabbagehead. See kraut.
Cajun, Cajan, Cagian. A corruption of
Acadian (once pronounced Cadian), the
di sound having been corrupted to a soft
g. It refers to an inhabitant of the his­
to rical F rench colony, A cadia (m ost
likely named after the mythical Arcadia),
o f Canada, w hose members were ex­
pelled by the British in 1755. A fiction­
alized account of the expulsion is told
in Longfellow’s 1847 poem Evangeline.
Though the exiles were geographically
dispersed, and many returned to their
C a n a d ia n h o m e la n d , n u m e ro u s
A cadians settled in the bayou lands of
southern Louisiana.
Cajun (also Cajan) refers to these re­
settled French exiles in Louisiana, to
Louisianans descended from them, to
their archaic French dialect (which they
call Bougalie), and also today to their
cooking. “My father... was a huge, dark,
grinning Cajun with fists the size of can­
taloupes” (James Lee Burke, Dixie City
Jam , 1994, 208). Som e A cadians in
Louisiana, however, may regard the term
as objectionable. By around the m id­
nineteenth century, it had taken on de­
meaning connotations, corresponding to
the increasingly stigmatized status of be­
ing a Cajun in the eyes of non-Acadians
and of the so-called Genteel Acadians.
W hile Cajuns did not see themselves in
terms o f the qualities ascribed to them
(nor did they use the term Cajun, pre­
ferring instead the French Cadien), to
others it meant a poor, rustic, or back­
ward person (Dormon 1983, 240-43).
Cajan, sometimes carrying pejorative
connotations o f racial mixing, is a spell­
ing used for a person of white, Native
American, and black descent in Alabama
or M ississippi. See also t r ir a c ia l m i x e s .
For another word representing the
same kind of corruption o f sound, see
I n j u n . See also c o o n a s s .
cannibal 43
Cambo. U.S. slang, sometimes derisive, for
use during the Vietnam War.
See also A s ia n A m e r ic a n .
camel jockey, camel jammer. Stereotypi­
cal na/ne for an Arab or for someone of
Arab descent. “We were always called
the sand niggers or the camel jockeys”
(Essa Sackllah, in Perlmutter 1992,46).
See also A r a b .
C ane R iver M ulattoes. See trira c ia l
MIXES.
cannibal. Originally borrow ed from an
Arawakan word, caniba (used by native
people in Cuba) related to carib (used
by native people in H aiti), m eaning
“strong men” or “brave men.” Cannibal
comes to us through Spanish canibal, as
recorded by Christopher Columbus to
describe the “man-eating” (as the Span­
ish reported them ) C arib, a N ative
American people who migrated out of
w hat is now B razil into the L esser
Antilles area of the West Indies around
a . d . 1400.
Cannibal is often an inaccurately
applied label. In many historical circum­
stances it has been no more than an al­
lusion to the “savagery” of peoples, in­
cluding Native Americans, living outside
or on the fringes of Western civilization.
Although various European groups have
historically been reported as practicing
some cannibalistic rites, these reports,
unlike those regarding alleged practices
among non-Western peoples, are readily
dism issed am ong W esterners as the
products o f prejudice (Arens 1979). His­
torically, the term was used in European
or U.S. campaigns designed to prosely­
tize, colonize, or “relocate” indigenous
peoples. According to Anthony F. C.
Wallace, for example, Andrew Jackson,
a land speculator, politician, and com­
m ander o f a m ilitia, view ed N ative
A m ericans as “savage, cruel, blood­
thirsty, cannibalistic butchers of innocent
white women and children, and [they]
44
should be driven into submission or ex­
tinction” (The Long Bitter Trail, 1993,
54). D ata on the so-called cannibalistic
practices of both Western and non-West­
ern peoples have been filtered, em bel­
lished, and often invented, and many of
the reporters never actually witnessed
any such practices, abundant references
and claims notwithstanding.
“Better sleep with a sober cannibal
than a drunken Christian” (Ishmael, re­
ferring to his “heathen” roommate in
Herman M elville’s M oby Dick, 1851).
See also m e n a c e , p r im i t i v e , sa v a g e .
canon. From the Latin canon (rule), Greek
kanon (m easuring rod o r rule). The
Greeks carried a straight stick, or kanon,
as a signal o f authority or power. By
extension, the word came to mean a de­
cree o f the Catholic church (canon law)
or the Gospels o f the Bible (Canonical
Gospels), a standard in art or language,
or the collective superior works of lit­
erature in u language. O f interest here,
canon means those works preserved as
the best or “classic,” specifically in Eu­
ropean and U.S. literature, history, phi­
losophy, the arts, social and political
thought, mathematics, and science.
Canon became a buzzword in aca­
demic debate in the 1980s. The body of
long-respected Western works, seen as
the accepted list of essential books to
read (a long list, from Plato and Aristotle
to D an te , M ilto n , E m e rso n , and
Melville), came under attack by African
A m erican, Latino, N ative A m erican,
Asian American, feminist, and gay and
lesbian critics. From their point of view,
the literary canon was exclusive, writ­
ten largely by white, often upper-class,
European, heterosexual males and con­
trolled by critics and managers of access
(e.g., publishers) of the same ilk.
A recent, highly controversial thrust
o f multiculturalism has been to seek new
types of canon and to add writers of color
and female writers to the general canon.
For example, many wish to include the
w orks o f Z o ra N eale H urston, Toni
Morrison, Alice Walker, and other mem­
bers o f oppressed groups or the devel­
oping world. (In 1997 the publication o f
The Norton Anthology o f African Ameri-
ycan Literature was a significant effort
toward a canon o f A frican A m erican lit­
erature.) The goals are to expose and
limit bias, to recognize the diversity o f
voices in American society, and to build
a culture that respects differences as well
as commonalities and that is fully hu­
manizing for everyone. Some, o f course,
resist this change, and descriptions o f an
invasion o f “barbarian terrorists” on col­
lege cam puses have ensued. G erald
Graff (1992) has helped to explode some
o f the myths about an intolerant code o f
political correctness in higher education
by pointing out, for example, that liter­
ary canon is always changing, “by ac­
cretion at the margins, not by dumping
the classics” (24).
Critics o f canon reform ation defend
the general canon not just on the grounds
o f aesthetic value; they argue that,' like
Western culture in general, it unifies an
o th e rw ise d is p a ra te an d re a d ily
factionalized U.S. society around a heri­
tage believed to be essential for our com ­
munal well-being. It is a heritage, the
critics go on, in which truth and excel­
le n ce are re s p e c te d r a th e r th a n
relativized, offering standards that are
frequently the envy o f the world. Many
opposed to some forms o f reform ation
are open to adding the works o f non white
groups to the general canon over time,
but they may also argue that canons can­
not be established in, for example, black
literature and com plain that attem pts to
define minority canon are tainted by
political interests, “ ...w e face the out­
raged reactions o f those custodians of
W estern culture who protest that the
canon, that transparent decanter of West­
ern values, may becom e— breathe the
word—politicized" (Gates 1992, 33).

S ee a lso c u l t u r a l r e l a t i v i s m ,
DW EM , EQUALITY, POLITICAL CORRECT­
NESS.
C a n u ck , can uck, K anu(c)k, C anack. A
Canadian. From the mid-nineteenth cen­
tury or earlier, this term has often been
used to personify Canada. It is seldom
applied offensively in Canada, especially
in the west, and has appeared in such
nam es as the Vancouver Canucks and
Johnny Canuck, whom Leo Bachle de­
picted in his comic book as an enemy of
th e N a z is d u rin g W orld W ar II.
Wentworth and Flexner (1975) also point
out the term ’s use to refer to a strong
woodsman or logger.
However, Canuck may be a derisive
label in eastern Canada for a French
Canadian and in the northeastern United
S tates fo r a C anadian, esp ecially a
French Canadian. A certain amount of
hullabaloo surrounded a statement attrib­
uted to an aide to 1972 presidential can­
d id a te S en ato r E dm und M uskie o f
Maine. A pparently meant to discredit
Muskie, the statement is quoted as, “We
don’t have blacks but we have Cannocks
[sic].” The senator denied the statement
was ever made.
Attempts to trace the origin o f the
term have come to different conclusions.
It has been said, for example, to derive
from the first syllable of Canada (The
Oxford English Dictionary [ 1989] says
“apparently”); from Native American
languages (Iroquoian kanuchsa, some­
one in a kanata, or “village”); and from
the French-Canadian word Connaught,
a n in eteenth-century nam e given by
French Canadians to those o f Irish de­
scent. It has also been explained as a
borrowing from the Hawaiian term for
person, Kanaka, arriving in New E n­
gland by way o f whalers returning home
from the Pacific or through a pidgin used
in the fur trade employing Pacific Island­
ers. M erriam-W ebster’s Collegiate D ic­
tionary (1993) says simply, “origin un­
known.”
C aucasian 45
Canuck is also used to nam e the
F ren ch -C an ad ian p atois. In M aine,
Kaybecker, for “Quebecois,” came to be
used as a polite alternative to Canuck.
See also K a n a k a .
casper. Se,e s p o o k .
C aucasian, C aucasoid. Caucasian derives
from Caucasus, the name of a mountain­
ous reg io n betw een the B lack and
Caspian seas. The early anthropologist
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who first
used the term in 1795, believed that the
first humans originated here. They were
probably white, he reasoned, since it
w ould have been difficult for d ark ­
skinned people to evolve into the more
aesthetically pleasing (in Blumenbach’s
chauvinistic opinion) white ones.
This term, which in its narrow sense
once referred simply to the people of the
Caucasus, was picked up by anthropolo­
gists as a racial designation for white
people, principally of European origin,
whose physical features included light
skin pigmentation, straight to wavy or
curly hair, and such facial characteris­
tics as small teeth and prominent noses.
Though discredited as an anthropologi­
cal term and not recommended in most
editorial guidelines, it is still heard and
used, for exam ple, as a category on
forms asking for ethnic identification. It
is also still used for police blotters (the
abbreviated Cauc may be heard among
police) and appears elsewhere as a eu­
phemism. Its synonym, Caucasoid, also
once used in anthropology but now dated
and considered pejorative, is disappear­
ing.
“In an u ltim ate irony fo r w hite
folks.. .immigrants from the Caucasus—
yes, Caucasians— who have moved to
Moscow since the Soviet Union disinte­
grated are resented, harassed and at­
tacked as ‘blacks’” (ElizabethM artinez,
Z Magazine, December 1993, 24).
See also A r y a n , r a c e , w h i t e .
Terminally Caucasian, as used sar­
46 chalker
castically by white people, is a poten­
tially incendiary expression that suggests
that white people are losing out in jobs
and education because of the supposed
advantages given today to black people.
See also r e v e r s e d is c r im in a t io n .
chalker; chalk. From the mid-twentieth
century, in black use, a chalker is a
b la c k p e rso n w ho e m u la te s w h ite
people, or associates with them so much
“that it’s beginning to rub off on him
like chalk” (Spears 1991). M ajor (1994)
gives chalk as a 1980s black term for a
white person, especially one o f Anglo-
Irish descent.
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially A f r o - S a x o n ,
B a p , B l a c k A n g l o - S a x o n , b o o jie , b u p p ie ,
OFAY, OREO, STEPOUT, WANNA-BE, WHITE
For other words black people use
pa d d y .
for white people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences.
charcoal, charcoal nigger. A derogatory
name in white use for a black or a very
dark-skinned person, from at least the
early tw entieth century. A ccording to
M ajor (1994), it has been inverted by
black people to an affectionate expres­
sion used for another black person.
For other words in white use for black
people, see b l a c k , cross-references. See
also COLOR.
Charlie, Charley. A pejorative nickname
for a white man or for white society as
the oppressor. Although in black use
earlier in the century, Charlie was com ­
mon in the language of the civil rights
movement. M ajor (1994) sees it as an
alteration o f M ister Charlie, a black,
southern usage for the overseer or boss
in slave days and up through Reconstruc­
tion. Lighter (1994) adds Boss Charlie
(boss meaning an overbearing white per­
son). Also Charles and Chuck.
See a l s o M is t e r C h a r l i e , w h i t e .
Charlie was also used disparagingly
for Chinese, Japanese, or Vietnamese
men. According to Lighter (1994), the
usage for Asians was suggested by Earl
D err B iggers’s fictional Chinese sleuth
Charlie Chan, whose popularity in film
apparently led to a generalization o f the
name to all Chinese men. It was also
v used for the armed forces o f Japan dur­
ing World War II and, later, for the armed
forces of Communist China. V.C. and its
m ilitary alphabet designation, Victor
Charlie, were used during the Vietnam
War for the Viet Cong, the Vietnamese
C om m unist guerrilla enemy. Charlie
Cong was the pejorative epithet.
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , C h i n e s e .
cheese-eater, cheese-head, John Cheese.
D erogatory term s, though som etim es
m eant as hum orous, for som eone o f
D utch descent. Partridge (1984) lists
cheese-head as a nautical reference to
the Dutch. Cheese-eater has also found
use as a Catholic epithet for Protestants
who ridiculed Catholics by calling them
fish-eaters. M ore com m only, cheese-
eater is slang for a despicable person;
cheese-head, a dullard or fool.
See also D u t c h , f is h - e a t e r , Y a n k e e .
Cherokee. See C h o c ta w .
Cherry Blossom. A Japanese woman, and
East Asian women in general, from the
cherished trees of Japanese gardens, and
suggesting a sexual pun. Lotus Blossom
is another nickname that may be given
to a Japanese or Japanese American fe­
male, sometimes affectionately, as in the
case o f Machiko K yo’s geisha character
in the 1956 film Teahouse o f the August
M oon (based on the book by Vera J.
Sneider). Both usages usually stereotype
an Asian woman as deferential and ser­
vile to men, sexually or otherwise. “I
m oderated a com m unity program on
A sian A m erican w om en recently. A
rather bew ildered young salesw om an
showed up with a stack o f brochures to
promote the Cherry Blossom com pan­
ion service, or some such enterprise”
(Renee E. Tajima, Making Waves, 1989).

For other words for Asian women,
see C h in a d o l l , d r a g o n l a d y , f o r t u n e
c o o k i e , g e is h a , Miss S a ig o n . See also
A s ia n A m e r i c a n .
chesky, Cheskey, czezski. A derogatory
slang nickname for a Czechoslovakian
(the name from which it derives) or Bo­
hemian. M encken (1962, suppl. 1, 602)
notes that it was common in areas in the
U nited States where Czech immigrants
were numerous and adds that Bootchkey
(or Butchski) was also sometimes ap­
plied to a Czech. Bootchkey comes from
the Czech word pockej, meaning “wait”
or “hold,” and was used by Czech boys,
a c c o rd in g to M e n ck e n , in p la y in g
games.
See a l s o b o h u n k .
C hicano/a, chicano/a [che-'ka- no/a], A
M exican American. First seen in print
in American English in the late 1940s
(occurring earlier in Chicano English
and Spanish), this term is most likely a
regional or archaic form of the Spanish
mexicano (Mexican), in which the x is
pronounced as sh. It is capitalized in En­
glish, but not in Spanish.
There have been numerous folk ety­
mologies and popular explanations for
Chicano, many at least supporting the
suspicion that class bias lies behind the
usage. For example, in parts o f Mexico,
those at the lowest levels of society were
known as chicanos. Another objection
to Chicano is based on the belief that it
derives from the C astilian w ord for
“tricky” or “cheat,” which has the same
ro o t as the E nglish w ord chicanery
(Julian Nava, Viva La Raza, 1973, in
M arden 1992, 278). It is also said to de­
rive from the Spanish Chico, “boy” or
“small one,” which is used as a nick­
name.
In any case, Chicano was initially a
pejorative. It som etim es suggested a
n e’er-do-well and was used by border-
area M exican Americans for recent im ­
migrants or for those among them who
Chicano/a 47
showed little desire to assimilate to Tex-
Mex culture. Ultimately it became a slur
used by non-Mexican Americans for all
Mexican American people in the barrios.
stupid america, see that chicano
with a big knife
on flis steady hand
he doesn’t want to knife you
he wants to sit on a bench
and carve christ figures
but you won’t let him.
—Abelardo Delgado,
“Stupid America,” 1969
In the late 1960s, som e M exican
Americans, especially the younger, po­
litically aware, reclaimed Chicano (as
black was reclaimed by African Ameri­
cans in that decade) as an act of politi­
cal d e fia n c e and e th n ic p rid e.
Chicanismo emerged among Chicano
students in California, stressing, among
other things, a positive self-image for
Chicanos and rejecting the commonly
held belief in the American mainstream
that equal opportunity is a reality in U.S.
society. The slogan of the movement was
“Chicano Power.” Chicano thus came to
mean a Mexican American without an
Anglo self-image, or an un-American-
ized Mexican American, or sometimes,
any Mexican American, especially in the
Southwest.
Although Chicano has largely been
superseded in the press by Latino and
Hispanic, some advocate Chicano as the
correct term for persons o f M exican
A m erican descent because it reflects
Mexican ethnic nationalism and inter­
est in Mexican heritage. However, the
term is not generic. There are many who
reject it, including some (especially old
families in the United States with Span­
ish surnames) who may still regard it as
militant or insulting. In his study of re­
sponses to ethnic labels, Lampe (1982)
found that Hispanics, black people, and
Anglos tended to respond negatively to
Chicano, characterizing Chicanos as
gang members and as lazy and untrust-
 48 Chickahominy
worthy (Lampe points out that this may
result from the fact that the young and
the m ilitant have been m ost likely to
identify themselves as Chicano). How­
ever, as M erriam-W ebster’s Dictionary
o f E nglish Usage (1989) notes, with
wider application the word has lost some
o f its politicized edge.
See also H is p a n ic , L a t in o / a , M e x i ­
can, M e x ic a n A m e r ic a n , T io T a c o .
C hickahom iny. See t r i r a c i a l
Am ong black users, a late
c h ic k e n lip s .
twentieth-century derogatory name for
a white person. The term is an allusion
to anatomy; as Spears (1991) points out,
chickens have no lips.
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences.
Chico. From the Spanish chico ['che-ko],
in the sense o f “little boy.” This nick­
name for a national type, once applied
in professional sports, has been used to
stereotype not only M exican but also
Puerto Rican and Filipino males. Major
(1994) lists it as a pejorative in black use
for either a Latino or a Latina.
S ee also C h i c a n o / a , F i l i p i n o / a ,
L a t in o / a , M e x ic a n , P e d r o , P u e r t o
R ic a n .
c h ie f. See G e r o n im o , I n d i a n .
chim panzee. See ape.
c h in a b o y . See C h in a m a n .
C h in a doll. A Chinese or any East Asian
woman viewed as being deferential and
existing to serve men or the dominant
society.
For other words for Asian women,
see C h e r r y B l o s s o m , d r a g o n l a d y , f o r ­
t u n e c o o k ie , g e is h a , Miss S a i g o n . See
also A s ia n A m e r ic a n .
C h inam an/C hinaw om an. A name usually
used w ithout malice, Chinaman may,
unlike sim ilar forms o f ethnic names
used in U.S. society (e.g., Irishman, En­
glishm an), be taken as patronizing.
Chinawoman may also be regarded as
offensive. Roback (1979, 286) recalled
the grievance of a Chinese student: “I
don’t call you ‘American-man,’ so why
should you call me ‘C hinam an’?” The
preferred term am ong m any C hinese
Americans is Chinese. Chinaman may
' also be applied (inaccurately) to other
Asians.
“And they’ve got a Chinam an play­
ing wide receiver, and his feet don’t even
m ix e s .
touch the ground” (Pat Bowlen, owner
o f the Denver Broncos, about Jerry Rice
o f the San Francisco 49ers, 15 January
1990, inF ik es 1992, 8).
Lighter (1994) lists chinaboy, used
for Chinese males regardless o f age, as
offensive (see also b o y ).
See also A s i a n A m e r i c a n , C h i n a
doll, C h in a m a n ’s c h a n c e , C h in e e , C h i­
n ese, C h in k , c h o p s t ic k s , c h o p s u e y ,
CH O W , C O O L IE , DRAG O N LA D Y , FO R T U N E
c o o k ie , J o h n C h in a m a n , l it t l e b r o w n
BROTHERS, M ICE-EATER, M ONKEY, P A T , PIG ­
TAIL.
C h in am a n ’s chance, n o t a C h in a m a n ’s
chance. A colloquial expression, now
also considered racist, for “the slightest
chance” or “no chance at all.” O riginat­
ing in California (it is first recorded in
1914), the term is usually believed to
have grown out o f the conditions expe­
rienced by the Chinese who worked in
the mining camps at the time o f the gold
rush, where, lacking rights, they had
little chance o f avoiding crim e and bru­
tality. A related hypothesis, offered by
A Dictionary o f Am ericanism s (1951),
is that the expression arose out o f the
practice of Chinese miners working over
the “tailings,” or refuse heaps, left be­
hind as worthless by white miners. R e­
inforcing the idea is that w ork for C hi­
nese laborers on the Central Pacific Rail­
road entailed dangers, not the least of
which was planting a stick o f dynam ite
into rock and lighting the fuse (some la­
borers did not make it to safety).
As the Chinese escaped the quasi-sla­
very they had first experienced in the

U nited States and began to enter the
eco n o m y as in d e p en d e n t b u sin e ss­
p eo p le— in d irec t co m p etitio n with
white people— they faced new kinds of
risks. In some places, a white person who
killed a Chinese was as safe from pros­
ecution as one who killed a dog.
There have also been other phrases
incorporating Chinaman, for instance,
“have a Chinaman,” an offensive expres­
sion meaning to enjoy political clout.
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , C h i n a
doll, C h i n a m a n / C h i n a w o m a n , C h in e e ,
C h i n e s e , C h in k , c h o p s t ic k s , c h o p s u e y ,
chow , c o o l ie , d r a g o n l a d y , f o r t u n e
c o o k ie , J o h n C h in a m a n , l it t l e b r o w n
b r o t h e r s , m ic e - e a t e r , m o n k e y , P a t , p ig ­
t a il .
Chinatown, Chinatowner. A Chinatown is
a district within a city (at one time often
a seaport) that is populated by Chinese
settlers and that has social, cultural, and
econom ic significance. Takaki (1989,
239-57) has pointed out that as ghettos,
Chinatowns historically helped to estab­
lish the stereotype of Chinese as unde­
sirable, unassimilable immigrants, while
this very image led to the commercial
shaping o f Chinatown into a mysterious,
“Oriental” section o f the city— an attrac­
tion for tourists. The term can be offen­
sive when used for other Asian Ameri­
can neighborhoods.
In New York, the term Chinatowner
has been used in the garment industry
to refer to manufacturers o f cheap cloth­
ing. T he expression possibly derives
from the paying o f “coolie wages” to the
garment industry workers.
For words designating the neighbor­
hoods o f other ethnic groups, see b a r ­
r io , BLACK BELT, GHETTO, GOLDEN GHETTO,
H a i t i , M e x t o w n , n ig g e r t o w n . See a ls o
ETHNIC NEIGHBORHOOD.
Chinee, Chiney. A jocular or “illiterate”
sin g u lar form o f C hinese (see, e.g.,
Spears 1991). But as used in the late
nineteenth century, especially in the
Chinese 49
West and North, the term played a role
in the creation of a racist image. Bret
H arte’s poem “The Heathen Chinee,”
first published in 1870, struck a chord
with a white America fearful o f the pres­
ence (as a threat, or menace, to white
labor) 6 f a growing Chinese population
in the United States. The poem made
h ea th en C hin ee a h o u se h o ld w ord
(Takaki 1989, 104) and defined the ste­
reotype o f the Chinese as sly and dark:
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain
The heathen Chinee is peculiar.
— in Takaki 1989, 105
Harte denied the racist intent with
which his choice of words, used by those
who did not consider themselves friends
of the Chinese, came to be associated.
H arte’s portrayal o f people who at­
tempted to cheat the Chinese (but failed
because of the latter’s savoir faire) was
interpreted not as a satire on the cheat­
ers but instead as a commentary on the
alleged deceitfulness of the Chinese.
Chinee has also been used for the
Chinese language.
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , C h in a
doll, C h i n a m a n / C h i n a w o m a n , C h in a ­
m a n ’s c h a n c e , C h in a t o w n , C h i n e s e ,
C h in k , c h o p s t ic k s , c h o p s u e y , c h o w , c o o ­
l ie , d r a g o n l a d y , f o r t u n e c o o k ie , John
C h in a m a n , l it t l e b r o w n b r o t h e r s , m ic e -
eater, m o n k ey , P a t , p ig t a il .
Chinese. A person from China. Although
Chinese is the preferred term, it has
som etim es carried negative connota­
tions. It has referred to something back­
ward or inferior in design, and, in com­
bination with other words, often suggests
the old stereotype o f “Oriental” unintel­
ligibility or deceitfulness, as in Chinese
puzzle (a situation that does not make
sense), Chinese compliment (pretended
deference, or cloaking a scheme), or
Chinese fire drill (confusion). The term
has also connoted something barbaric:
‘“ Some boy in my class said Chinese
50 Chink XI
people do C hinese torture.’ ‘Chinese
people do many things.. .do business, do
m edicine, do painting. N ot lazy like
American people. We do torture. Best
torture’ ” (Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club,
1989).
Like other non-European immigrants
to this country, the Chinese were once
excluded from categorization as Ameri­
cans, who were defined as white. Think­
ing of them largely as black, white work­
ers (who feared the Chinese as competi­
tion in the job market) called Chinese
nagurs (from negur, a lower-class form
o f nigger).
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , C h in a
doll, C h in a m a n / C h in a w o m a n , c h in k ,
c h o p s t ic k s , c h o p s u e y , c h o w , c o o l i e ,
d r a g o n l a d y , f o r t u n e c o o k ie , J ew s of
the O r ie n t , J o h n C h in a m a n , l it t l e
BROWN BROTHERS, MICE-EATER, MONKEY,
O r ie n t a l , P a t , p ig t a il .
C hink, C hinky, chinkie. An American and
British slang term for a Chinese, possi­
bly an abbreviation o f Chinese ching-
ching, a courteous exclamation, or an
alteration o f C h ’ing, the name of a Chi­
n ese dynasty. A cco rd in g to S pears
(1991), it dates from the mid-nineteenth
century, but The Oxford English Dictio­
nary (1989) dates its earliest known oc­
currence to 1901. Although usually con­
temptuous, it has been used without defi­
nite intent to slur. Playwright Frank Chin
actually prefers Chink or Chinaman to
Chinese American (Eoyang 1995, xv).
The audience today, however, is likely
to detect the Eurocentrism or distancing
o f th e u ser, as in W. S o m e rse t
M augham ’s description o f Singapore as
a m e etin g p la ce o f m any peo p les:
“ ...m en o f all colours, black Tamils,
yellow Chinks, brown Malays, A rm e­
nians, Jews, and Bengalis, called to one
another in raucus tones” (“The Letter,”
1924).
Athough most commonly applied to
the Chinese, Chink has also been used
as a derogatory reference to any Asian
person. The term was applied to the Japa­
nese as they began im m igrating to the
United States and, more recently, to the
Vietnamese.
The term Chinky has appeared in a
number o f contexts. It is found, for ex­
- s am ple, in c h ild ren ’s taunts, such as
“Chinky, Chinky, Chinam an, yellow -
face, pig-tail, rat-eater” (from Sui Sin
Far, in B row n and L in g 1993, 23).
Eoyang (1995, 3 -4 ) notes that when
Cole P orter learned that the original
(1928), first refrain to his song “L et’s
Do It, L et’s Fall in Love” (the refrain
went “Chinks do it, Japs do it”) was of­
fensive, he changed the lyrics to “Birds
do it, bees do it.” Until 1980 Chinks was
used as a nickname for the athletic teams
o f Pekin High School in Pekin, Illinois;
the team mascot was a student dressed
as a Chinese, who struck a gong when
the team scored. Slurs against the Chi­
nese have often been regarded as more
acceptable in the U nited States than
those against black people.
In the United States, chinks refers to
C hinese food, w hereas in E n g lan d ,
chinkie is used for a Chinese restaurant
or meal. By extension, Chinkland be­
comes a name for China. All are taken
as offensive. A lso used for C hinese
people have been chino and chinki-
chonks.
See, for example, Cheng-Tsu Wu,
“Chink!” 1972.
See also A s i a n A m e r i c a n , C h i n a
doll, C h in a m a n / C h in a w o m a n , C h in a ­
m a n ’s c h a n c e , C h in e e , C h in e s e , c h o p ­
s t i c k s , c h o w , c o o l ie , d in k , d r a g o n l a d y ,
FLAT FACE, FORTUNE COOKIE, JOHN CH IN A ­
MAN, LITTLE BROWN BROTHERS, MICE-EATER,
MONKEY, PAT, PIGTAIL, SLANT, SLOPE.
chinki-chonks. See C h in k .
chino. See C h in k .
chocolate. Derogatory, or mildly deroga­
tory, though sometimes jocular, term for
a black person. It is also used affection­
ately among African American speakers,

but use by a white person would likely
be taken as offensive. This slang conies
from at least the early part of the twenti­
eth century. The allusion, o f course, is
to skin color, but especially in reference
to a female, it may also be to sweetness.
It is also used for black homosexuals.
Variations include chocolate bar, choco­
late bunny, chocolate drop, hot choco­
late, sweet chocolate, and chocolate-cov­
ered cherry, most of these names being
used for young black females. A city
with a large African American popula­
tion has been called a “chocolate city,”
a term derived from the song by that
name recorded by the group Parliament-
Funkadelic in the 1970s.
For other words for black people in
white or black use, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially b r o w n s u g a r . See
also VANILLA.
Choctaw. A Muskogean-speaking Native
American, or the people collectively, liv­
ing in central and southern Mississippi,
A labam a, and L ouisiana in the eigh­
teenth century. By 1834, after being
forced to cede their lands, they had been
moved in large numbers to Indian Terri­
tory in Oklahoma. The name is also used
for the language o f these people or for
any foreign or unintelligible language;
thus, “it’s Choctaw to me” has been used
as “it’s Greek to me.” Possibly from this
expression comes the derogatory use of
Choctaw in the early part o f the twenti­
eth century for a M exican. An older
spelling is Choktah.
See a l s o I n d i a n , M e x i c a n , N a t iv e
A m e r ic a n .
cholo/a [’cho-lo/a]. A Spanish American
word m eaning “half-breed,” common
during the Spanish and Mexican peri­
ods in the U.S. Southwest. It derives
from Cholollan, now Cholula, the name
o f a district in Mexico. It usually refers
to a person of Spanish and Native Ameri­
can descent (a mestizo) or an accultur-
ated Native American. In California it
chop suey 51
may be applied to a Mexican immigrant,
connoting poverty and low social station;
it is usually a reference to someone from
the interior of Mexico (Stephens 1989).
In The Decline o f the Californios (1971),
Leonard Pitt, who wrote of the bands of
choloyw ho settled in California in the
early to mid-nineteenth century, trans­
lated the term as “scoundrel” but used it
generally for the lower-class, newly ar­
rived Mexicans of that day. Cholo has
been used more recently for a punk or
hoodlum in the Chicano barrio youth
culture. “Border youth— the fearsome
‘cholo-punks,’ children of the chasm that
is opening between the ‘first’ and the
‘third’ worlds, become the indisputable
heirs to a new mestizaje (the fusion of
the Amerindian and European races)”
(Guillermo G6mez-Pena, in M ulti-Cul­
tural Literacy, ed. Rick Simonson and
Scott Walker, 1988, 130).
See also h a l f - b r e e d , h a l f - c a s t e ,
M e s t iz o / a , M e x ic a n , N a t iv e A m e r ic a n ,
pachu co.
chopsticks, chop sticks. Derives from Chi­
nese pidgin English (chop, based on a
Chinese word, means “fast”) for a pair
of sticks held in the hand to lift food to
the mouth. Based on the East Asian use
o f this utensil instead o f knives and
forks, the slur form of the word refers to
Asians, particularly the Chinese. It is
now used especially, according to Allen
(1990, 54), in the black street-gang lan­
guage of Los Angeles.
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , C h in a
doll, C h i n a m a n / C h in a w o m a n , C h i n a ­
m a n ’s c h a n c e , C h in e e , C h in k , c h o p s u e y ,
chow , c o o l ie , d r a g o n l a d y , f o r t u n e
c o o k ie , J o h n C h in a m a n , l it t l e b r o w n
b r o t h e r s , m ic e - e a te r , P a t , p ig t a il .
chop suey. Usually a humorous reference
to a person’s very mixed ancestry, used
especially in Hawaii. It comes from the
second half of the twentieth century. The
common American English sense of this
term is of a Chinese dish of meat and
52 Chosen People
mixed vegetables. Like the food usage,
the ethnic usage derives from the Chi­
nese' meaning o f the term jaahp seui,
C hinese (G uangdong) for “m iscella­
neous bits.” ' Americans, “the people”— for example,
Although chop suey refers to ethnic
mix, or diversity, its nuances can be more
pejorative. Sometimes the reference can
stereotype the Chinese, as in the expres­
sion Charlie chop suey, which often con­
notes subservience to white people.
See a l s o A s i a n A m e r i c a n , C h i n e s e ,
CHOPSTICKS, CHOW , MELTING POT, M OSAIC,
MULTIRACIAL.
C hosen People; the People. Chosen People
are those who believe themselves to be
the elect, the chosen of God. The idea,
commonly known as a central tenet in
Judaism, is found also in Christianity
(the Greek word ekklesia, referring to the
Christian church, means “the chosen”),
Islam , and some other religions. The
concept o f a certain segment o f human­
kind being divinely selected or espe­
cially loved by God, however subjective
the claim and however obnoxious it may
be to the pride of other groups, is a long-
held and respected theological element
in these religions. In this religious con­
text, usage differs historically, socially,
and psychologically from that which
connotes the inferiority or even subhu­
man status of other religious, ethnic, or
racial groups or which is used to launch
political attacks on them.
Many traditional, small-scale socie­
ties, which usually had few sustained or
diffuse relationships with members of
other cultural groups, viewed themselves
simply as “the people” or “true people.”
This is not the same as feeling “chosen.”
Nor is it the same as having an ethnic
identity— as we know it in a more com­
plex, diverse society— based on the sig­
nificance attached to religious, cultural,
and national differences in a society and
an awareness o f them. Nevertheless, the
concept does arise from ethnocentrism.
When one’s own kin group is the focus
of life and kin relations are not extended
outward to incorporate others, then those
others are viewed as outside the normal
pale o f humanity. Thus, am ong Native
Dineh (Navajo), Dakota, o r Kwakiutl—
v meant “us.” Similarly, the San (see b u s h ,
b u s h m a n ) call th em selv es th e “tru e
people.” Yet such references, however
ethnocentric, have never found support
in the kind of dogmatic xenophobia char­
acteristic of m odem Western racism.
In some societies, the idea o f a spe­
cial mission may encourage a view that
one’s own group alone has a favored sta­
tus in G od’s (or history’s) eyes or is fully
or specially human. In Western history,
for example, conquest o f the “w ilder­
ness” (as in early U.S. society), the
“w hite m an ’s burd en ” (colonial E n ­
glish), or “cleansing the race” (Nazi
Germans) find their ideological parallels
in a sense o f the specialness o f the na­
tion and o f the white “race.” W hite Eu­
ropean people, however, have no m o­
nopoly on the notion. F o r exam ple,
though it may be regarded as a reaction
to white racism, black M uslims (Nation
o f Islam ) believe black people to be
A llah’s choice to survive the A rm aged­
don, the final battle between the white
and black “races.”
In the right-w ing extrem ist group
known as the Christian Identity Church,
antisemitism, including ignorance o f the
Jewish tenet o f election, has brought
forth an attempt to preem pt the “Cho­
sen People” concept according to this
reasoning: the true Jews were those who
fled Babylon, migrating north to become
Caucasians. Thus, white Aryans are the
true Chosen People.
See also e t h n o c e n t r i s m , i n g r o u p /
OUTGROUP, K H A ZA R S, O R IG IN A L M A N , RAC­
ISM , XENOPHOBIA.
chow, chow mein. Derogatory term for a
Chinese, from the Chinese (Guangdong)
word chaau-mihn (fried noodles).

See also A s i a n A m e r i c a n , C h in a
doll, C h i n a m a n / C h in a w o m a n , C h in a ­
m a n ’s c h a n c e , C h in e e , C h in e s e , c h i n k ,
C H O P S T IC K S , C H O P S U E Y , C O O L IE , D IN K ,
D R A G O N L A D Y , FO R T U N E C O O K IE , JO H N
C h i n a m a n , l it t l e b r o w n b r o t h e r s , m ic e -
eater, P a t , p ig t a il .
Christian; anti-Christian. A Christian is
a person who believes in Jesus as Christ
and follows his teachings, and o f whom
(in writer Huston Sm ith’s words) there
is “an astonishing diversity” of types.
T h e te rm d e riv e s from th e L atin
christianus, coming into use during the
Renaissance, replacing christen. It has
had some ethnocentric and even racist
usage mixed with the inspiring or neu­
tral.
Robert Burchfield (1991, 112) gives
us a glimpse o f the colloquial, ethnocen­
tric senses o f the term: (1) to exclude
from humanity, as in the words o f the
Earl o f Shaftesbury, “T he very word
Christian is, in common language, us’d
for Man, in opposition to Brute-beast”;
(2) in the sense o f a decent, respectable
person, as used in Charles D ickens’s
line, “You m ust take your passage like a
Christian; at least as like a Christian as
a fore-cabin passenger can.” In colonial
America, Christian was used to distin­
guish white people from Native Ameri­
cans, who, prior to the eighteenth cen­
tu ry , w ere o fte n kn o w n sim p ly as
“A m ericans” or as heathens (Vaughn
1982). Here is a more recent example of
ethnocentric usage: “In tim e... Ameri­
cans no longer may be tempted to ask,
as Vermont Sen. Warren Austin did dur­
ing the 1948 M ideast War: ‘Why can’t
these Arabs and Jews work out their dif­
ferences like good Christians?’ ” (in John
Walcott, U.S. News & World Report, 28
June 1993, 7).
F o r th o se few g ro u p s w ho
ethnocentrically view white people as
being the sole bearers of Christian val­
ues— or any values at all— the label
Christian or Christian values may be­
city boy 53
come a coded invocation against non-
Christians, and anti-Christian a label for
and attack on other ethnic groups.
See also c iv il iz e d , h e a t h e n , p a g a n .
Christ killer, Christ-killer. From the sec­
ond half of the nineteenth century, a hos­
tile, insulting reference to a Jew, con­
sidered as someone w hose ancestors
made the mistake of betraying Christ to
the Romans and failing to recognize the
true Messiah. Since the early centuries
o f Christianity, Christian people, influ­
enced by New Testament accounts of
Jews plotting against Christians and the
assum ption that Jews (not R om ans)
murdered Christ, held Jews collectively
responsible for Christ’s death. The de­
piction o f Jews as “Christ-killers” was
brought to the United States by Euro­
pean peasant immigrants as a form of
religious antisemitism (Glanz 1961).
In listing more or less opprobrious
names for Jews, Mencken (1962, suppl.
1, 617) m entions that C h rist killer,
“which is not recorded in any o f the
dictionaries...w as familiar in my boy­
hood, but has passed out with the decay
of Bible searching.” Not quite: “Public
Enemy...released a single, ‘Welcome to
the Terrordome,’ in which the Christ-
killer, anti-Semitic theme was espoused”
(Levin and McDevitt 1993, 36). In ad­
dition, the term is commonly found in
the speech of white hate groups.
A variant is Judas, from the name of
the apostle who betrayed Jesus.
For other words for Jews, see J e w ,
cross-references. See also a n t is e m it is m .
chuco. See pachuco.
city boy, city type. A code word for or
subtle slur on a Jew, based on the tradi­
tional association o f Jews with cities,
especially New York. As A llen has
pointed out, “it slyly suggests Jew boy,
an overt slur” (1990, 91-2).
For other words for Jews, see J e w ,
cross-references. See especially J e w b o y ,
J e w Y o r k ( e r ).
54 civilized
civilized, civilization, the civilized w orld.
Terms ranging in meaning from any cul­
ture to one that is highly organized, from
stifling manners or bourgeois decadence
to the peak o f cultural developm ent.
These are words often laden with eth­
nocentrism or Eurocentrism and some­
times also racism.
In the Western world, an early sense
o f the word civilization, a sense intro­
duced by writers such as Voltaire in the
eighteenth century, was the state of be­
ing well-bred and self-controlled. With
this meaning was also that of the growth
o f knowledge and institutions that al­
lowed hum ans to achieve “civilized”
behavior. During the Victorian era in
Europe and the United States, cultural
achievem ent was generally identified
w ith the white, W estern world, con­
trasted with the “savagery” or “barbar­
ism” of other societies or races. In other
developed parts o f the world, too, such
as China, there had long been an idea
that one’s own ways were elevated above
those of others, as expressed in the ritu­
alized forms of tribute the Chinese ex­
pected from other peoples.
In early U.S. society, black people
were usually considered by white people
to be so irrevocably black and outside
o f the civilized world as to totally pre­
clude assimilation. At times there were
greater hopes for Native Americans. The
acculturated five Native American na­
tions of the Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw,
Cherokee, and Seminole— who took up
farming and stock raising, were baptized
Christians, and adopted the European
institution of black slavery— were even
referred to by white people as the “Five
Civilized Tribes” (though apparently not
civilized enough to keep them from los­
ing their ancestral lands and being “re­
located” to reservations).
In ethnocentric usage still heard to­
day in the United States, the civilized
world often means Christian people (or
Judeo-Christian) but also, in political
talk, any allies the U nited States may
have at the time— especially those with
Western or W estern-influenced cultures.
Today’s “vulgar cultural n ational­
ists,” as Henry Louis Gates Jr. has called
them, make crude distinctions between
v groups, shunning the cultural pluralisms
idea that civilization, whatever it is, is
not the absolute property o f any one eth­
nic or racial group. “These polemicists
thrive on absolute partitions: betw een
‘civilization’ and ‘barbarism,’ between
‘black’ and ‘white,’ between a thousand
versions o f Us and Them” (Gates 1992,
xvi).
See also b a r b a r ia n , C h r i s t i a n , e t h ­
n o c e n t r is m , E u r o c e n t r is m , in g r o u p /
OUTGROUP, PRIM ITIVE, RACISM , SAVAGE.
clay-eater. In black and white usage, not
necessarily biased, a reference to some­
one from South Carolina or Georgia, es­
pecially a poor white person or farmer,
or any southern rustic. Also known as a
“dirt-eater.” The word has also been used
as an epithet for a group o f mixed-race
people in South Carolina. T he nam e
probably derives from the clay eating,
or dirt eating (more technically known
as geophagy), practiced by some south­
ern black people and poor white people.
Earliest reports claimed that black slaves
ate clay (dirt eating occurs in Africa);
later reports noted consumption of soils
by black and white females and young
children. In those southern subcultures
where the practice occurs, clays, o b ­
tained from digs or highway cuts, are
identified as food and pan-heated and
baked, salt and vinegar sometimes added
before baking.
See also A p p a l a c h ia n , c o r n c r a c k e r ,
CRACKER, HILLBILLY, PECK ERW O O D, POO R
W H IT E T R A S H , R E D N E C K , R ID G E R U N N E R ,
SOUTHERNER, TRIRACIAL M IXES.
clodhopper. See p o o r w h it e t r a s h .
Cochise. See G e r o n im o , I n d i a n .
coconut. A term used by Latinos as an in­
sult for one who identifies with white

people and adopts their values (brown
on the outside and white on the inside).
It is used in a very similar way by Pa­
cific Islanders for other Pacific Island­
ers.
See also H is p a n ic , L a t in o / a . For simi­
lar words for other ethnic groups, see
apple, banana, OREO.
colonist. See settler.
colonization. See r e l o c a t io n .
color. In Western racial discourse since at
least the fifteenth century, a reference to
human skin tone darker than that of most
white people. It has been used more spe­
cifically to describe the racial character­
istic o f people o f mixed white and black
descent. In the United States, it has tra­
ditionally referred to African Americans,
although it may connote any nonwhite
minority.
Skin color has different cultural sig­
nificance in different societies. In the
United States and Europe, it has been of
greater importance in social and politi­
cal relations than in many other parts o f
the world. Early Western scientists re­
lied on skin color as their chief criterion
for devising schemes o f racial classifi­
cation. This arbitrary approach to race
coincided with that taken by the larger
society in differentiating among and dis­
criminating against certain social groups.
Categorization of people by color can
change over time. The tendency among
white people is to darken others. Groups
such as Polynesians and Native Ameri­
cans, for example, upon first being en­
countered by Europeans, were regarded
as relatively light-skinned. As European
colonials grew numerous and became
increasingly hostile toward the indig­
enous people, however, Western writing
and art depicted them as swarthier in
complexion.
Reflecting the salience o f the physi­
cal trait o f skin color in social relations,
color metaphors and allusions abound in
colorblindness 55
the U.S. racial lexicon. Among the many
expressions, slogans, and slurs are Black
Power, color line, darky, pinky, redskin,
and yellow peril. Allen (1990, 18) notes
that the vast number of racial slurs based
on skin color are used in name-calling
between black and white people. Allen
(19) also calls attention to the color of
foods as a source o f racial names. Such
food-based terms are apple for Native
Americans, banana for East Asians, co­
conut for Latinos, and oreo for black
people. All these names refer to those
who are “colored on the outside and
white on the inside.” Other food-based
nam es includ e ch o co la te fo r black
people and marshmallow and vanilla for
white people.
Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
explicitly identifies color along with and
separate from race, religion, sex, and
national origin as a basis for a complaint
o f discrimination.
For food-based terms, see a p p l e , b a ­
nana, cho colate, co c o n u t, m a rsh m a l­
l o w , o r e o , v a n il l a .
See also black, B lack P ow er, blue,
b r o w n , c h a r c o a l , c o l o r b l in d n e s s ,
c o l o r - c o n s c io u s n e s s , c o l o r e d , c o l o r -
i s m , c o l o r l in e , c o l o r - s t r u c k , d a r k y ,
n o n w h it e , p e o p l e o f c o l o r , p in k y , r a c e ,
r a in b o w , r e d s k in , w h it e , y e l l o w , y e l l o w
p e r il .
co lo rb lin d n ess, co lo r-b lin d n ess. In its
figurative sense, a reference today to the
state of not being subject to or cogni­
zant of racial differences. The term is
American, its usage originating in the
second half of the nineteenth century.
Colorblindness in U.S. society has
been a sought-after ideal (in schools, e.g.,
to look at the behavior of individual stu­
dents and ignore their color). It has also
been a boast, sometimes with sincerity,
sometimes for politically motivated rea­
sons, that racism is a thing of the past
(“This administration is totally color­
blind” [Ronald Reagan, press conference,
13 March 1981]).
 From the point of view o f African
Americans, it means entry into main-
streaYn society without regard to race. In
this case, there is concern about ethnic
loyalty: “The new breed o f ‘color-blind’
African American sings a refrain that is
distressingly as simple as it is symptom­
atic: ‘Rather than cast our lot with the
race, we race to leave the caste’” (Alton
B. Pollard IE, in Early 1993, 47).
For m any m ulticulturalists— who
might be thought o f as promoting rain­
bow ideals— the recognition o f color
differences is to be promoted as a natu­
ral and useful goal. Speaking of the irony
o f the liberal attitude in schools, one
teacher said o f her school, “We showed
respect by com pletely ignoring black
people as black people. Color blindness
was the essence of the creed” (Vivian
Gussin Paley, in Lisa D. Delpit, Rethink­
ing Schools, January/February 1991,5).
Race blindness may also mean that pro­
grams or policies that might serve people
o f color are not given attention.
See a l s o c o l o r , c o l o r - c o n s c io u s n e s s ,
COLORISM, COLOR LINE, COLOR-STRUCK,
PEOPLE OF COLOR, RAINBOW.
color-consciousness. Awareness o f “race”
as defined by skin color. Depending on
the context, color-consciousness can re­
fer to racism or to pride in racial heri­
tage. Racism is often attributed to white
people who are color-conscious; pride
in heritage, part of the postmodern em­
phasis on ethnic distinctiveness, is more
likely to be associated with minorities
(alth o u g h m any w hite su p rem a cist
groups also claim that their racial soli­
darity is based not on bigotry but on
pride). Many white people, on the other
hand, view any form of color-conscious­
ness as a form o f racism. They will thus
find racism in the identity politics or
Afrocentrism of some black people, who
view their group identities not as racial
but as a matter o f ethnicity (as have, for
example, Polish Americans, Irish Ameri­
cans, and Jews).
See also c o l o r , c o l o r b l in d n e s s , c o l ­
ored, COLORISM, COLOR-STRUCK.
colored, C olored, colored people. Origi­
nating in the earliest period o f colonial
slavery and used throughout much o f the
nineteenth century, especially after the
v Civil War to the 1880s, as a euphemistic
term for a black person or black people.
M ore specifically colored has served as
a reference to lig h t-sk in n ed A frican
Americans and a euphemism for darker
ones.
It’s no disgrace to be coloured, but
it is awfully inconvenient.
— Black entertainer Bert
Williams
T hough eventually supplanted by
negro (later capitalized), colored was
still regarded as a polite nam e for black
people in the United States throughout
the early twentieth century. The term was
also used to refer to Native A mericans,
Asian Americans, M exicans, and people
o f mixed background, or mulattoes, es­
pecially lighter ones.
Today, as noun or adjective, colored
is regarded as offensive, especially in the
U nited States, w hen used to refer to
black people or to any groups consid­
ered nonwhite. The term colored is not
parallel with white, as black is, and col­
ored sm acks o f subordination. B lack
people tend to see the term colo red
people as a reference to those black
people who “know their place.” Colored
has also occurred in certain pejorative
expressions, such as the dated expres­
sion colored peo p les’ (fo lks’) time (ab­
breviated to C.P. time or C.P.T.), mean­
ing “late” or “I ’ll get there when I get
there.” This is often an unflattering ref­
erence to the alleged difference between
the internal clocks that govern black
people, especially the rural or the poor,
and those that govern w hite society.
(H ow ever, as u se d am o n g A fric a n
Americans, the expression may carry the
positive slan t noted by S m itherm an
[1994, 45], w ho claim s it represents

natural, rather than artificial, time— “be­
ing ‘in tim e’...is more critical than be­
ing ‘on time.’”)
Used in certain titles of organizations,
such as the historical “M assachusetts
54th Colored Infantry” and the contem­
porary “N ational A ssociation for the
A d v a n c e m e n t o f C o lo re d P e o p le ”
(NAACP), colored is neutral. Merriam-
W ebster’s Dictionary o f English Usage
(1989) notes another kind o f occasional
nonoffensive reference: “She reminds
people o f the beauty of being colored.
K atoucha is A frican” (from Vogue, Feb­
ruary 1985).
A t the sam e tim e, the expression
people o f color, though overgeneraliz­
ing, is in favor among those black people
and others who respect the sense of soli­
darity that comes from being identified
this way.
• S e e a l s o A f r ic a n , A f r ic a n A m e r ic a n ,
BLACK, COLOR, COLORISM, COLOR LINE,
N e g r o / N e g r e s s , n o n w h it e , p e o p l e o f
COLOR, WHITE.
co lo rism . D iscrim ination and prejudice
among African Americans based on skin
color. Russell, Wilson, and Hall (1992)
have used the term color complex for “a
psychological fixation about color and
features that leads Black people to dis­
crim inate against each other” (2). Ac­
cording to these authors, whereas his­
torically light-skinned African Ameri­
cans have held prejudices against darker
ones, there has been a recent tendency
for darker black people to spurn lighter­
skinned ones. The ideology in either case
has been referred to as colorism . As
Alice Walker put it, unless colorism is
exorcised, black people “cannot as a
people progress. For colorism, like co­
lonialism, sexism and racism, impedes
us” (in Kramarae and Treichler 1985).
A lthough the term is nearly always as­
sociated with the attitudes and behavior
o f African Americans, it may refer gen­
erally to any group’s ingroup discrimi­
nation based on color.
color-struck 57
For racial words in white or black use
that allude to color, see b l a c k and w h it e .
For words in black use reflecting color­
ism, see b l a c k , cross-references. See
also COLOR, COLOR-CONSCIOUSNESS, COL­
ORED, COLOR-STRUCK.
/
color line. From the nineteenth century, an
American metaphor for the social and
political distinctions and distance be­
tw een black people (and som etim es
o th e r n o n w h ite g ro u p s) and w hite
people. T his sym bolic line is m ost
clearly demarcated in racist societies.
Black sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois de­
clared that “the problem of the twenti­
eth century is ...th e color-line” (The
Souls o f Black Folk, 1961, 23).
The color line is spoken of as being
“drawn” (making distinctions based on
color), “crossed” (behaving without re­
gard to the distinctions), or “broken”
(bringing down the barrier). For ex­
ample, in April 1947 the black Ameri­
can baseball player Jackie Robinson
played his first regular-season major-
league baseball game, thereby “break­
ing the color line” in organized baseball.
A notable book written in the early twen­
tieth century about the color line was
Ray Stannard B aker’s Following the
Color Line (1908).
See also c o l o r , c o l o r - c o n s c io u s n e s s ,
COLORED.
color-struck, colorstruck. In black usage,
a negative slang term describing a black
person who is prejudiced against other
African Americans for their skin color—
either because it is too dark or because
it is too light. Those with dark skin may
be regarded as the only “true blacks” or
“not white enough.” Those with light
skin, more acceptable to associate with
or overly vain. The following quotation
reflects how blacks have sometimes ac­
cepted the values o f w hite society:
“Yeah, they are color-struck and so are
the Yanceys. One boy married a dark-
brown girl and the Yancey family like
58_______ Conch________________ x
tuh died” (in Allison Davis, Burleigh B.
Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep
South, 1941, 21). Issues o f color are
tre a te d in B e n ita P o rte r ’s no v el
Colorstruck (1991).
See also c o l o r , c o l o r b l i n d n e s s ,
c o l o r - c o n s c io u s n e s s , c o l o r i s m .
Conch, conch, conc, conk, konck. A name
for the descendants of a group of Cock­
ney English called the Eleutherian A d­
venturers who sailed to Bermuda around
1649 seeking religious freedom. Arriv­
ing in the Florida Keys from the Baha­
m as in the nineteenth century, these
people made their living by fishing, sal­
vaging cargoes o f wrecked ships, and
g athering sponge. T he nam e Conch
['karjk], som etim es derogatory, dates
from the early nineteenth century, deriv­
ing from these Bahamian migrants’ de­
pendence on the conch, the common
name for certain mollusks important in
their diet. The Conchs o f the Florida
Keys still speak a subdialect, called
Conch, that was influenced by Bahamian
English, Cuban Spanish, Cockney, and
American dialects.
Conches take pride in their name.
‘“ They’re your people’...w as a favorite
expression of his. Meant to insure that I
understand, my brother and I both under­
stand, that we Conchs stuck together”
(John Leslie, Killing Me Softly, 1994,33).
The word was used pejoratively (in
the same sense as the term corncracker)
in the South in the second half of the
nineteenth century for any poor or low-
class white farmer or backwoodsperson,
especially one living in Florida, and also
for a poor black person. By the early
tw entieth century, the term had also
come to be applied to any French- or
Spanish-speaking West Indian.
See also c o r n c r a c k e r , c r a c k e r ,
SOUTHERNER.
cookie. See oreo.
coolie, cooly. An unskilled Asian laborer or
porter. Dating from the mid-seventeenth
.
century, the term was applied by Euro­
peans in India and China to a native la­
borer hired at subsistence wages. In Cali­
fornia since the 1860s, Chinese im m i­
grants or sojourners were viewed as a
“race o f coolies” who threatened white
'C alifornia labor. The “coolie fiction,” as
this prejudice has been called, was that
Chinese people were wretched inferiors
who would work for alm ost nothing.
Today in the United States the term is
still associated primarily with the C hi­
nese, though to some extent also with
Asian Indians and other Asians, and may
still be used by extension to connote sub­
servience to w hite people, a kind o f
Asian Uncle Tomism (see U n c l e T o m ) .
“W hite people have some ‘new niggers’
now ( ‘I’m just a high-tech coolie,’ said
one p o litic a lly c o n s c io u s C h in e se
American engineer)...” (Itabari Njeri, in
Early 1993, 35).
The term is said to derive from the
Hindi kulJ (a tribal name), though it is
related to sim ilar words in other Indian
vernaculars (the Tam il w ord m eans
“hireling”). It apparently entered English
by way of the Portuguese, whose sea­
farers were in contact with A sia from
1498. To the early Chinese in the United
States, the word signified “bitter labor,”
applying initially to the first wave o f
Chinese, primarily from southern China,
who were brought here as laborers in the
late 1840s during the C alifornia gold
rush in response to the need o f large
mining companies for a reliable supply
o f cheap labor.
Scholars distinguish the coolie trade,
viewed as a slave trade, from contract
labor, the system by which many C hi­
nese entered Hawaii and the mainland.
Takaki (1989, 36) argues that the early
Chinese immigrants to the United States
who came voluntarily were not techni­
cally coolies, laborers who had been kid­
napped or pressed into labor by force and
shipped to foreign countries such as Peru
and Cuba.

Compound forms include coolie boy
(applied to grown men), coolie labor,
coolie hat (which was like that worn in
China), coolie trade, and coolie wage
(pay for unskilled Asian laborers or, in
ironic or sarcastic usage today, for any
unskilled person). Use o f these forms
may evoke a stereotype o f an Asian
w orker as a drudge. In the 1990s, an
Asian American fashion firm began to
market caps boldly labeled with the word
coolie, indicating how playfulness bom
o f a new confidence or an in-your-face
attitude can shift the meaning o f slurs.
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , C h i n a
doll, C h i n a m a n / C h i n a w o m a n , C h in a ­
m a n ’s c h a n c e , C h in e e , C h i n e s e , C h in k ,
c h o p s t ic k s , c h o p s u e y , c h o w , d r a g o n
l a d y , f o r t u n e c o o k ie , J o h n C h in a m a n ,
LITTLE BROWN BROTHERS, M ICE-EATER, P A T ,
PIGTAIL.
coon. A shortened form of raccoon. Ameri­
can English, coon is usually dated to
1742. Coon has been used derogatorily
to refer to a black person, especially a
male, since the mid-nineteenth century.
Lighter (1994) claims it may have been
introduced by the minstrel song that goes
“O ole Zip Coon he is a lam ed skoler”
(from D am on, O ld A m erican Songs,
1834). According to M ajor (1994), how­
ever, derogatory white use was as early
as the 1650s. The word may have sug­
gested a black-faced pest, making it a
derogatory animal metaphor. It came to
connote ignorance, unreliability, and la­
ziness— a backward, watermelon-eating
black.
It was also applied in the South in
the early nineteenth century to a coun­
try person; and in both the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, it meant a man,
especially a sly one. It also came into
currency in the mid-nineteenth century
for a W hig. A frican A m erican song­
w riter E rnest H ogan, who w rote the
1896 song “All Coons Look A like to
Me,” did not know the term had deroga­
tory connotations; nevertheless, with the
coon 59
help of his song, coon became in most
instances a slur on black culture as well
as black people. A 1980s racist “poem”
that has circulated am ong w hite su­
premacists uses the term to demean Af­
rican Americans:
Coon, coon...
Black baboon...
Brutal, worthless,
Thieving Goon...
In some situations, though, this term
may be jocular. It has also been used
am ong black speakers ironically and
sometimes, since the civil rights move­
ment, to connote someone equivalent to
an Uncle Tom.
As Raw son points out (1989), to
avoid any possible offense, many people
today will avoid those phrases in which
the word has been incorporated, such as
a coon’s age (a long time), to go the
whole coon (all the way), to be gone
coon (ruined, a dead duck), or references
to coonskin. Yet in spite of today’s em ­
phasis on blunting terms with racist con­
notations, in July of 1992, a controver­
sial Chicago Sun-Times article appeared
that discussed rampaging raccoons in the
suburbs. The uncontrolled animal life
was compared with the behavior o f in­
ner-city black people.
Ace boon coon (also ABC, ace boon,
boon coon), common throughout the
mid-twentieth century and still used, is
a black usage that inverts the white slur
coon to create an expression of friend­
ship (Major 1994). This is how Maxine
Clair uses it in her novel about a black
com m unity in th e 1950s: “T hom as
Pemberton w asn’t kin, and he w asn’t
Jam es’ ace-boon-coon, but James knew
that despite the differences in their ages”
(Rattlebone, 1994, 45). Lighter (1994)
says that boon coon may have been in­
fluenced by bookoo, a variant o f the
French word beaucoup, meaning “very
m uch” o r “firs t-ra te .” S m ith erm an
(1994) gives ace kool as a more recent
form of ace boon coon. .
60 coonass
A variant o f coon is coony. Zip coon
means the same as a Sambo, a minstrel
fig u re d e g ra d in g to b la c k p eo p le.
Cooning (stealing) was used in the early
tw entieth century, perhaps from the
southern stereotype o f black people as
thieves.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially c o o n a s s , m a m m y ,
N IG G E R , N IG G E R TOW N, PAN CA KE,
p ic k a n i n n y , S a m b o , S t e p in F e t c h it . S e e
a ls o U n cle T o m .
coonass, coon-ass. A vulgar, often offen­
sive name, possibly a corruption of the
French conasse (vulva), used primarily
in Louisiana and Texas for a Cajun, or
person o f Acadian French heritage, or
someone of mixed black and Cajun heri­
tage. Wilson and Ferris (1989) note that
the suppression of regional ethnic diver­
sity that took place in the United States
early in the twentieth century led the
subculture of Cajuns to a self-denigra­
tion that expressed itself (among other
ways) in calling themselves “coonasses.”
The word has also been used contemp­
tuously for black people or for any low-
class person. As with other derisive eth­
nic words, however, coonass has also
been applied self-descriptively without
the derogatory connotations and may be
heard in Louisiana as a part o f informal
English. A variant is coonie.
See also C a j u n , c o o n .
co m crac k er, C o rn C racker. A traditional
slang name for residents of certain south­
ern states, especially K entucky and
Georgia. It has also been applied pejo­
ratively to any poor white rustic.
See also A p p a l a c h ia n , B u b b a , c l a y -
e a t e r , C o n c h , c r a c k e r (for etymology),
GOOD OLD BOY, HILLBILLY, PECKERWOOD,
P O O R W H IT E T R A S H , R E D N E C K , R ID G E -
RUNNER, SOUTHERNER.
c o m y -k o k . See K otonk.
co ttonpicker, cotton-picker. A term con­
noting “plantation” and referring to a
black person who works as a m enial la­
borer or one with that stereotyped m en­
tality. From at least the eighteenth cen­
tury, fie ld hand was the d esignation
given to slaves who worked in the field,
considered inferior to house negroes.
. ^Cottonpicker, connoting the lowly work
done by slaves, came later, as did hoe
negro, fie ld darky, and fie ld nigger.
Cottonpicker, som etim es jocular, has
also been in southern use for any person
o f low station.
For other traditional southern words
for black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially c o o n , d a r k y , h o u s e
NEGRO, PANCAKE, S A M B O .
coyote. Spanish American slang for a smug­
gler of undocum ented workers, espe­
cially Central Americans, into the United
States. The coyote uses bribery and other
means to transport his human contraband
across the Southwest border. “Salvador­
ans, Guatemalans, H ondurans...can be
found on construction sites and in bean
fields from California to the upper M id­
west, often working in gangs to pay back
the ‘coyotes’” (U.S. News & World R e­
port, 21 June 1993, 26). For a view o f
coyotes and illegal im m igration from
M exico, see Ted C o n o v er’s Coyotes
(1986). The term may also mean a labor
contractor who traffics in strikebreakers;
and in the West, the word has referred
derogatorily to a Native American or a
mestizo. Coyote comes from the Nahuatl
(Uto-Aztecan language) coyotl (coyote
[animal]).
See also s n a k e h e a d .
c ra ck er, C rac k er. Any poor or ignorant
white southerner, or rustic. With a mean­
ing similar to that of “hick” or “redneck,”
this colloquialism is often associated
with Georgia, sometimes known as the
Cracker State, but it has also been used
to name backwoodspeople in Florida, as
in “Florida cracker.” Black people use it
to refer to white people in general— es­
pecially racist white people. “Crackers

ain’t good for nuthin’ but cheese,” com­
plained a black college student of the
p ro b lem s in asso ciatin g w ith w hite
people (U.S. News & World Report, 19
April 1993,58). M ister Cracker is a slur
used by black people for a white male,
with probably a touch o f irony.
Etymology is uncertain. It has been
said to derive from the once-common
use o f cracked com to make commeal
or hominy grits (see c o r n c r a c k e r ) used
in the diet of Georgia backwoodspeople,
from the old practice of Florida team­
sters cracking their whips, or from the
whip-cracking done by slaveholders; or
even from the windy boasting and lying
o f eighteenth-century crim inals who
operated along the southern coastal re­
gions, stealing horses and slaves or coun­
terfeiting.
The term has been used to express
affection as well as to slur. Some people
from Georgia or Florida use it self-de­
scriptively, although it is usually consid­
ered offensive today when used by out­
siders. In fact, Hendrickson (1993, 76)
says it is now regarded as a racial epi­
thet, the use of which constitutes a vio­
lation o f the Florida Hate Crimes Act.
See also A p p a l a c h ia n , b ig o t , B u b b a ,
CLAY-EATER, C O N C H , GOOD OLD BOY, HILL­
BILLY, PECK ERW O O D, POOR W HITE TRASH,
REDN ECK , RIDGERUNNER, SOUTHERNER.
credit to his/her race. Dated, often patron­
izing expression for a black person who
achieves a measure o f success (by white
standards). How ever well-intentioned
the white person who uses this expres­
sion, it nonetheless implies that that par­
ticular black person is an exception to
the rule— or the stereotype— of black
inferiority. “And even though we called
Joe Louis ‘the Brown Bom ber’ and of­
ten spoke o f him as ‘a credit to his race,’
he was known to us as an individual dur­
ing his long reign as heavyweight cham­
pion” (Flexner 1982, 122).
For other references to black people,
see b l a c k , cross-references.
Creole 61
Creole. A word derived originally from the
Portuguese crioulo (white person bom
in the colonies, also a domestic). This
much misunderstood term has had many
different uses over time, and its mean­
ing varies from one part o f the Ameri­
cas to/ another. It came into use in the
sixteenth century in the Iberian colonies
to distinguish persons bom in the colo­
nies of European descent (in Spanish
c r io llo , “ n a tiv e ” ) fro m re sid e n ts
(peninsulares) bom in the Iberian Pen­
insula. Later, persons of French or Ibe­
rian descent bom in the West Indies and
in Latin America, including those of
mixed blood, called themselves “Cre­
oles” as distinguished from persons of
African or Native American descent. In
Mexico and some other Latin American
countries, the name came to be reserved
for native-born persons of pure Spanish
extraction, and in the Guianas it means
“ som eone descen d ed from A frican
slaves.”
In the United States, from the eigh­
teenth century, Creole has often desig­
nated a person of French (stereotypically
upper-class), but also Spanish, descent,
culturally related to the original Euro­
pean settlers o f the southern U nited
States, especially Louisiana. The desig­
nation was useful to distinguish between
the original Latin settlers of Louisiana
and the later Anglo-American arrivals.
The term also once referred to these
people’s black slaves who shared some
of their masters’ language or culture (or
genes) or any black person o f some
F rench or S p an ish — and n o t in fre ­
quently, Native American— descent. An
associated sense was a native-born black
person as opposed to one bom in Africa
and imported.
By the Civil War, the African Am eri­
cans o f mixed race (gens de couleur,
“people of color”), considered a third
race in Louisiana’s Black Codes, were
forced into the Negro category, white
people appropriating the name Creole
62 Cro
for themselves. Yet those of mixed back­
ground held on to the term as a way of
differentiating them selves from “N e­
groes.” The civil rights movement, how­
ever, gave acceptability to being black,
and white Creoles grew reluctant to use
a nam e tainted with miscegenation. By
the mid-1900s, though still associated
with racial mixture, Creole was heard as
a nickname for any Louisianan, as well
as a label for all things indigenous to
L ouisiana, including a language that
arose from pidginized French.
Joe Wood defines Louisianan Creoles
of color in terms of “their scientific ad­
herence to skin color cultivation, their
exclusive Mardi Gras balls, their ‘light
as a paper bag’ tests for marriage and
parties, their Jelly Roll Morton cross­
to w n c o n d e sc e n sio n to L o u is
A rm strong...” (The Village Voice, 6 De­
cember 1994, 29).
Some other Creole nam es include
briquet, a sometimes derogatory term
meaning a black person whose skin and
hair are brick-red; passant blanc, one
who passes as white (see also p a s s in g );
and griffon (with various spellings), re­
ferring to a light-skinned person with
black African features (the allusion is to
the fabled griffin, a creature with the
head o f an eagle, wings o f a vulture, and
body of a lion).
In addition to the above uses, Creole
came into use in Alaska in the 1860s to
refer to a native of mixed Russian and
Indian descent.
See a l s o C a j u n .
Cro, Croatan. Terms which have been used
to refer to people of mixed Native Ameri­
can, white, and black descent living in
southeastern North Carolina and eastern
South C arolina. Both nam es may be
objectionable to these people.
Croatan has a long history with a few
interesting twists. Some have considered
the mixed-race “Croatan” people, now
known as Lumbee Indians, to be the de­
scendants o f John W hite’s lost colony
o f Roanoke, and thus at least part Cau­
casian, or white. As tradition has it, an
expedition o f m en and wom en under
W hite’s leadership, dispatched in 1587
by Sir Walter Raleigh off North Caro­
lina, disappeared. Before leaving, one of
■vthe colonists had apparently carved the
(misspelled) word croatoan on a tree.
Croatan was originally the nam e o f a
Native American village and, formerly,
an island off the coast o f North Caro­
lina. Speculation thus placed the lost
colonists in the hospitable laps o f the
Croatan Indians, with whom, it is said,
they intermarried.
The Lumbees orginally wished to be
called Croatan Indians. Later, however,
white and black people began to use the
term sneeringly, shortening it to the hate­
ful Cro. In 1911 (after the North Caro­
lina state legislature had designated them
as C ro a ta n In d ia n s in 1 8 8 5 ), th e
Lumbees asked the legislature to strike
the name and refer to them as the “Indi­
ans of Robeson County.” Two years later,
state lawmakers nam ed them “Chero-
kees,” despite the protests o f the C hero­
kee Indians. In 1953, the state legisla­
ture designated them “Lum bee Indians”
(Lumbee, it was claimed, was an old In­
dian name for a river). The Lumbees are
the largest Native A merican group east
of the Mississippi, yet still they are un­
recognized by the federal government.
“The Indians of Robeson County
are not offended when they are
called Lumbees; but it is an unpar­
donable sin to refer to them by the
older and com m oner term ,
Croatans. And nothing inflames
them more than to hear the short­
ened form ‘Cro,’ which the Negroes
thereabouts use with obvious rel­
ish— when no Lumbees are around”
(Berry 1963, 32-33).
See also m ix e d , t r i r a c i a l m ix e s .
cross-breed. See h a lf-b r e e d .
cross-cultural. See in te rc u ltu ra l.

crow. Derogatory term for a black person,
based on the blackness o f the bird by that
name. It was used as early as the first
h alf o f the eighteenth century for the
dances o f A frican A m ericans. James
Fenimore Cooper used the term to refer
pejoratively to a black man in The Pio­
neers (1823). A m instrel song, “Jim
Crow,” written in 1828, popularized the
word and soon after extended its mean­
ing to anything having to do with black
people (Flexner 1976,39). In the follow­
ing decade, Jim Crow (sometimes low­
ercase) came to be applied to segrega­
tion, as in Jim Crow law, also called Jim
Crowism.
For other historical southern words
for black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See also J im C r o w , s e g r e g a t io n .
Cuban American. See b o a t p e o p le , C u b e ,
C u b y , H is p a n ic , L a t in o /a , M a r i e l C u ­
b a n , t r i r a c i a l m ix e s .
Cube. Derogatory term for a Cuban. See
also C u b y .
Cuby. Southern shorthand for anything
Cuban. Although it is not likely to be
u se d p ejoratively, in som e c irc u m ­
stances, it may be taken that way.
See a l s o C u b e .
cultural hegemony. Hegemony, from the
Greek hegeisthai (to lead), refers to the
dom inance of one state over another.
Cultural hegemony, common in the jar­
gon of multiculturalism, means the cul­
tural influence or dom ination of one
group over another. Cultural hegemony
is often associated with a school of
thought in twentieth-century Marxism.
The drift o f this thinking is that one class
o f people, totally dom inates a society
economically, politically, and ideologi­
cally. “The current fragmentation and
directionlessness of American society is
the result, above all, of a disintegrating
elite’s increasing inability or unwilling­
ness to impose its hegemony on society
as a whole” (Schwartz 1995, 57). Some
black people see the predominance of
cultural imperialism 63
white values and beliefs and the profu­
sion o f white-controlled images that de­
mean African Americans in the media
and in the canon as cultural hegemony.
“Decolonization.. .continues to be an act
of confrontation with hegemonic sys­
tems of thought; it is hence a process of
considerable historical and cultural lib­
eration” (Samia Nehrez, in bell hooks,
Black Looks, 1992, 1).
See also c a n o n , c u l t u r a l i m p e r i a l ­
is m , m u l t ic u l t u r a l is m .
cultural hybrid. A person of mixed cul­
tural heritage, especially one of diverse
or incongruous traditions. Biracial and
multiracial, by contrast, suggest the mix
of genetic code. W riter and artist Allen
Say, whose father was Korean and whose
mother was Japanese American, said of
one of his works, “I am exploring the
ambivalences and ambiguities and the
revelations of being a cultural hybrid”
(Booklist, 1 October 1993, 350).
Similarly, cultural mulatto means
som eone who is part black and part
white in behavior and values. “It wasn’t
unusual for me to be called ‘oreo’ and
‘nigger’ on the same day.... I realized I
was a cultural mulatto” (Troy Ellis, in
Early 1993, 103).
See also b i r a c i a l , m u l a t t o , m u l t i r a ­
c ia l .
cultural imperialism. The conquest o f a
foreign people’s values and attitudes.
Traditional imperialism, referring to a
policy of extending a nation’s authority
through acquiring or holding colonies or
dependencies, usually by military force,
and subjugating foreign peoples, is ar­
guably no longer a characteristic of U.S.
policy. Cultural imperialism, however,
is said to be very much alive. The term
was first used by leftists to criticize the
Peace Corps, accusing it of being a salve
to otherwise revolutionary peoples.
Today the term has come to refer with
discredit to the spreading of Western and,
in particular, U.S. culture abroad. Ex­
64_______ cultural nationalism \
amples o f U.S. global cultural influence
include the U.S. dollar as a world cur­
rency, the w idespread penetration o f
E nglish into other cultures, and the
dom ination in world markets o f U.S.
films and television programs. In some
societies, such as Islamic fundamental­
ist countries in the Middle East, much
o f this cultural influence may be re­
garded as morally threatening to their
way o f life and also racist.
See a l s o c u l t u r a l h e g e m o n y .
c u ltu ra l nationalism . See n a t io n a l is m
c u ltu ral relativism . The viewing o f other
cultures as objectively as possible with­
out the use of the beliefs and values of
one’s own culture to judge the other. A
tenet o f modem cultural anthropology
and other social sciences, this view con­
trasts with ethnocentrism . As an ap­
proach, cultural relativism, as it is un­
derstood in anthropology, may entail
describing the beliefs and customs of
another culture from the point o f view
o f those who are participants in it. Cul­
tural anthropology also emphasizes that
to understand the beliefs o f a particular
culture, one must see them in their cul­
tural context.
The late nineteenth- and early twen­
tieth-century anthropologist Franz Boas
attacked the contemporary evolutionary
perspective that found in the develop­
ment o f cultures a pattern o f evolving
from “savagery” to “civilization,” the
latter reaching its apotheosis in the West­
ern culture o f the evolutionary anthro­
pologist. This perspective, Boas argued,
excluded the benefits o f learning from
and about other cultures, which could be
neither evaluated nor understood on the
basis of the frames of thought provided
by Western culture.
The cultural relativism o f anthropol­
ogy does not keep the anthropologist
from taking a moral stand— few anthro­
pologists, though they might study war­
fare and human sacrifice, would ever
prescribe these activities as moral goods.
Yet, in the clim ate o f som e form s of
multiculturalism today, the em phasis on
ethnic particularism would seem to fur­
ther the belief that claim s to truth or cul­
tural value are relative to the group pro-
v claiming it. Many today, such as Allan
B lo o m (1 9 8 8 ) o r D in e sh D ’S o u za
(1991), have described what they regard
as a scourge o f m odem life— denying
ourselves the freedom to choose one
point o f view as more moral or worthy
. than another. Those who advocate a sim­
plistic view o f relativism, for example,
are seen as trying to remove any trace in
our society o f the belief that the Anglo-
rooted culture is superior to others, leav­
ing us with a com mitm ent to ethnic tol­
erance but no other values.
M ulticulturalism , however, asks us
only to acknowledge the partial and pro­
visional nature o f each group’s perspec­
tives. David Theo Goldberg (1994) ar­
gues that a more sophisticated, nuanced
form of multiculturalism would distin­
guish betw een m ore or less accurate
claims to truth and more or less justifi­
able values. In ad d itio n G eorge M.
Fredrickson writes, “A perspective that
measures existing patterns o f thought
and behavior by standards o f hum an
rights and social justice that transcend
ethnic cultures.. .seems to be as alien to
his [D’Souza’s] way o f thinking as it is
to that o f radical postmodernists” (1995,
12).
See also e t h n o c e n t r i s m , m u l t i c u l ­
t u r a l is m .
cu ltu rally deprived. A term, along with
culturally deprived environment, meant
to avoid the more judgm ental p o o r and
the subjective slum, respectively. Social
science in the 1960s and 1970s inspired
the belief that the im plicit value ju d g ­
ments o f some words should be shunned
in favor of objectivity. The euphemism,
“cultural deprivation,” even shifted the
blame to the society that was doing the

depriving or hindering (“we” are depriv­
ing “them”). Culturally deprived quickly
came into mocking use to connote a de­
ficiency w ithin a low socioeconom ic
class or minority. Today it is likely to be
used by “comfortable, privileged, white,
suburban Americans who want to believe
th a t...t h e p ro b le m s o f th e sy stem
are...problem s of individual initiative
and cu ltu ral dep riv atio n ” (M anning
M a ra b le , in te rv ie w e d by D avid
Barsamian, Z Magazine, February 1994,
48).
The term is resented by minorities,
many o f whom see their home cultures
as older than white U.S. culture and their
languages as comparably sophisticated
Cupid’s Muslims 65
to E nglish. Since the six ties, black
people have viewed it as an insult to
African American culture.
In many ways they [minority youth]
are equipped with skills and expe­
riences which white youth have
been deprived of, since most white
youth develop in a monocultural,
monolingual environment.
— Robert B. Moore, in
Rothenberg 1988, 274
See also d is a d v a n t a g e d .
culturally sensitive. See p o l i t i c a l c o r r e c t ­
n ess.
C u p id ’s M uslim s. See M u s l im .
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D o f dark-skinned inhabitants south o f the
dago, Dago. From the Spanish given name
Diego (James); initially a nautical usage
primarily for a Spaniard or Portuguese.
In twentieth-century U.S. usage, how­
ever, this term has commonly been an
insulting nicknam e for Italians, who
were am ong the new immigrants in the
latter part o f the nineteenth century and
the early twentieth century, when the slur
becam e widespread. “The Dago works
for small pay, and lives far more like a
savage or a wild beast, than the Chi­
nese.... Italy has millions to spare and
they are com ing” (E ugene V. D ebs,
1891, in Fikes 1992, 26). Around that
time, it was also used for the Italian lan­
guage (and to some extent, other south­
ern E u ro p ean o r o th e r foreign la n ­
guages), a student o f Italian, and Italian
food (M encken [1962, suppl. 2, 674]
gives macaroni, the food, as one mean­
ing o f dago). Dagoland refers contemp­
tuously to Italy or, broadly, southern
Europe; and dago red, popularized dur­
ing Prohibition, is slang for a cheap red
wine.
Dago is also used for any persons,
especially male, o f Mediterranean ori­
gin or ancestry and may connote a dark­
skinned European person or any for­
eigner. A t the end o f the nineteenth cen­
tury, the New York press described Cu­
bans, relegated to virtual colonial status
by th e U n ite d S tates, as “ig n o ran t
niggers, half-breeds, and dagoes” (in
Chomsky, Year 501, 1993,144).
S ee also d i n o , e y e t a l i a n , g a r l i c
b r e a t h , g u id o / g u id e t t e , g u in e a ,
m a c a r o n i ,- M a f ia , p iz z a m a n , s p a g h e t t i,
s p ic , U ncle T om (Uncle Giovanni), w o p .
d an c in g d an dy. S e e S am bo.
d a rk e s t A frica, the D a rk C ontinent. A
pejorative reference to Africa bom out
o f Western geographical ignorance be­
fore the late nineteenth century, com­
Darktown 67
bined with an awareness of the existence
Sahara (The Oxford Companion to the
English Language [1992]). The Dark
Continent refers to Africa at large, dark­
est Africa more specifically to those ar­
eas le ast know n to the W est. Both
phrases reflect Eurocentric assumptions,
evoking im ages o f prim itive, pagan
idolaters living mysterious and depraved
lives in the jungle, ju st waiting to be
“opened up” to the “light” of Western
civilization. W riter Joseph Conrad iden­
tified Central A frica as the “Heart o f
D arkness” (1902), a reference to the
darkness in the human heart as much as
to the location, but nevertheless reflect­
ing the deep fear and threatening uncer­
tainty evoked by the term dark. In The
Royal Kingdoms o f Ghana, Mali, and
Songhay (1994), Patricia and Fredrick
McKissack challenge the myth of the
Dark Continent, depicting the flourish­
ing trade and cultures o f West Africa
when Europe was in the “Dark Ages.”
See also A f r i c a n , c i v i l i z e d , j u n g l e ,
p r im it iv e .
d a r k m eat. Vulgar reference to a black
woman as a sexual object or to sexual
intercourse with a black person. In white
supremacist talk, it may suggest the can­
nibalistic urge to “fry” or “grill” a black
person. It has been used at least through­
out this century.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references. See especially
b r o w n s u g a r , b r o w n ie , I n d ia n p r in c e s s .
D arktow n. From the 1880s, usually a rude
and offensive reference to the part of
I t a l ia n , town w here black people live. “The
Dark-Town Strutters’ Ball” was a popu­
lar song from 1916.
See also b l a c k b e l t , n i g g e r t o w n . For
words designating the neighborhoods of
o th e r eth n ic g ro u p s, see b a r r i o ,
C h in a t o w n , g h e t t o , golden ghetto ,
M extow n. See also e t h n ic n e ig h b o r ­
h o o d , in n e r c it y .
68 darky
darky, darkey, darkie, darkee. Derogatory
term for any person with dark skin, es­
pecially an A frican A m erican. It has
been used since the eighteenth century,
initially as a slang reference to the night.
In its ethnic sense, it is associated with
the Old South, though it came into use
in the North, too. A diminutive once ren­
dered affectionately or patronizingly
(see Eisenhower quote below), it is now
devil, foreign devil. In ethnic discourse,
con tem ptuous. A fter the C ivil War,
southerners called a black person a darky
if he or she remained faithful to white
people and to southern w hite social
norms; thus, usage connoted docility.
Songwriter Stephen Foster’s “My Old
Kentucky Home” has at more than one
tim e in this century been the subject of
protest for its use of the term darkey.
Now with a move staring me in the
face, I don’t know what I’m going
to do with some of the people I’ve
depended upon. For example, the
darkies that live in my house.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower,
from a letter to his wife
in 1943, in Fikes 1992, 29
For other traditional southern words
for black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See also c o l o r .
D ead W hite E u ropean M ale. See DWEM.
d ecu ltu ralization. See a s s i m i l a t i o n .
dem onize. To portray the foreigner, the
outsider, or the enemy as evil or diaboli­
cal, as in wartime. The purpose is usu­
ally to manage feelings, blunt thinking,
and direct attention to “their” evils and
away from “ours.” Thus, just as foreign
propaganda at different times has de­
monized Americans (e.g., Hitler demon­
ized F. D. R. during World War II), the
process has also occurred in the United
States. Iraq’s Sadam Hussein, for ex­
ample, is said to have been demonized
by the George Bush administration in its
effort to move into the G ulf War with­
out opposition, and Libya’s Qaddafi was
nam ed the “M ad Dog o f the M iddle
East.” There has also been a tradition
among some black groups o f dem oniz­
ing all o f w hite so ciety ; and w hite
p e o p le , e s p e c ia lly b e fo re th e
Christianization o f black slaves, tended
to see black people as the devil incar-
\n a te .
See also d e v i l , f o r e i g n e r , m e n a c e ,
OTHER, W HITE DEVIL.
som eone o f an o th er group h ated or
feared as the spirit o f evil; in use among
many groups throughout history. In the
United States, references to “Satanical
Jesuits” (Jesuits or Catholics in general),
red devils (American Indians), blue-eyed
d e v ils (w h ite p e o p le ), an d th e
demonization o f foreigners, especially
enemies in time o f war, attest to the ten­
dency o f groups to attrib u te special
threatening powers to outsiders. These
powers are said to destroy, ruin, oppress,
dominate, and even seduce (for instance,
sexually or politically).
In black use, devil is a derogatory
reference to a white person, often a m ale
(M ajor [1994] lists the police as one
meaning) and sometimes a Jew. Black
Muslims have referred to white people
as white devils.
For other words black people use for
white people, see w h i t e . See especially
BLU E-EYED DEVIL, PIG , W HITE DEVIL.
See also r e d d e v i l .
Foreign devil is perhaps m ost fre­
quently associated with Chinese usage
in reference to non-Chinese. The C hi­
nese w o rd /a /i qui, “foreign devil” or
“barbarian wanderer,” has been used for
foreigners, especially w hite people—
w hether v isito rs to C h in a, th o se in
America under whom Chinese people
w orked, or w hite people in general.
There are a number o f variants, includ­
ing such forms as hok kuei (white devil)
and bok kuei (black devil).
See also b a r b a r i a n , d e m o n i z e , f o r ­
e ig n e r , g a ijin , x e n o p h o b ia .

Diggers. See P a iu te .
dinge, dingy. A vulgar and usually con­
temptuous term for a black person, dinge
derives from dingy (dark, discolored).
A lthoughMerriam-W ebster’s Collegiate
D ictionary (1993) says the origins of
dingy are unknown, other sources note
a possible relationship to dung (Rawson
1989). Dinge has been used since the
m id-nineteenth century, according to
Spears (1991) and Lighter (1994), al­
though Chapman (1986) dates it, or at
least its time of special currency, to the
1920s. Dingy is the diminutive o f dinge.
Dinge has also been used for any per­
son of color or, in the military in the
1960s and 1970s, for a Vietnamese. A
meaning in the gay community is a black
male homosexual (dinge queen refers
pejoratively to a white homosexual man
who prefers black partners or a white
woman who prefers black men). As an
adjective, it may refer to a style of jazz
developed by African American musi­
cians.
For other words in white use for black
people, see b l a c k , cross-references. See
also c o l o r , d i n k .
dink, Dink. Derogatory nickname for an
Asian or person o f Asian descent, but
today usually a Vietnamese, as used by
American and Australian soldiers dur­
ing the Vietnam War. “Too many of them
come back [from Vietnam] crazy to dink
[strike] a d ink....” (Frank Chin, Donald
Duk, 1991, 19). It also refers to the Viet­
nam ese language. Lighter (1994) shows
it as originally Australian slang. It is said
variously to derive from chink (with
which it rhymes); to be a blend o f dinge
and chink; and to be a back-formation
from dinky, signifying something small.
See a l s o A s ia n A m e r i c a n , C h i n k ,
d in g e , d o g - e a t e r , fl a t fa c e , g in k , g o o -
G OO, GOO K , SLANT, SLOPE, ZIP.
It has also been a pejorative label for
a black person, possibly here an alter­
ation o f dinge (Lighter 1994). In this
sense, also dinky.
disadvantaged_______ 69
For other derogatory words in white
use for black people, see b l a c k .
dino. From the early twentieth century, a
mildly derogatory nickname for an Ital­
ian, some other person o f southern Eu-
ropeanydescent, or a Mexican. The tar­
get has commonly been male laborers
o f these backgrounds (the word, arising
from railroad talk, once referred specifi­
cally to railroad hands who worked with
dynamite). Dino is also an Italian given
name.
See also d a g o , e y e t a l i a n , g a r l i c
BREATH, GUIDO/GUIDETTE, GUINEA, ITALIAN,
m a c a r o n i, M a f ia , p iz z a m a n , s p a g h e t t i ,
s p ic , U ncle T om (Uncle Giovanni), w op.
dirt-eater. See c l a y - e a t e r .
disadvantaged. Usually a euphemistic slo­
gan or catchphrase o f the 1960s and
1970s for the poor and oppressed or any­
one suffering a problem that is a barrier
to living a better life. Differences be­
tween those described as disadvantaged
and others in society are usually ascribed
to racial or ethnic factors, often to the
exclusion of class (Cashmore 1994, 84).
The implication is that those not “disad­
vantaged” are the social norm.
The term originally suggested society
at large as the source of a minority group’s
disadvantage (“by omission or commis­
sion,” according to Grebler, Moore, and
Guzman [1970,24], in an early clarifica­
tion of the term). At first applied by so­
cial workers, liberals, and scholars out of
good intention, it soon slipped into
harsher connotations. In the 1980s it came
into currency among those who wished
to avoid discussion of discrimination and
focused instead on dependency, obscur­
ing structural sources o f inequality. Part
of the language of affirmative action, it
has been reg a rd e d as a term o f
disempowerment (see Jeff Howard and
Ray Hammond, “Rumors of Inferiority,”
New Republic, 9 September 1985).
L ess fo rtu n a te is a g enteel term
m eaning the oppressed or those dis­
crim inated against. Underprivileged is
70 discovered
yet another euphemism for the socially,
economically, or in some other way dis­
advantaged.
See also c u l t u r a l l y d .e p r i v e d , l o w e r
c la ss, u n d ercla ss.
d isc o v ered , discovery. M isleading and
Eurocentric usage in such phrases as
“Columbus discovered America” or “the
Portuguese discovery of the Pacific.” The
implication is that the inhabitants o f a
“discovered” region are so inferior or
insignificant to the “discoverers” that
they may be considered as virtually non­
existent. In an 1823 Supreme Court de­
cision, C hief Justice John M arshall,
em bracing an international European
legal fiction called the doctrine of dis­
covery, argued that discovery, by which
he meant the discovery o f territory new
to Europeans, was the basis o f title to
land. Native Americans did not, there­
fore, have unqualified sovereignty over
their territories. For some, the term is
synonymous with invasion. “History is
a hymn to W hite people, and all us oth­
ers have been discovered— by W hite
people, who may or may not (they sup­
posed) permit us to enter history” (James
Baldwin, The Evidence o f Things N ot
Seen, 1985, 80).
Indians discovered Columbus.
—Bumper sticker,
Chicago, 1995
See a l s o E u r o c e n t r is m , i n v is i b l e .
discrim ination. See p r e j u d i c e , r e v e r s e
c r im in a t io n .
diversity. M ost often a reference to the var­
ied national, ethnic, and racial back­
grounds of U.S. citizens and immigrants
but also to categories of class, gender,
and sexual orientation. Diversity, how­
ever, has com e to mean a num ber of
things in our multicultural society and
has taken on new significance with the
rise of the politics and economics of di­
versity. Its meanings and uses depend to
a great extent on the social, economic,
or political view o f the user.
W hile abstractly it includes w hite
males, diversity m ost often today de­
scribes situations involving nonw hite
ethnic groups, women, lesbians and gay
men, the aged, and the disabled, espe­
cially as they relate to each other and to
the dom inant white male ethos in the
workplace. In political policy making,
diversity has been used as an invocation
(e.g., the Clinton A dm inistration’s “true
face of America,” in which diversity sig­
nifies political representation). Thomas
Sowell describes the word as “an invo­
cation, an imperative, or a bludgeon in
ideological conflicts” (Society, 1991,
37). In American culture diversity has
acquired the look o f an institution, and
to show that you are “different” may al­
most be an act o f conformity.
In the United States, there have been
mixed feelings about ethnic diversity and
the affirmation o f separate ethnic iden­
tities. Naturalized citizenship was once
reserved only for white people, and the
assimilability o f European imm igrants
has often led to preferences for E uro­
pean immigration over that from other
areas o f the world. M any A m ericans
have com e to see the cu ltu re o f the
United States as a monolithic entity, its
assumed homogeneity to be protected
against contact with that which is for­
eign— with “them.” Some also fear the
supposed costs to governm ent o f the
presence of non-English-speaking and
d is ­
unemployed immigrants, and they op­
pose what they see as the enhancem ent
of ethnic identity and diversity at the
expense o f n a tio n a l unity. S tep h en
Steinberg (1989) finds the sources o f
ethnic diversity in the U nited States
(conquest, slavery, and the exploitation
o f foreign labor) not to be a positive ba­
sis for the development o f diversity.
In spite of the many objections to the
idea of diversity, however, much of the
country holds some positive feelings for
its mixed cultural and racial heritages
and the benefits they bestow (analogous

to the biologist’s contention that a popu­
lation benefits from maintaining a large
gene pool). In fact, diversity, while a
problem or curse to some, is a symbol
and a cause for celebration by poets,
politicians, and educators alike: “Here
is not m erely a nation but a teeming N a­
tion o f nations” (Walt W hitman, “By
Blue O ntario’s Shore”). The challenges
o f the influxes o f im m igrants to the
U nited States are undeniable, but they
have produced what Ben J. Wattenberg
has called “ ‘the first universal nation,’ a
truly m ulticultural society marked by
unparalleled diversity” (Time, Fall 1993,
vol. 142, no. 21,3).
Several new noun compounds have
com e into currency recently. Managing
diversity refers to efforts to understand
and manage the dynamics o f both inter­
personal and work relationships among
diverse em ployees in organizations.
Valuing diversity places emphasis on the
degree to which an effectively managed
workforce composed of people with di­
verse backgrounds constitutes a valuable
resource, especially for corporations, in
m eeting the dem ands of operating in
today’s global and multicultural business
environment. Diversity training refers to
educational activities designed to help
people understand the imperatives of
w orkforce or organizational diversity
and better adapt to, value, and manage
them. “Before, we ju st thought of diver­
sity as the total number of minorities and
women in the company, like affirmative
action. Now we knew we needed diver­
sity at every level of the company where
decisions are made” (Ernest H. Drew,
“How to Make Diversity Pay,” by Faye
Rice, Fortune, 8 August 1994, 79).
See a l s o a s s i m i l a t i o n ; B a b e l , T o w e r
o f ; im m ig r a n t ; m u l t ic u l t u r a l is m ; plu­
r a l is m . cans is known as the Dotbusters. “We
dog. Among its many meanings, a reference
among black people to a white person,
probably, according to Spears (1991), in
the sense o f “a rotten and low man.” It is
dothead 71
from the mid-twentieth century. Lighter
(1994) gives as one meaning in black
English simply “a treacherous or brutal
person.” Some of the negative connota­
tions of dog probably derive from the
early categorization of the dog as a scav­
enger. 'th e word gains its impact from
being monosyllabic and having a hard g
sound. “After we [Black Panthers] were
arrested... we were all put into the Drunk
Tank, a large room with nothing in it but
us. No bed, no blankets, nothing. This
kind of treatment you expect from a rac­
ist dog” (Warren Tucker, in Van Peebles,
Taylor, and Lewis 1995, 36).
For other words black people use for
white people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences.
dog-eater. Slur on an Asian, especially a
Vietnamese or Korean. A number of cul­
tures in Asia, including some in China,
Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines,
have included dog in their diet (see
Marvin H arris’s treatment of food cus­
toms, Good to Eat, 1985).
See also A s i a n A m e r i c a n , d i n g e , d i n k ,
fl a t f a c e , g in k , g o o - g o o , g o o k , m ic e -
e a t er , s l a n t , sl o p e , z ip .
dominant culture, dominant society. See
m a in s t r e a m .
dothead, dot head. From the late twenti­
eth century, a derogatory referen ce
(though it may be intended as jocular)
to a female Asian Indian who wears a
red dot on her forehead. Shape and color
of marks applied to the head may vary,
however, and Hindu men may also wear
marks on the forehead. Application of
the colored dot, called a bindi, is a com­
mon practice among many Asian Indian
women who are not widowed.
In New Jersey, an organized hate
group that targets Asian Indian Ameri­
do not speak of motel raids, cancelled
p erm its, ston es so m etim es th ro w n
through glass windows, daughters and
sons rap ed by D o tb u ste rs” " (C h itra
 72 downtown
Banerjee Divakaneni, “Indian Movie,
Ne\y Jersey,” in Unsettling America, ed.
M aria M azziotti G illan and Jennifer
Gillan, 1994, 53).
See also A s ia n I n d i a n , B u d d h a h e a d ,
I n d ia n A m e r ic a n , r a g h e a d .
dow ntow n. An adjective describing a sub-
category o f an ethnic group, marking
those so designated as occupying a lower
socioeconomic status than others in the
group. Examples are “downtown Jews”
and “downtown Chinese” (the 30 per­
cent o f Chinese Americans, predom i­
nantly new immigrants, who lack the
education and skills required to find
employment outside the sweatshops and
restaurants o f Chinatow ns [see Peter
Kwong 1987, 5])
See also u p t o w n .
d rag o n lady, D ragon lady. From 1973, ste­
reotype o f an East Asian female as mean,
deceitful, domineering, or mysterious. It
is based on an Asian comic strip charac­
ter by M ilton Caniff. “Fu M anchu had a
fe m a le c o u n te rp a rt w ith w hom he
merged— the ‘dragon lady’— who had
talons for fingers, plotted revenge, and
drew men to their doom with her siren
calls” (Okihiro 1994, 144).
For other words for Asian women,
see C h e r r y B l o s s o m , C h in a d o l l , f o r ­
t u n e c o o k ie , g e is h a , M is s S a i g o n . See
also A s ia n A m e r ic a n .
D r. T hom as. See U n c l e T om.
d ru n k as a D utchm an. See D utch.
d u m b D utch. See D utch.
d u n e coon. Synonym for sand nigger, that
is, an Arab or Middle Easterner, and just
as offensive but coined more recently.
A ccording to the M aledicta M onitor
(Spring 1992), it appeared during the
1991 G ulf War; however, although wars
do b ring out nam e-callin g , L ighter
(1994) dates the word to the early 1980s.
See a l s o A r a b .
Dutch. A pejorative word, meaning anything
considered inferior. Originally used by the
British, it has been traced to the seven­
teenth century, when the British competed
for an overseas empire with the Dutch.
Americans also once used it contemptu­
ously; but, probably because o f confusion
with the German word Deutsch (Ger-
• v man), they applied it to Germans and the
German language. The so-called Penn­
sylvania Dutch, Germ ans w ho im m i­
grated to the colonies, were referred to
as Dutch by English colonists, often with
derogatory intent (Pennsylvania Dutch,
however, is no longer considered deroga­
tory). Roback (1979) lists some seventy-
three ethnic slurs appearing in English
that refer to the Dutch.
The following terms and expressions,
some o f them first recorded in A m eri­
can English (Barnhart 1988), are not
necessarily recognized as being pejora­
tive by their users today but reflect the
old negative sense o f the term: Dutch act
or Dutch cure (suicide, i.e., an act o f
cowardice); Dutch courage (the courage
that comes from alcohol, or later, nar­
cotics, i.e., dry Dutch courage)', it’s all
Dutch to me (gibberish); D utch treat
(each person pays his or her own way)
and in verb form, to go Dutch (the Dutch
were allegedly stingy but in early New
York and New Jersey were also resented
for their success); to get in Dutch or sim­
ply in Dutch (to come into disfavor or
get into trouble); and to get som eone's
Dutch up (to anger someone). Deroga­
tory expressions also include drunk as a
Dutchman (very drunk) and heavy as a
Dutchman (big and ungainly). D utch­
m an (also D u tch e r and D u tch ie, or
D utchy) has been used pseudogeneri-
cally to name a N etherlander o f either
sex, and inaccurately and often deroga­
torily to label a German, someone o f
German descent, or a foreigner.
For sim ilar slurs d irected against
other E uropean groups, see F r e n c h ,
G r e e k , I r is h , I t a l ia n , J e w , P o l e , S c o t c h ,
S p a n is h , w e l s h . See also c h e e s e -e a te r ,
kraut.

DW EM . An early 1990s acronym for “Dead
W hite E uropean M ale.” The DW EM
rep resen ts the canon w orks so long
prized by academ ic traditionalists—
works created largely by Western, Eu­
rocentric men, mostly now dead, known
as the “dominant patriarchal social or­
der” among those critical of male author­
ity. A synonym, with mocking tones, for
those white European males, living or
DWEM 73
dead, is “pale penis people.” “M ain­
stream literary scholars have become so
gun-shy that the distinguished classicist
Bernard Knox preemptively calls his
forthcoming book on the ancient Greeks
‘T he O ldest D ead W h ite E uropean
M ales’”” (Newsweek, 29 M arch 1993,
49).
See also c a n o n , E u r o c e n t r i s m , m u l -
t ic u l t u r a l is m , p o l it ic a l c o r r e c t n e s s .

E o f am biguous terminology, prom pted
eagle-beak, eagle beak. A slur, usually on
a Jew, based on an anatomical stereo­
type and used throughout this century.
A synonym is hooknose. The animal al­
lusion may also be to vultures: “He was
a vulture of the vulture race, and he had
the beak of one” (Willa Cather, referring
to a Jewish character in “The Diamond
Mine,” 1916).
For other words for Jews, see J e w ,
c ro s s - r e f e r e n c e s . S ee e s p e c ia lly
h o o k n o se, J e w is h n o s e , s c h n o z z o l a .
E a ste rn e r, E a ste rn elite. A term which,
when used for an inhabitant of the north­
ern portion o f the eastern seaboard, may
(especially for rural o r conservative
people o f the South or West) connote
trad itio n and “E stablishm ent” (as in
E astern E sta b lish m e n t, com p risin g
many o f the financial and communica­
tions institutions o f the United States).
It may also connote WASP aloofness or
snobbery. E astern elite serves as an
antisemitic code phrase meaning Jews,
suggesting their alleged control o f the
political and financial order.
See also WASP.
E a s t I n d ia n . See A s ia n I n d i a n , I n d i a n
A m e r ic a n .
ebonies, E bonics. A blend o f ebony and
phonics (literally, “black sounds”), re­
ferring to the English spoken by many
African Americans. It comprises a range
o f urban and rural dialects.
Coined in the mid-1970s by linguist
Robert L. Williams, this word became
w ell k now n— and notorious— in D e­
cem ber 1996 with the media attention
given to the Oakland (California) Uni­
fied School D istrict’s so-called ebonies
resolution. The resolution proposed the
classroom use o f black English to help
black schoolchildren learn standard En­
glish. Although ebonies programs were
a lre a d y e s ta b lis h e d in C a lifo rn ia
ebonies 75
schools, the resolution, in part because
vigorous public debate. One o f the m ul­
titude of charges leveled at ebonies was
that teaching it (or simply teaching in it,
as a briejge to standard English) was a
scam designed to grab government sub­
sidy money for bilingual education. Oth­
ers saw ebonies as a diversion from the
real issues concerning the failures of the
educational system , or as a way for
middle-class African Americans to pre­
serve their ethnic authenticity. To many
it was above all a disservice to the stu­
dents, viewed as blocking them from
whatever opportunities may be available
by linguistically assimilating into white
society. On the other hand, the Linguis­
tics Society o f America supported the
use of ebonies in the classroom as peda­
gogically sound.
There is also the question o f what to
call ebonies. It has been considered, for
example, a separate language (the posi­
tion of the Oakland schools), a dialect,
a vernacular, slang, broken English, and
a “debased survival.” All of these terms
except for language carry bias.
The distinction between a language
and a dialect is not clearly defined in lin­
guistics. A language may be spoken in
different dialects, which refer to the pat­
terned language variants associated with
particular regions or communities. Out­
side of linguistics, however, Americans
tend to dismiss dialects that vary from
“standard English” as deviant or vul­
gar— in the case of ebonies, as a lazy,
sloppy way of speaking English. A com­
mon belief is that there is one invariant,
“true English,” an ideal against which
to judge dialects, but sometimes known
in linguistics as the “correct English
myth” (Adger 1997). Slang, commonly
regarded as the faddish, substandard
coinages and figures of speech of young
people and o f the streets, carries similar
derogatory connotations. Broken English
(ungrammatical) and debased survival
76 eight ball
(shameful relic) also suggest the inferi­
ority of black English to standard En­
glish.
Among the many nonderogatory but
politically freighted usages are Black
English, Pan-African Communication
Behaviors, and African Language Sys­
tems. Ebonics itself is heavily loaded.
“As a man whose favorite author was
Henry James, he [James Baldwin] would
have w inced at term ing it ‘Ebonics’”
(C h risto p h er H itchens, Vanity Fair,
March 1997, 95). Eschewing all these
terms, linguist Charles J. Fillmore (1997,
13) prefers the “unnatural but (I think)
neutral term African American Vernacu­
lar English.”
Besides naming and classification,
there are a number of other unresolved
linguistic issues surrounding ebonies,
including historical roots. Ebonologists
argue that it derives from West African
languages, such as Ewe, Fula, Yoruba,
Igbo, and Malinke, emerging as a pid­
gin and creole among American slaves.
Also at issue is how diverse it is as a
language phenomenon. W hat linguists
do seem to agree on, however, is that it
is a rule-governed language system ac­
quired through the same informal pro­
cess of language acquisition as French
or “BBC English.”
The significance of ebonies, however,
is more than that of a language. It is tied
up with the emotional, social, and po­
litical issues of black cultural history and
identity. In the black com m unity, it
shows its relevance by helping speakers
to be accepted and be heard. Using it
does not necessarily preclude success in
life in the United States, just as learning
standard English is no assurance of so­
cial mobility (Adger 1997, 6).
eight ball. A black person. This term, used
pejoratively since the early 1900s, refers
to the eight ball, which is black, in the
game of pool.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references.
English disease. See F r e n c h d is e a s e .
environmental racism. See ra c is m .
equality. Equal treatment o f people in pub­
lic matters and assignment to them o f
similar access to scarce resources, such
' as jobs, housing, and education. T hat
these conditions are not m et even in the
most democratic o f industrialized socie­
ties reflects many constraints, am ong
them elitist control o f resources and rac­
ism. But it also reflects the valuing o f
merit, in which individuals m ore intelli­
gent, more qualified, or more skilled are,
as in education and em ployment, given
preferential treatment. M erit, however,
like equality, is an abstraction that may
be called into political service.
Naturally, we hire two minority em­
ployees for each white we hire....
We place white people in manage­
m ent: black p eo p le go to the
m ailroom . Everyone gets fired
eventually, but then nobody ever
said equality would be easy!
— Human resources worker
in a Rail cartoon,
in Washington Post
National Weekly Edition,
13-19 February 1995, 31
The idea o f equality is often colored,
shaped, or twisted according to group
interest. As George Orwell wrote in A n i­
mal Farm (1945), “All animals are equal,
but some animals are more equal than
others.” Today the idea o f equality that
is central to m ulticulturalism, including
the dem ocratic agendas o f m inorities
seeking to open the c a n o n , has been stig­
matized by some conservatives. An at­
tack on equality and defense o f social
stratification can be found in W illiam A.
H enry’s In Defense o f Elitism (1994).
See also c u l t u r a l r e l a t iv is m , i d e n ­
t it y POLITICS, SEPARATE BUT EQUAL.
E skim o. A n A lgonquian-derived w ord,
from Spanish, French, and Danish spell­
ings and referring to many o f the indig­
enous groups o f Arctic and sub-Arctic
North America, Greenland, and Eastern

Siberia. (Early A m ericans spelled the
nam e Esquimaw or Esquimau, follow­
ing the French.) Eskimo, however, is not
commonly used by these people to des­
ignate them selves, although some do
accept it.
A c c o rd in g to R a n d o m H ou se
W ebster’s College Dictionary (1991),
Eskimo is not, as has often been held, an
Algonquian term for “eater of raw meat”
(th is d ic tio n a ry d e riv e s it fro m a
M ontagnais word meaning “snowshoe-
netter”). However, historical associa­
tions with bias are numerous. W ebster’s
Word Histories (1989), for example, says
Eskimo is akin to Abnaki esquimantsic,
“ e a te rs o f raw fle s h ,” and C ree
askimowew, “he eats it raw.” Swanton
(1 9 6 8 , 5 5 6 ) n o te s th a t W illiam
Thalbitzer derived the term from one
used for the Eskimo by French mission­
aries m eaning “the excom m unicated
ones.” The word Eskimo has sometimes
also suggested backwardness or vulgar­
ity and has referred generically to any
despised minority, especially Jews, per­
haps for the Jewish-sounding mo at the
end (Rosten 1989).
The Inuit Circum polar Conference
held in Barrow, Alaska in 1977, officially
adopted Inuit (also Innuit, plural Inuit
or Inuits), meaning “the people” in the
Inuit language, as the preferred collec­
tive d esig n atio n for E skim o (D avid
Damas, in U tter 1993, 67). Inuit is the
officially recognized name in Canada,
where Eskimo is now considered a rude
usage, and is gaining favor in the United
States. Inuit, however, is not used for
A laska Indians (except according to
some federal definitions) or for Aleuts
(see below in this entry for the meaning
o f Aleut). The Inuit actually go by vari­
ous tribal names.
As with so many other ethnic usages,
“correct” usage is a matter of context and
audience. Eskim o is still com m on in
print, including in historical and ar­
c h a e o lo g ic a l w ritin g and o u tsid e
E thiopian 77
Canada. Eskimo has also been used to
refer to the languages of these people,
some of which are grouped as Inupik and
others as Yupik, and to a pidgin used in
c o m m u n ic atio n b etw e en In u it and
speakers of European languages.
An Aleut is a Native American inhab­
iting the Aleutian chain of islands, the
Pribilof Islands, and coastal regions of
southw est A laska. “S hugak....Y ou’re
Aleut... .With those cheekbones and that
forehead you’d have to be from the Aleu­
tians” (Dana Stubenew, A Cold-Blooded
Business, 1994, 36-37). Although there
is some doubt concerning the meaning
o f the term, it is said to have been used
by Russians for these people, although
the Russians also used it for Inuit speak­
ers. The name was possibly borrowed
from the Chukchi word aliuit. Aleuts and
Inuits, though differing genetically and
linguistically, have otherw ise sim ilar
cultures.
See also e s k y , e s q u a w , I n d ia n , N a t iv e
A m e r ic a n .
esky. Unflattering nickname based on an
alteration o f Eskimo.
See also E s k im o , e s q u a w .
esquaw . U sed for an Inuit, or Eskim o,
woman, possibly from a blend of Eskimo
and squaw. Whatever the original intent,
the usage today would be taken as of­
fensive.
See also E s k im o , e s k y .
E thiopian. An inhabitant of the northeast
African country of Ethiopia. The term
comes from a thirteenth-century English
word for a dark-skinned person, derived
from Greek Aithiops, meaning the coun­
try south and east of Egypt. In the fif­
teenth century, the image of the so-called
bon ethiopien gave concrete shape to the
European concept of the innocent primi­
tive.
As Flexner (1976, 55) points out,
Ethiopian orginally connoted someone
of exotic origin; in the United States it
was often used for a foreign, free, or edu­
78 ethnic
cated black person but not usually for a
slave or field hand. It entered into sev­
eral compounds during the latter half of
the nineteenth century, including Ethio­
pian paradise, later known as nigger
heaven, referring to the segregated up­
per balcony o f a theater. The Dictionary
o f Am erican Regional English (1991)
notes that “Ethiopian in the fuel supply”
has been used for “nigger in the wood­
pile.” In spite o f some negative conno­
tations, in the 1930s members o f a black
sect known as the U niversal H agar’s
Spiritual Church used Ethiopian as well
as Black to designate African Americans.
This term can be intended as strongly
pejorative. In fact, except in its sense o f
a citizen o f the country of Ethiopia, it is
usually considered derisive. For ex­
am ple, in a com ic book for A frican
A m ericans, and w ith an A frocentric
point of view, a skinhead attacks a black
with “Take that, Ethiopian swine!”
Ethiopianism refers to a movement,
such as M arcus Garvey’s Universal N e­
g ro Im p ro v e m e n t A sso c ia tio n o r
Rastafarianism, that expresses the needs
and longings of diaspora black people,
uprooted from what they see as their
spiritual homeland. “We negroes believe
in the God o f Ethiopia,” said Garvey.
For other words white or black people
use for black people, see b l a c k , cross­
references. See especially A f r ic a n , b u s h
( B u s h m a n ), K a f f ir , M a u M a u , N ig e r ia n ,
P ygm y, Z ulu. See also n ig g e r h e a v e n .
ethnic. An adjective describing a group of
people sharing com mon cultural ele­
ments; also a noun for a member of such
a group. It is derived from the Greek
e th n o s (n a tio n , p eo p le, o r fo re ig n
people). It was also once used in the re­
lated sense of “gentile” or “heathen” and
expressed chauvinistic dislike of outsid­
ers. Usage is sometimes contradictory
and elusive.
In its contemporary sense, in the so­
cial sciences at least, the term is traced
to the 1940s Yankee City sociological
studies o f W. Lloyd Warner. In W arner’s
first volume (1941), the noun ethnic was
used in reference to someone who con­
sidered him- or herself a m em ber o f the
v group under study (Yankee, Irish, Jew­
ish, etc.), or was considered so by oth­
ers in the group, and who participated
in the activities o f the group. The term
thus came to denote a group o f people
defined by a common culture, national­
ity, language, or religion and by the sig­
nificance attached to their shared back­
ground.
A m ong m any w hite, a ssim ilate d
Americans, however, ethnic connotes
foreigners or outsiders. Even W arner’s
c o n c e p t o f e th n ic ity in v o lv e d an
exclusivist meaning: it could refer to the
Irish, Jewish, etc., but not to the native
Yankees. At some times ethnic also con­
notes something relatively uncivilized,
as in the phrase ethnic politics, believed
to be som ehow m ore backw ard than
mainstream politics. At other times, it
suggests a desirable feature o f o n e ’s
id en tity , so m e th in g g lo rifie d , even
exoticized.
Ethnic is also associated with race
and may be p referred to th a t term .
Michael Banton describes the important
differences between an ethnic group and
a race as such: “The former reflects the
positive tendencies o f identification and
inclusion where the latter reflects the
negative tendencies o f dissociation and
exclusion” (in C ashm ore 1984, 86).
B launer discusses som e o f the w ays
black and white people “talk past” one
another in using the terms ethnic and
race: “When blacks are ‘being ethnic,’
w hites see them as b ein g ‘r a c ia l’”
(Pincus and Ehrlich 1994, 25).
Especially as a noun, with or with­
out the qualifier white, it may be a code
word for a white, working-class Catho­
lic, frequently an imm igrant or descen­
dant o f im m igrants from eastern or
southern Europe (e.g., Polish and Ital­

ians, but also sometimes Irish). When
used to stereotype blue-collar people as
racist, the term carries a derogatory con­
notation, and it is seldom used by these
people for themselves. Archie Bunker
ethnic— a phrase that derives from the
name o f the northern, white, working-
class bigot in the 1960s sitcom A ll in the
Family— has been used to identify such
blue-collar racists without the full re­
proach o f racist. In his study of the so­
cial and political attitudes of white eth­
nic people, Andrew Greeley (1974) ar­
gued that the hard-hat-bigot image of
blue-collar whites was unfair given the
white ethnic support of integration and
political reform.
Euro-ethnic is sometim es used for
European immigrants, also sometimes
known as ethnics or white ethnics, who,
in spite o f their assimilation into main­
stream U.S. culture, may retain some
elements o f a minority status. The Prot­
estant E uro-ethnics, especially those
from E ngland and Germany but also
those from Scandinavia, generally had
little difficulty assim ilating, w hereas
C ath o lic im m igrants (Irish, Italians,
Poles) and European Jews experienced
considerable discrimination.
The use of ethnic to describe mem­
bers o f any ethnic group living outside
their native country became popular in
the 1970s and 1980s in the United States
and Canada as a way to refer to minor­
ity groups with shared origins, culture,
or language. “Since the collapse of the
Soviet empire, about twenty-four million
ethnic Russians have found themselves
living in foreign countries, outside the
boundaries of their historic homeland”
(John Kohan, Time, 19 July 1993, 41).
A t the same time, used to describe any
people who form a minority within a
larger society, the term may mean the
indigenous people in a society in which
others are perceived as foreigners. In
Fiji, for example, the native Oceanic
people are called ethnic Fijians (Euro­
ethnic group_______ 79
peans and Fiji Indians came to Fiji later).
See also b l o o d , e t h n ic g r o u p , e t h n ic
n e ig h b o r h o o d , E u r o p e a n A m e r ic a n ,
race.
ethnic cleansing. A euphem ism for the
forced expulsion, by murder or removal,
of a population from a country or terri­
tory. Such acts involve a construction of
an image of the o t h e r (those being ex­
pelled) as malevolent and defiling. The
term came into currency in the early
1990s (first appearing in the news in
1991, according to Am erican Speech
[Winter 1993,413]) as a reference to the
expulsion o f the non-Serb population
from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Justified
as an expression of Serbian nationalism,
the use o f force againt the non-Serb
population has involved a great deal of
hatred of Muslims; it has been compared
with the policies of Stalin and those of
Hitler (whose Nazi tactics are referred
to as “ethnic purification”).
The term has also been used to refer
to policies of expulsion o f an “undesir­
able” population from a given territory
in other countries. In the United States,
for example, although the early treat­
ment of Native Americans has not com ­
monly been identified in these terms,
some would argue that the definition fits.
“Under this definition, then, the slow dis­
p e rsa l and a n n ih ila tio n o f N o rth
A m erica’s indigenous population was
indeed ethnic cleansing” (Bell-Fialkoff
1993, 110).
Cultural cleansing and the even more
refined euphem ism eth n ic sh iftin g ,
sometimes preferred by the Serbians, are
variants.
See also e t h n ic p u r it y , g e n o c id e .
eth nic group. Any category o f people
within a larger society who possess dis­
tinctive social or cultural traits, shared
history, and sense of their commonness,
regardless of the group’s size, power,
race (the perception o f certain common
biological traits), or time of immigration.
80 ______ethnic neighborhood
The term is popularly used for such
groups in U.S. society as Jews, who
identify themselves in terms usually of
common history as w ell as religion, or
groups designated by national origin,
such as Polish Americans or Japanese
Americans. The term has been popular
since the 1960s.
Because of the troublesome conno­
tations of the term race in today’s po­
litical climate, ethnic group is sometimes
preferred for a group with a common
biological phenotype as well as shared
cultural traits. Appeals have been made
by some anthropologists to replace the
misleading, emotion-laden race with the
supposedly more neutral and accurate
ethnic group. The compound adjective
race-ethnic, which suggests that a group
is defined both by shared physical and
cultural characteristics, may also be pre­
ferred. Ethnic group is also often used
euphemistically for the poor, for those
discrim inated against, or for recently
arrived im m igrant groups; it does not
usually connote black or Latino, as does
minority group. Not all ethnic groups,
o f course, are minorities.
Although the cuisine o f an ethnic
group may indeed form part o f that
group’s self-im age, assim ilated white
mainstream society may reduce ethnic­
ity to culinary p ractices. “I alw ays
w ished I was a m em ber o f an ethnic
group. Ah, it’s just as well. I hate cook­
ing” (Frasier, on the television show
Cheers).
See also e t h n ic , m in o r it y , r a c e , t r i b e .
ethnic neighborhood. A community where
people of similar origin or extraction, or
other unifying trait, live. It is euphemis­
tic when applied to slums or ghettos.
Ethnic village is Herbert G ans’s term
for ethnic neighborhoods in large cities
where there is a strong sense o f com ­
munity (The Urban Villagers, 1982). The
term connotes the solidarity that exists
in such neighborhoods, contrary to popu­
^
lar conceptions, and those o f early soci­
ology, that city life causes a breakdown
in personal relations, loyalties, and so­
cial order.
S ee a lso e t h n i c , e t h n i c g r o u p ,
g h e t t o , i n n e r c i t y . For words designat­
ing specific kinds of ethnic neighbor­
h o o d s, see b a r r i o , b l a c k b e l t ,
C h in a to w n , g o ld e n g h e tto , H a iti,
M e x to w n , n ig g e r to w n .
ethnic purity. The state in which one eth­
nic group does not mix or interrmarry
with the members o f another group or
share its neighborhood with them. A l­
though it may be associated with ethnic
solidarity and pride, or with segregation,
it is m ore often regarded as an extrem ist
term that connotes racist acts o f “cleans­
ing.”
See also b l o o d , e t h n i c c l e a n s i n g ,
e th n ic g ro u p , g e n o c id e .
ethnocentrism. The tendency o f people to
put their own group (ethnos) at the cen­
ter: to see things through the narrow lens
o f their own culture and use the stan­
dards of that culture to judge others. This
term was coined by sociologist William
Graham Sumner in his 1906 book Folk­
ways, although The Oxford English D ic­
tionary (1989) cites W. J. M cGee as us­
ing ethnocentric in 1900. An ethnocen­
tric point of view usually leads to a bi­
ased belief in the inferiority o f other
groups and, at the extreme, to cultural
chauvinism. The differences we encoun­
ter in others— in dress, speech, manners,
politics, or any other cultural attribute—
test our sense o f trust in them and m ight
even threaten or offend us. “The A m eri­
can tourist who, when presented with a
handful of Italian lira, asks ‘How much
is this in real m oney?’ is ethnocentric”
(Serena Nanda, Cultural Anthropology,
1994, 9).
Som e degree o f ethnocentrism is
characteristic o f all human societies and
ethnic groups. E ven anthropologists,
who often seek to promote an attitude

o f cultural relativism, will unwittingly
introduce the assumptions of their own
culture into their perspective on other
cultures. Some ethnocentrism is neces­
sary in a group for social cohesion and
survival; people who do not adopt at least
some of the values o f their culture may
be incapable of living with others in that
culture and may experience emotional
stress. In addition, the form of ethnocen­
trism that derives from and, in turn, sup­
ports consciousness-raising movements
am ong m inority groups can have the
positive effects of instilling pride in the
group and its culture and using the en­
hanced sense o f solidarity to organize
behavior toward productive social and
economic goals.
The negative effects o f ethnocen­
trism, however, are also ubiquitous in the
world. They are seen in the bigotry, dis­
crimination, and often even violence that
keeps “them” apart from “us.”
S ee also c u l t u r a l r e l a t i v i s m ,
E u r o c e n t r is m , in g r o u p / o u t g r o u p , o t h e r .
ethnocide. See g e n o c id e .
E u ra sia n . See A m e r a s ia n .
E u ro -A m erican . See E u r o p e a n A m e r i c a n .
E u rocentrism . The view or assumption that
places Europe at the center of world his­
tory and culture, ranking Western val­
ues, languages, literature, art, and so on
as superior to those of other cultures. The
term dates to the early 1960s.
Among many leftist multiculturalists,
Eurocentrism is linked with racism or
imperialism and with rendering others
invisible or demonizing them. From this
point o f view, much o f European cul­
ture may be dismissed as “elite culture”
or “the culture o f white males” (how­
ever, many multiculturalists deny that
their attack on Eurocentrism is tanta­
mount to an attack on European civili­
zation or its study). For example, the
Eurocentric school curriculum, it is of­
ten argued, is not likely to validate other
European American_______81
cultures; in fact, it is likely to ignore
them and may even, unwittingly or oth­
erwise, suppress information about the
sometimes tragic consequences of Eu­
ropean contact with them. The tradi­
tional rationale behind celebrating Chris­
topher Columbus in our schools, for in­
stance, “is exclusively Eurocentric, ig­
noring the brutal realities of the subju­
gation and colonization o f the indig­
enous people whom his expeditions en­
countered” (Audrey Shabbas, Synapse,
Fall 1992, 6).
Others see the attack on Eurocentrism
as a vogue intellectual position of the
1980s and 1990s that has overstretched
itself in claiming that European concepts
can never serve as a base by which to
reach out across the frontiers of race and
culture. Some critics of the multicultural
view of Eurocentrism argue for placing
Western culture at the core of a liberal
education and relying on it to create a
natural consensus.
A synonym, used especially to sig­
nal racism, is white-centric. “Existent
interests to retain Chief Illiniwek as the
U niversity o f Illinois m ascot reflect
white-centric views on how, what and
where Indian culture converges with
white societal needs” (Antonio Delgado,
editorial, Chicago Tribune, 20 Novem­
ber 1993, 22).
Also Europocentrism.
See also A f r o c e n t r is m , A n g l o c e n -
t r i s m , e t h n o c e n t r is m , H is p a n ic is m , n a -
t iv e - c e n t r i s m , r a c is m .
E uro-ethnic. See e t h n ic .
E u ro p e a n A m erican , E u ro -A m e ric an .
Euphemisms preferred by some to white.
These terms emphasize cultural heritage
over race and place white people geo­
graphically, as does African American,
and they seem to be in increasing use.
Besides avoiding the racial (and of­
ten racist) implications of the term white,
both European American and the less
often used Euro-American gain support
82_______ European Negro______V
as terms that impose a kind of coequal­
ity with other sim ilar forms (such as
Afro-Am erican and Polish Am erican)
and that avoid the biased assumption that
an American is a white person. Only in
some contexts, such as the creation of
“European A m erican” clubs at some
California schools, or in a newspaper
column by Pat Buchanan, who extols
“the Euro-Americans who founded the
United States,” might the term connote
smugness.
Euro-American is sometimes abbre­
viated to Euro-Am.
See a l s o A m e r ic a n , e t h n i c , w h i t e .
E u ro p e an Negro. See A fro-S a x o n .
excuse m y F rench. See F rench.
eyetalian, eye-talian, eytie, Eyety, Eyeto.
From the first half o f the nineteenth cen­
tury, eyetalian is a mispronunciation of
Italian, som etim es jo c u lar but also a
deliberate, subtle slur. Lipski (1976,113)
notes that because m ost people p ro ­
nounce Italy and Italian w ithout exag­
geration, “the exaggerated spelling pro­
nunciation [i.e., eyetalian] may, at least
' originally, have indicated a desire to ridi­
cule” (Lipski cites Jam es Joyce’s line in
U lysses, “T h e s ig n o r B rin i fro m
S um m erh ill, th e ey e ta lly a n o , p ap al
zouave to the Holy Father, has left the
quay and gone to M oss street”). In any
case, both the spelling and the pronun­
ciation are usually taken as offensive.
Eytie (also eyetie, itie, among other vari­
ants) had World War I and II derogatory
use.
See also d a g o , d i n o , g a r l i c b r e a t h ,
g u id o / g u i d e t t e , g u i n e a , I t a l ia n , m a c a ­
r o n i, M a f i a , p iz z a m a n , s p a g h e t t i , s p ic ,
U ncle T om (Uncle Giovanni), w op.

F right o f center who expresses conserva­
face, face m an. O ften, am ong A frican
A m erican users, fa c e is a mildly or po­
tentially derogatory word for a white
person, especially, according to Major
(1994), an unknown one. It suggests an
im personal relationship, as in “There
were some bad faces in the room.” The
association with race may be reinforced
by the implication o f skin color, a racial
feature most obvious on the face. Spears
(1991) sees it as a truncation of pale­
fa c e . A ccording to A m erican Speech
(Summer 1993,184), fa ce man appeared
in 1992 (though it was likely heard be­
fore that), designating a white southern
male o f the country club set (as opposed
to a Bubba).
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See also p a l e f a c e .
Far Eastern. A designation for those parts
o f Asia farthest to the east— as defined
by the West. It includes the P eople’s
Republic o f China, Japan, Korea, the
countries o f Southeast A sia, and the
Mongolian People’s Republic. For many,
Asian, or the more specific East Asian,
is preferred, to avoid the Eurocentrism
o f the term fa r, measuring the area’s dis­
tance from Europe.
See a l s o A s ia t ic , O r ie n t a l .
fascism, fascist; Nazi. Fascism is a politi­
cal system or movement that developed
in Italy and other European countries
after World War I in reaction to the so­
cial and economic changes brought on
by that war and by the growth of com­
munism. It is defined by authoritarian­
ism, nationalism, and a fervent opposi­
tion to democratic and liberal ideals. The
nam e derives from fasces, an ancient
Rom an symbol of authority depicted as
a bundle of rods and an ax.
In the United States, especially since
the 1960s, fa sc ist has been used as a
dam ning pejorative w ord for anyone
fascism 83
tive political ideas, especially views
ab o u t e th n ic ity th a t su p p o rt th e
assimilationist or melting pot concept or
that question the desirability o f such
things as racial mixing, m ulticultural
education, and other activities to pro­
mote a change in ethnic relations in the
United States. It can be an angry term:
“I wanted to kill him [for his prejudice].
But he was bigger than me. So I called
him nam es. L ik e ‘ig n o ra n t fa sc ist
cracker’ ” (CityKids Speak on Prejudice,
1994). At the same time, those to the far
right politically, who identify big gov­
ernment with tyranny, may apply these
terms to the left, imagining it to be a
frightening constraint and opposed to the
freedoms of white people.
Political philosopher Jean Bethke
Elshtain has noted that we titillate our­
selves with words such as fascist, believ­
ing things to be very scary, then “by defi­
nition, we becom e heroic m erely by
standing apart from it” (Utne Reader,
November/December 1995, no. 72, 72­
73). Hughes (1991, 134) has declared
fascist, with racist, a swear word. Popu­
lar abuses of the term notwithstanding,
a classic work on prejudice published in
1950 (The Authoritarian Personality) by
Theodore Adorno and others defined as
“fascist” a personality characterized by
such traits as rigid conventionalism, sub­
mission to authority, and concerns with
power and vilification o f others. An “F-
scale,” as it was called, was developed
to measure antidemocratic tendencies.
The fascist idea o f “nation,” charac­
terized by a belief in the historical and
natural existence of groups that share a
distinctive heritage, cam e to be ex­
pressed in Nazi Germany in terms of
race. Fascist mobilization and ideology
here depended on creating a biological
form of nationalism that regarded Jews
as a separate and inferior “race.” Nazi
(from German Nationalsozialist), mean­
ing a member of the German fascist party
84 fay
under A dolf Hitler, has been used in the
United States, notably by Black Power
groups or other leftists, for a racist or
anyone resembling a German Nazi in
other respects (often lowercase in this
general sense).
See also b i g o t , n a t i o n a l i s m , r a c i s m ,
RACIST.
fay. See o f a y .
field slave, field nigga. See c o t t o n p i c k e r ,
h o u s e n e g r o (field nigger), s l a v e .
F IF , F .I.F . See l a c e c u r t a in I r is h .
“ fighting w ords.” See ha te sp ee c h .
Fil, Fip, Flip. Fil is a sometimes disrespect­
ful or derogatory shorthand for a Fili­
pino/a. Also referring to a Filipino/a are
the derogatory slang nicknames Fip and
Flip, alterations of the proper name of
the group. “How long, W hite man, are
you going to sit around w hile...these
Gooks and Flips are buying up the busi­
nesses around you?” (from a W hite
Aryan Resistance Hotline phone mes­
sage, November 1991).
S e e a l s o F il ip in o / a , F il ip in y o c k , g o o -
G OO, LITTLE BROWN BROTHERS, MONKEY.
Filipe. Personal name for a Spanish speaker
that has been used as a derogatory ge­
neric term for Latino males, especially
Mexican Americans in Los Angeles.
See also L a t in o / a , M e x ic a n , M e x i ­
can A m e r ic a n .
Filipino/a. Filipino is a generic term for a
person from the Philippines, deriving
from the Spanish Las Islas Filipinas (the
Philippine Islands). Filipino, is often used
for women. American-born Filipino ac­
tivists in the 1960s argued, however, that
the anglicized Filipino should be re­
placed by Pilipino. Their argument is
that in the native Tagalog (on which
Pilipino, an official language of the Phil­
ippines, is based), the w ord is pro­
nounced with a p sound. Other Filipi­
nos in the United States claim that some
languages indigenous to the Philippines
do have th e /so u n d .
A lthough o f diverse ethnic b ack ­
ground, including Spanish, Filipinos are
viewed in the United States as Asians,
are considered Asian in U.S. law, and
tend to view themselves as such (they
may prefer to be associated with the
' broad category “A sian/Pacific Island­
ers”).
See also F il , F il ip in y o c k , g o o - g o o ,
GOOK, LITTLE BROWN BROTHERS, M ONKEY.
Filipinyock. Derogatory term for a Filipino
seldom used today. Yock appears to be
an American-Yiddish slang rendering of
g o y (Allen 1983, 55).
See also F i l , F i l i p i n o / a , g o o - g o o ,
LITTLE BROWN BROTHERS, M ONKEY.
F inal Solution, final solution. See geno­
c id e .
Finnsky. Pejorative slang for a Finn, from
the nineteenth century.
See also N o r s k i , s q u a r e h e a d , S w e d e .
F ip, Flip. See F il .
first A m ericans. See N a t iv e A m e r i c a n .
first w orld, F irs t W orld. See t h ir d w orld.
fish-eater, fisheater, fish eater. An epithet,
or sometim es jo cu lar sobriquet, for a
Catholic, common earlier in the tw enti­
eth century. It is based on the form er
Roman Catholic practice o f forbidding
the eating of meat on Fridays. Variant
e p ith e ts are m a c k e re l-sn a p p e r and
guppy-gobbler.
See also c h e e s e - e a t e r , M i c k , p a p is t .
flat face. Slur on an Asian, alluding to the
less angular feature o f the faces o f some
Asians compared with white Europeans.
See also C h i n k , d i n k , d i n g e , d o g -
e a t e r , g in k , g o o - g o o , g o o k , s l a n t , s l o p e ,
z ip .
FO B , F.O .B., fob. Abbreviation for “fresh
off the boat,” referring to a newly arrived
immigrant. Epecially when used by im ­
migrants who are at least partially as­
similated, this usage may be slightly dis­
paraging, though it can also be m eant as
humorous.

The term is particularly used for re­
cent imm igrants from China and other
Asian countries. Among Chinese Ameri­
cans, FOBs are contrasted with thejook-
sings (a Chinese word for the hollow part
o f bamboo), which designates Chinese
Americans who are Chinese on the out­
side but lacking an internal sense of
Chinese heritage.
“T h e im a g e s o f th e F O B s are
‘scrawny, bespectacled nerds who spoke
with comical accents and wore things
like double-knit slacks and shirts with
epaulets’. . . ” (Hanh Hoang, Transpa­
cific, November/December 1992, 99).
See also g r e e n h o r n , i m m ig r a n t .
foreign devil. See d e v il.
foreigner. From the L a tin /o ra 1, “outside,”
meaning someone bom in another coun­
try, an alien or an outsider. Like alien,
this locution can carry the connotations
o f stran g e and th reaten in g . “U ncle
M atthew ’s four years in France and Italy
between 1914 and 1918 had given him
no great opinion o f foreigners. ‘Frogs,’
he would say, ‘are slightly better than
Huns or Wops, but abroad is unutterably
b lo o d y and fo re ig n ers are fie n d s’”
(Nancy Mitford, Pursuit o f Love, 1945).
In its m ost abusive form it takes the
shape o f the provincialism furriner.
Since the 1950s, the U.S. government
has been using the euphemism foreign
national in place o f the potentially pe­
jorative foreigner. M ore recently, Ted
Turner banned the use of the word fo r ­
eign from the broadcasts o f Cable News
Network, replacing it with international,
also often used in place offoreign in fo r ­
eign student. In discussing the nuances
offoreign language, Eoyang (1995, 26)
says that “When it comes to virtually any
‘foreign’ language, A m erican citizens
can be found who would say, ‘Why,
that’s my language, too!” ’
Foreigner is also som etim es used
jocularly for anyone not in one’s imm e­
d ia te group. It has also occurred in
French 85
speech in the southern United States for
someone outside the South.
See also a l i e n , b a r b a r ia n , g a i j i n ,
o t h e r , t e r m it e .
fortune cookie. Stereotype of a Chinese fe­
male-based on the practice of Chinese
restaurants serving fortune cookies as a
dessert. More generally, it is an offensive
symbol for any Chinese. During the O.J.
Simpson murder trial in 1995, lawyer
Robert Shapiro handed out fortune cook­
ies from a Chinese restaurant during
criminologist Dennis Fung’s testimony.
For other words for Asian women,
see C h e r r y B l o s s o m , C h i n a m a n /
C h in a w o m a n , C h in a d o l l , C h in e s e ,
DRAGON LADY, GEISHA, M lS S SAIGON. See
also A s ia n A m e r ic a n .
Fourteen Words, the. White separatist rally
cry: “We must secure the existence of
our people and a future for W hite Chil­
dren.” See also w h i t e s u p r e m a c y .
fourth world, Fourth World. See r e l o c a ­
t i o n , THIRD WORLD.
French. In ordinary usage, the people or
culture of France and the French lan­
guage. French becam e derogatory in
England in the late sixteenth century; as
Partridge (1933, 6) notes, Ben Jonson
used Frenchified (sexually talented or
infected with venereal disease) contemp­
tuously. Roback (1979) lists some thirty-
nine ethnic slurs in English that contain
the word French. Among the references
to the French in slang and ethnic slurs
are excuse my French (used to pardon
one’s use of profanity or blunt language),
French disease (syphilis), French leave
(a departure or flight that is hasty or se­
cretive), French liberty (an unauthorized
liberty in the navy; French furlough, an
unauthorized liberty in the army), and
French harp (a harmonica).
The English— and to some extent
Americans, too— have long stereotyped
the French in terms of sexuality or sexual
indecency. For example, the slang word
French (also the French way) has been
86 French disease
used for oral copulation. French kiss re­
fers to the use o f the tongue in kissing
or to oral copulation. In the nineteenth
century, French prints, which Partridge
(1 9 3 3 , 7) a ttrib u te s to W illia m
M akepeace Thackeray, was a euphe­
mism for pornographic pictures. French
postcard, for an erotic picture printed on
a card, was U.S. slang.
Terms used for the French in the
United States, especially during World
War I, were parleyvoos (from the French
p a rlez vous? “Do you speak?” ) and
keskydees (qu ’est-ce qu ’il dit? “What did
he say?”).
For sim ilar slurs directed against
o th er E uropean groups, see D u t c h ,
G r e e k , I r is h , I t a l ia n , J e w , P o l e , S c o t c h ,
S p a n is h , w e l s h . See also F r e n c h
F renchy, frog.
French disease. Syphilis. This term comes
from the English inclination, dating at
least to the sixteenth century, to blame
the French for the spread o f the disease.
(Other nationalities found the source of
the disease elsewhere, as reflected in the
various other nam es for syphilis: Ihe
Neapolitan disease, the Spanish pox, and
even the English disease.) Other terms
that have been in use at one time or an­
other include morbus gallicus, French
crown (from the baldness resulting from
advanced cases of the disease), French
goods, French mole, French measles,
French cannibal, French p o x (which
may also refer to gonorrhea), or the
Frenchman.
See a l s o F r e n c h .
French harp. See F ren ch .
Frenchy, Frenchie. An impolite reference,
sometimes derisive, to a French person
or to someone o f French descent, such
as an Acadian.
We seek him here, we seek him
there,
Those Frenchies seek him every­
where.
Is he in heaven?— Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel?
— Baroness Orczy,
The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1905
The term has also been used for a
condom and for oral copulation. In New
Orleans early in the twentieth century,
'i t was used to describe a foolish man or
a flirtatious woman. In New England,
Frenchy refers to the elaborate, vividly
colored decorations seen both inside and
outside French homes.
See also F r e n c h , F r e n c h d i s e a s e ,
frog.
fresh off the boat. See FOB.
Frito Bandito. The fat, supposedly funny
caricature o f a M exican or a Latin ban­
dit used in com chip (Frito-Lay) adver­
tising in the 1960s. Chicano activists
d is e a s e ,
launched a national campaign to dem ­
onstrate to advertisers the harmfulness
o f such stereotypes, and in 1971 Frito-
Lay abandoned the image (Westerman
1989). Frito com es from the Spanish
frito (fry, fried food). Bandido (Spanish
“bandit”) is an old stereotype o f a M exi­
can, stemming from at least the M exi­
can War. Anglos thought o f the bandido,
or mestizo bandido, as com bining the
intelligence of the Spanish and the sav­
agery of the Indian.
See also C h ic a n o / a , M e x ic a n A m e r i ­
can.
frog, Frog, frog-eater, froggie. Slang,
sometimes jocular, but usually deroga­
tory, for a French person or someone of
French descent, such as an Acadian. Frog
can also be a contemptuous reference to
the French language.
Frog has been used in Europe as an
insulting reference to people since at
least the fourteenth century and was also
applied specifically to Jesuits and H ol­
landers. French and English rivalries in
the late eighteenth and nineteenth cen­
turies brought the epithet into common
use in England, where frog-eater was
heard. From there it spread to the United
States, though it did not become popu­

lar here until World War I. The meaning
may reflect the practice in France of eat­
ing frogs as a delicacy and the English
repugnance for the practice. The word
also goes back to and is reinforced by
the depiction o f three toads on the coat
o f arms o f the city of Paris.
A llen (1990, 42) notes the graphic
pun frog legs for a French woman.
See f o r e ig n e r for a quotation. See
also F r e n c h , F r e n c h d is e a s e , F r e n c h y .
fudgsicle. See oreo.
fuzzy-wuzzy, Fuzzy-W uzzy, fuzzy. A term
alluding to the texture of black Africans’
fuzzy-wuzzy 87
hair when worn full. This usually offen­
sive term has come to be used for other
black people, too, especially the Oceanic
black people of Fiji and New Guinea.
The Oceanic reference is found most fre­
quently in U.S. military usage. The Ox­
fo r d kn g lish D ictionary (1989) says
fuzzy-w uzzy originated as a soldier’s
nickname for a Sudanese warrior.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially b u r r h e a d , w o o l y
head.
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G also a biased reference used by up-coun­
gadzo. See G ypsy.
gaijin ['g l-je n , ,jin] (pi. gaijin). Informal
Japanese usage for a foreigner, literally,
“a person from the outside,” limited in
use to W esterners, often someone re­
garded contemptuously. It is shortened
from gaikokujin, meaning “foreigners,”
sim ilar to the way our racist Jap is
clipped from the neutral term Japanese.
“These foreigners are the gaijin, a racist
word that the newly arrived Westerner
learns at once, because giggling school­
children, em barrassingly but unm ali-
ciously, shout ‘G aijin!’ at him on the
streets” (W illiam H. Forbis, Japan To­
day, 1975,43). W esterners may use it in
Japan to refer to themselves in spite of
the im plications o f being an outsider.
Hen na gaijin is Japanese for “foreigner
with a screw loose,” applied, for ex­
ample, to a W esterner who becomes ac-
culturated to Japanese ways.
See a l s o f o r e i g n e r .
garlic breath. Alluding to the odor deriv­
ing from the use o f the seasoning, a de­
rogatory reference to an Italian or Ital­
ian American. Italian perfume, a rude
metaphor, is dated U.S. slang for garlic.
A lso garlic-eater or garlic-snapper.
See a l s o d a g o , d in o , e y e t a l ia n , g u id o /
G U ID E T T E , G U IN E A , IT A L IA N , M A CA RO NI,
M a f i a , p iz z a m a n , s p a g h e t t i , s p ic , U n c l e
T om (Uncle Giovanni), w o p.
geechee, Geechee, geechy. A nineteenth-
century American term from the Gullah
dialect meaning a black person speak­
ing G ullah, any black person w hose
speech is unintelligible to others, or the
Gullah dialect itself, especially as it is
spoken in Georgia. It has also had nau­
tical and m ilitary use for any foreign
national o f dark com plexion (Lighter
1994). Geechee is now sometimes a de­
rogatory word for a poor, rural, south­
ern African American, or one of very
dark skin, used by both black and white
genocide 89
people in the South Atlantic region. It is
try South Carolinians for a white low-
country South Carolinian. Etymologists
are uncertain in tracing the term to the
Ogeechee River in Georgia— the name
for which comes from a Native Ameri­
can language— or to the nam e o f a
Liberian tribe. Shortened to geech. Also
has been used to identify a black Baha­
mian.
For other traditional southern words
for black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially G u l l a h . See also
g e is h a (Geechee).
Geechie. See g e is h a .
geisha ['ga-shg], A Japanese woman or girl
who learns such arts as playing the
samisen (a three-stringed Japanese m u­
sical instrument), singing, dancing, ar­
ranging flowers, and performing the tea
ceremony, all with the aim of entertain­
ing men. It is derived from the Japanese
gei, “art, performance,” plus sha, “soci­
ety” or “person.” Loosely applied, and
reflecting a misconception of the geisha
outside Japan, the term is used for a pros­
titute; its connotations in the United
States suggest a stereotype of the Asian
woman as exotic and subservient. It is
especially offensive when used for a
Japanese American woman. (See Karl
Taro Greenfield’s Speed Tribes [1994],
on Japan’s new generation, for a descrip­
tion o f how the new “hostess” industry
in Japan has stripped itself of most of
the geisha tradition.) The World War II
usage Geechie (also Cheeckee), for a
young woman native to the Pacific Is­
lands, may derive from geisha or from
Geechee, a Bahamian black (Wentworth
and Flexner 1975).
For other words for Asian women,
see C h e r r y B l o s s o m , C h i n a d o l l ,
D RAG O N LA D Y , F O R T U N E C O O K IE , M lS S
S a ig o n .
genocide; Final Solution, final solution.
Genocide is the deliberate, systematic
90_______ genocide______________ V ' x
k illin g o f a w hole group— cultural,
tribal, religious, national, racial and, as
defined by some writers, also sexual and
political. From the Greek genos (race,
kind) and Latin cide (killing), genocide
was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Pol­
ish American scholar, in 1944 (Axis Rule
in Occupied Europe), though the prac­
tice itself occurred in human history long
before the killing of Armenians during
World War I and the Nazi Holocaust of
which Lemkin wrote.
There is not always agreement about
exactly what behaviors are to be desig­
nated genocide. Porter (1993) defines it
as the whole or partial deliberate destruc­
tion by a government or its agents of
minorities. He adds that it can take place
through starvation, forced deportation,
and political, economic, and biological
subjugation as well as mass murder. Ar­
ticle II of the United Nations Conven­
tion on Genocide refers to intent to de­
stroy a national, ethnic, racial, or reli­
gious group by such acts as killing mem­
bers of the group, causing serious harm,
inflicting on them conditions calculated
to bring harm, imposing m easures to
prevent births within the group, and forc­
ibly transferring children to another
group.
Porter (1993) notes the follow ing
uses o f this powerful, often emotion-
tainted, and som etim es abused term:
race-mixing (integration as genocide for
the white race, as claimed by neonazis);
methadone programs (genocide against
black people, as Black Panthers once
interpreted these government-sponsored
drug-treatment programs); birth control
practices (e.g., sterilization o f black
women); and abortion (as a government-
supported program). In the 1995 trial of
black celebrity O J. Simpson, accused
o f murdering two people, defense attor­
ney Johnnie Cochran made an emotional
plea for an end to “genocidal racism.”
The concept of “textbook genocide” has
come up among Afrocentrists in their
criticisms of the treatment o f black his­
tory in school textbooks. References to
genocide are also common in current dis­
cussions o f the post-Columbian Native
American experience.
Genocide is sometimes used where
'e th n o c id e w ould be m ore accu rate.
E th n o c id e, co m b in in g eth n o (fro m
Greek ethnos, “group”) with cide, is used
for deliberate, systematic efforts to de­
stroy the culture o f a particular ethnic
group. Thus, for example, U.S. govern­
ment efforts to destroy the ethnic iden­
tities o f Native Americans by elim inat­
ing their traditional practices or forcing
white practices on them have been de­
scribed as ethnocide. A synonym is cul­
tural genocide.
Genocide is perhaps most commonly
used in reference to the Holocaust. The
euphemism that came to be used for the
Nazi program of mass m urder is Final
Solution (from the German Endldsung,
w h ich d e riv e s fro m th e G erm a n
Endgultige— End (final), plus Losung
(solution). Schemes for eliminating Jews
varied within the Third Reich over time,
but Marrus (1987) notes that most his­
torians agree that genocide o f the Euro­
pean Jewish population em erged as the
essence o f the F inal S olution at the
Wannsee Conference of January 1942,
at w hich R ein h ard “T he H an g m an ”
Heydrich, head of the SS police, told the
assembly that Hermann Goring had as­
signed him to make preparations for “the
final solution of the Jewish question.”
Although fin a l solution first appeared
in Germany, since World War II the term
has also been applied to genocide else­
where. In these instances, however, it is
often seen low ercased to distinguish
from the Nazi context and out of respect
for Jewish sensitivities. In the second
half of this century, for example, the dis­
appearance of Amazonian Indian tribes
was regarded as a consequence o f the
actions of white men seeking a “final
solution.” In the 1990s, the architect of

“ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia, Slobodan
Milosevic, then President of Serbia, said,
“I think we are on the threshold of the
final solution.” The term has also been
stretched, sometimes with ironic inten­
tion, to designate various situations that
reflect attem pts to render minority or
victimized groups invisible and without
rights, that is, to “finish them o f f ’ po­
litically.
See also e t h n i c c l e a n s i n g , e t h n i c
p u r it y , H olocaust.
gentile, Gentile. See g o y , s h ik s e .
g en tlem a n ’s agreem en t, g en tlem en ’s
agreement. In its general ethnic sense,
a euphemism for collusion to keep an
“ u n d e s ira b le ” p e o p le — e s p e c ia lly
Jews— out o f a country, neighborhood,
or social group. Gentleman's Agreement,
Geronimo. The name of the nineteenth-
E lia K azan’s 1947 film based on the
novel by Laura Hobson, dealt with the
issu e o f antisem itism in the U nited
States. ‘“ G entlem en’s agreements,’ ‘re­
strictive covenants,’ and ‘old boy’ mem­
bership rules excluded minorities from
buying or renting homes in Caucasian
neighborhoods or from joining certain
so c ial, b u sin e ss, o r country c lu b s”
(Perlmutter 1992,39). The “gentlemen’s
agreement,” as the expression is known
in immigration history, was the agree­
ment reached in 1907 between the U.S.
governm ent and the Japanese govern­
ment with the effect of stopping the tide
o f immigration, especially that o f poor
Japanese, to the United States.
Germ, Germy, Germo. Shortening of Ger­
man, referring derogatorily to someone
of German nationality by alluding to the
m ic ro o rg a n ism s know n as germ s
(Lighter 1994). Com mon early in the
twentieth century.
See also D u t c h , G e r m a n m e a s l e s ,
H e i n i e , H e s s ia n , H u n , J e r r y , k r a u t .
German measles; German silver. German
measles is a contagious disease that re­
sembles measles but is a milder form.
R ubella is the m ore technical name.
Geronimo 91
Blame was sometimes attached to Ger­
man immigrants in the mid-nineteenth
century for bringing the disease from
Germany. Rawson (1989) observes that
at times o f war with Germans, but espe­
cially World War I, the word German
became unpopular in the United States,
and children stayed home with “liberty
measles” instead. During World War II,
the disease was know n as “V ictory
measles”— “as if the original label were
a com plim ent to the N azis” (Roback
1979).
Just as German measles is a kind of
imitation, that is, a sham, so is German
silver not really silver, but a copper-zinc-
nickel alloy.
See also D u t c h , G e r m , H e in ie , H e s ­
s ia n , H un, J erry, kra ut.
century Apache leader who resisted the
attempts of the U.S. government to force
his people onto reservations. According
to Flexner (1976,434), Geronimo— with
an exclamation point— was introduced
and popularized by Native Americans,
especially Yakis and Cherokees, serving
as paratroopers in North Africa during
World War II, as a shout upon jumping.
Lighter (1994), however, notes that it
originally alluded to a leap made by a
character in the 1939 film Geronimo.
Taylor (1944, 30) quoted Newsweek
of November 1942: “Parachute troops
have to be tough— ‘tough as the wily old
Indian warrior Geronimo, that the Army
fought in the Southwest in the 1880’s
and from whom the paratroopers got
their battle cry.’ ” The word later came
to be used to express surprise or delight.
G eronim o , m uch lik e c h i e f or
Cochise, the name of another historic
Apache leader, is also used by white
people to refer to or address male N a­
tive Americans. Unless the white speaker
is on familiar terms with the person so
addressed, the usage, usually meant to
be derogatory, will definitely be taken
as such.
92_______ Gerry
See also A p a c h e , I n d i a n , N a t iv e
A m e r jc a n .
G erry . See J e r r y .
ghetto. From the Italian (Venetian dialect)
word gheto, meaning “foundry” and re­
ferring to a Venetian foundry that made
cannon. Venetian Jews, consistent with
the edict of the Third Lateran Council
(1179), were forced to live on the island
on which the foundry was located, seg­
regated from the rest of the population.
There have been other explanations of
the origin of the term, however; one, for
example, traces it to the Hebrew get,
meaning “divorcement.”
Ghetto, used for a segregated Jewish
neighborhood, also known in Medieval
Rome and Prague as the “Jews’ Quar­
ter,” first appeared in English in 1611.
During the tide o f Jewish immigration
in the nineteenth century, sections of
U.S. cities, especially New York, where
Jews lived were called ghettos. By the
middle of the nineteenth century, ghetto
came to refer to an area of a city in which
any ethnic minority lived. The term usu­
ally suggests some degree o f ethnic ho­
mogeneity and implies that people live
in their area o f the city not voluntarily,
but by virtue of some constraint, such
as discrimination, economic pressure, or
even force.
Today, a ghetto is known as a resi­
dentially segregated, largely poor sec­
tion of the inner city, especially, as the
term has been used since the 1960s, a
poor black area o f the city. Camilo Jos6
V ergara has defined the elem ents o f
today’s U.S. ghettos as “the ruins and
semi-ruins; the medical, warehousing
and behavior-modification institutions;
the various NIMBYs [Not In My Back
Yard], fortresses and walls; and, not
least, the bitterness and anger resulting
from living in these places” (Nation, 15
March 1993, 339). Although the term
has largely pushed out of discourse the
harsher word slum, which suggests even
more strongly a city’s shame, it has been
used to stereotype a poor minority area
as symbolizing a host o f social and eco­
nomic problems, including crim e, pov­
erty, and dilapidated “projects” (public
housing developments). Inner city has
'been in use since the 1960s euphem isti­
cally for any slum.
R ed ghetto is sometimes used to des­
ignate a poor area o f an American city
where Native Americans live; it is not
usually used with derogatory intent.
High-rise public housing developments
bu ilt largely to h ouse p o o r A frican
Americans, such as the Robert Taylor
homes in Chicago, have been referred
to as “up-in-the-sky ghettos” or “perpen­
dicular ghettos.” The construction o f the
high-rise projects served to keep grow­
ing black populations from dispersing
into white neighborhoods.
Aspects o f ghetto culture, such as
hip-hop music and fashion, have been
glamorized in the 1990s, leading to vari­
ant uses o f the term, for example, this
reference to language: “On TV a black
rapper was giving an interview in fluent
ghettoese” (Joan Morgan, Rebelle, Sum­
mer 1994, 34).
Ghetto blaster, a U.S. slang term
from at least the early 1980s for a por­
table stereo, is often considered offen­
sive, though sometimes also humorous.
The Oxford Dictionary o f New Words
(1992) says that the music played by the
ghetto blaster supposedly “blasts” the
neighborhood with its volume; “this is
associated mostly with Black and eth-
nic-minority areas, which explains the
reference to the ghetto.”
For words designating the neighbor­
hoods o f different ethnic groups, see
BARRIO, BLACK BELT, CH IN A TO W N , GOLDEN
ghetto, H a it i , M e x t o w n , n ig g e r t o w n .
See also e t h n i c n e ig h b o r h o o d , i n n e r
CITY.
gink. Derogatory term for an East Asian,
associated during the Vietnam War es­
pecially with the Vietnamese. (Also used

since the early twentieth century for any
man in the sense o f a jerk or eccentric.)
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , C h i n k ,
d i n g e , d in k , d o g - e a t e r , f l a t f a c e , g o o -
goo , GOO K , M ICE-EATER, SLANT, SLOPE, ZIP.
See a l s o A s ia n A m e r i c a n .
girl. Among African American women, re­
gardless of age, an ethnic term of ad­
dress used affectionately for another
woman. It may be used by black men,
too, but not necessarily with the same
affection. Used for a black woman by
someone other than a black person, the
term might be taken as racist, since it
was used for African American women,
especially those under forty, as part of
the code of race relations in the South.
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially A u n t , b o y .
golden ghetto, Golden Ghetto. Derogatory
referen c e to a neigh b o rh o o d w here
wealthy Jews live. Until about 1970, re­
strictive real estate practices forced pros­
perous Jews into these neighborhoods.
For words designating the neighbor­
hoods o f other ethnic groups, see b a r ­
r io , B L A C K B E L T , C H IN A T O W N , H A I T I ,
M e x t o w n , n ig g e r t o w n . See also e t h n ic
NEIGHBORHOOD, GHETTO.
good Asians. Term used for Chinese in the
United States after the outbreak of World
War II. Up until that time, the Chinese
had been the targets o f extreme discrimi­
nation and racial violence. But war re­
assigns prejudices: the “evil” Japanese,
as they were regarded after 1941, pro­
vided a framework for viewing the Chi­
nese more favorably. More generally, the
term can apply to any Asian people seen
by white people as quiet and submissive.
See a l s o A s ia n A m e r ic a n , C h i n e s e ,
M ODEL M INORITY.
good Indian. An expression attributed to
General Philip Henry Sheridan in 1869
in response to a Comanche chief sup­
posedly claiming to be a “good Indian.”
Sheridan is quoted as having actually
goo-goo_______ 93
said, “The only good Indians I ever saw
were dead,” which got transformed over
time into “The only good Indian is a dead
Indian.” The term was heard even in
Congress in the late nineteenth century,
reflecting the ethnocentric attitudes of
the country at the time.
See also I n d ia n , N a t iv e A m e r ic a n .
good old boy, good ole boy. A loyal south­
ern m an. It o ften su g g e sts a ru ra l
southerner who embodies the male char­
acteristics traditionally associated with
the South, such as camaraderie and love
o f h u n tin g , fish in g , and d rin k in g ,
“ ...those movies o f the old days, like
C ool H and L u k e ...p o rtra y e d b a c k ­
woods, swamp water, the good old boy
mentality— the exact image o f the Old
South” (John Rogers in the Chicago Tri­
bune, 3 May 1995,1). A good old boy is
also often part of a network that supplies
support for the men in it, as did the Texas
cronies o f President Lyndon B. Johnson
in the 1960s when the term becam e
widespread. Good old boys are not nec­
essarily rednecks, yet they may oppose
progressive reform for African Ameri­
cans. In 1995 a black agent in the Bu­
reau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,
referring to his not being invited to an
annual Tennessee “roundup” promoted
by the ATF that involved racist slurs and
skits, reported that “I assum ed...that I
was not one o f the ‘Good O l’ Boys.’” It
is not usually offensive, although it may
be used pejoratively by black people and
northerners, and there are some reports
o f white men resenting the lack of re­
spect it may convey. A related southern
expression is the ironic SOB, meaning
“same ole boys.”
See also B u b b a , s o u t h e r n e r .
goo-goo, gugu. Originally, a derogatory
reference to a Filipino and other island­
ers of the area. It was used by U.S. sol­
diers in the Philippines around the end
of the nineteenth century, during the U.S.
occupation of the islands, and by white
94 gook V
A m ericans in the U nited States. A l­
though sometimes said to come from a
local word meaning “tutelary spirit or
personal demon,” a more likely expla­
nation is that it derives from Americans’
im itation o f the “incom prehensible”
sounds (perhaps seen as baby talk) made
by the local Tagalog speakers. The term
has also been used pejoratively for any
dark-skinned foreigner or Asian or their
language.
See F il ip in o / a . See a l s o A s ia n A m e r i ­
can.
gook. Derogatory slang referring usually to
Asians. It may have originated in the late
nineteenth century when U.S. soldiers
in the Philippines referred to Filipinos
as “goo-goos” (or “gugus”). Reinhold
Aman (1996, 66) relates it to the “dis­
gusting mess” o f fish paste mixed with
rice eaten by A sian people. Broadly,
however, it has been applied to any non-
Christian people or dark-skinned non-
European. Other slang meanings— “dirt”
or “grime” and “ g i n k ” (see its second
sense)— reinforce the negative connota­
tions of the ethnic slur.
The term has been used particularly
in wartime, including World War II (for
the Japanese especially). It has also been
used for peoples in countries in the Pa­
cific Islands and elsewhere in the Pacific
Basin, Africa, Central America, and even
southern and eastern Europe— or for
their languages. During the Korean War,
it was used especially for North Kore­
ans; in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese
were the targets. D ink and slope are
among the synonyms o f gook, all serv­
ing the wartime purpose o f dehumaniz­
ing the enemy. “Reds and gooks.. .w e’ve
got ’em all to fight” (Norman Mailer,
Barbary Shore, 1951). Gookland refers
to the country in which they live.
Gook today is usually a disparaging
word for any East Asian. David Riesman
gave the name gook syndrome to Ameri­
cans’ negative stereotyping o f Asians.
This attitude is known to erupt especially
when there is a large influx o f Asians,
whom other Americans see as com pet­
ing for jobs or threatening the character
of the nation. “Get out gook scum” is a
label on a “Hateful Sticker” offered by
the white supremacy group known as the
' W hite Aryan Resistance.
Rok (or ROK), from the initials o f
Republic o f Korea, was used by U.S.
soldiers for South Korean soldiers dur­
ing the Korean War. According to A m eri­
can Speech (in Wentworth and Flexner
1975), the term does not carry the dis­
paraging connotation that gook does,
which it replaced.
F o r o th e r w o rd s fo r F ilip in o s , se e
F i l i p in o / a . F o r o t h e r w o r d s f o r A s i a n
p e o p l e , s e e A s ia n A m e r i c a n . See esp e­
c i a l l y C h in k , d in k , d in g e , d o g - e a t e r , f l a t
FACE, GINK, GOO-GOO, SLANT, SLOPE, ZIP.
goulash. A mildly derogatory nickname for
a Hungarian or someone o f Hungarian
descent, alluding to the stew associated
with the Hungarian diet.
See also b o h u n k , H u n .
goy/a [’goi/a] (adj. goyishe, or goyish; pi.
goyim, goys); gentile. Goy is a Yiddish
word for a gentile, from the Hebrew
word goy (people, nation). It was used
historically to mean those who were un­
civilized or not o f the true faith (also in
one Hebrew sense, for a Jew ignorant o f
the Jewish religion). A lthough it may be
used disparagingly, as in “a real goy,” it
does not necessarily carry any negative
connotations today. Still, as a result o f a
long history o f gentile persecution o f
Jews, some bias may be near the surface,
as reflected in an old eastern European
piece of ghetto folk wisdom, “Scratch a
goy, you’ll find an antisemite.”
Goyisher-kop, “gentile-head,” refers
unflatteringly to gentile characteristics,
or to a Jew who is said to think like a
gentile.
Gentile, originally from a Latin word
meaning “of the same clan” or “nation,”
is now commonly used for any person
outside the Jewish community, often a

Christian. Biblical references to “the na­
tions,” however, can mean Jews as well
as non-Jews. Gentile does not normally
carry any bias. A shortened form, tiles,
saw some use on college campuses in
the second half o f this century. Among
M ormons, gentile means anyone not a
M orm on (hence, Jews are gentiles to
Mormons).
See a l s o s h i k s e .
g rass sk irt. Nickname for young Hawai­
ian and other Polynesian females that
alludes both to a stereotypical feature of
traditional Polynesian dress (in fact, tra­
ditional Polynesians wore dresses of tapa
cloth, not grass) and to gender (skirt,
slang for a young woman). More com­
m on earlier in the tw entieth century.
M ostly offensive.
See also H a w a i i a n , h u l a g i r l , p i n e ­
a p p l e , p o i- e a t e r .
gray, grayboy. Black English for a white
person (a male in the case of grayboy),
used since the mid-twentieth century.
Less frequently, the term may be used for
someone black people might regard as
white, including Latinos (Los Angeles
usage) or light-skinned black people. The
term may also be used by black people
for someone who has a white and a black
parent. It is derogatory, the idea of gray
colorlessness suggesting lifelessness.
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See especially h o n k y , o f a y , s p o o k .
g reaser, greaseball. Greaser is offensive
slang for a Latin American, especially a
Mexican or Mexican American, but also
for someone of southern European back­
ground. It alludes to a “greasy” look. It
is also used contem ptuously for the
Spanish language. It is close in mean­
ing to dago, especially in the earlier
sense o f a Spaniard (although as that
word came to mean someone of Italian
background, greaser also took on that
meaning).
Great White Father 95
Variant disparagements are “yellow-
bellied greaser” and “half-breed greaser”
(both suggesting cowardice). All were
first used for Mexicans around the time
o f the w ar with M exico (1 8 4 6 -4 8 ),
which erupted out o f the conflict be­
tween Anglos, swarming into Texas and
the Southwest, and Mexicans, forced to
compete with the Anglos for land. In
1856 a statute was passed in California
known as the Greaser Law, an antiva­
grancy law that discriminated against
people of Spanish descent. For an ac­
count of Anglo views of Mexicans in the
nineteenth century, see A. de Leon, They
Called Them Greasers, 1983.
G reaser has also been used for a
member o f a street gang, a juvenile de­
linquent, or a young male of working-
class background interested in cars or
motorcycles.
Greaseball refers to a person of Latin
American or southern European birth or
background or sometimes any male for­
eigner with black, oily-appearing hair or
who eats a “greasy” Latin diet. Grease­
ball came into use after greaser, around
the 1920s. T he first sense given in
Lighter (1994), however, is not ethnic:
“a filthy or unsavory person; one hav­
ing an oily or greasy appearance.”
See also d a g o , M e x i c a n , M e x i c a n
A m e r ic a n , o il e r .
G re a t W hite F ath er. A paternalistic ex­
pression that white people used to refer
to the U.S. president or the federal gov­
ernment in their relations with Indians.
According to Flexner (1976), Native
Americans used fa th er in reference to a
white man in authority, but Western nov­
els and movies since the early twentieth
century added the words Great White.
The term, which implies that nonwhites
under government sponsorship are child­
like, came to carry a strong derogatory
connotation: “The Great W hite Father
that has objectified people of color and
w om en into ‘o th e rn e ss’ thro u g h o u t
96_______ great white hope______ ■»
tim e” (Letter to the Editor, A. Magazine,
Fall J 993, 6). It is often parodied.
great w hite h ope, w hite h ope, w hite
m an’s hope. Originally, in 1911, a nick­
name for a white boxer capable o f whip­
ping Jack (John Arthur) Johnson, the first
African American heavyweight boxing
cham pion. Johnson’s prow ess in the
ring— his defeat o f Tommy Burns in
1908, then o f James J. Jeffries in 1910—
along with his seeming disdain of white
so c ie ty (ex c ep t, re p o rte d ly , w h ite
women), his flamboyance, and his race
made his title-holding disconcerting to
many white people. In 1915, Johnson
lost to white boxer Jess Willard. “Jess
W illard, the giant K an sa n ...h a d not
proved him self the best of the ‘white
hopes’.. .but because o f his tremendous
size, strength, and durability, he was
considered to have the best chance to
beat Johnson in a 45-round bout and ‘re­
store the prestige of the white race’” (Nat
Fleischer and Sam Andre, A Pictorial
History o f Boxing, 1993). The expres­
sion great white hope soon came to ex­
tend to any white leader with promise.
See a l s o w h i t e .
Greek. A tribal name, originally from the
Greek Graikos. Greek has entered our
language with different meanings, some
respected, and some not so respected.
Among the latter, it has been used for
something that is unintelligible (“It’s all
G reek to m e,” from Ju liu s C aesar
I.ii.288); as a reference to a cheat or card­
sharp (an old allusion to wiliness, devi­
ance, or lowlife); for an Irish person
(probably because Irish immigrants were
also associated with deviance and low
station); and for anal intercourse (or one
who engages in it), a use deriving from
the association made between the an­
cient Greeks and pederasty, as in the
expression Greek love. The old expres­
sion Greek gift, referring to the wooden
horse by w hich the ancient G reeks
gained entry into the city of Troy, sug­
gests treachery. Partridge (1933,4) notes
the old Latin verse Timeo D anaos et
dona ferentes, which means “I fear the
Greeks even (or especially) when they
bring gifts.”
Greek has also been used as an epi-
v thet for a member of a people o f mixed
American Indian, black, and white de­
scent inhabiting coastal South Carolina.
This use perhaps results from the term ’s
connotation o f something foreign or its
suggestion o f dark skin (see t r ir a c ia l
m i x e s ).
F or sim ilar slurs directed against
o th er E uro p ean g roups, see D u t c h ,
F r e n c h , I r is h , I t a l ia n , J e w , P o l e ,
S c o t c h , S p a n is h , w e l s h .
greenhorn. A new recruit or novice; also
used contemptuously for an immigrant,
that is, som eone ethnically unassim i­
lated, especially one ju st coming to the
city. The first citation L ighter (1994)
gives for this ethnic sense o f the term is
1753; the last is 1983. The term was of­
ten applied to Irish imm igrants and to
Jews from eastern Europe as opposed to
the German Jews, who saw themselves
as more sophisticated. “Greenhorns kept
streaming off the ships” (Irving Howe,
World o f Our Fathers, 1976, 120).
See also A b ie K a b i b b l e , i m m ig r a n t ,
Jew .
griffon. See C re o le .
gringo/a. Often derogatory term for a white
person, especially an English-speaking
foreigner, or Yankee, used originally by
M exicans but sp read in g th ro u g h o u t
Latin A m erica and Spain. It is m ost
likely an alteration o f the Spanish word
griego (Greek), referring either to for­
eignness or language that sounds like
gibberish (see G r e e k ) .
According to one popular explana­
tion, gringo derives from the phrase
“green grow,” from the verse by Robert
Bums, “Green grow the rushes, O!” sung
by U.S. troops in the Mexican War. The
term is often said to have first been used

in the U nited States during this war
(W ebster’s Word Histories [1989] finds
the first English record in an entry in the
1849 d ia ry o f a rtis t Jo h n Jam es
A udubon’s son). H endrickson (1994)
d eriv e s it from the nam e o f M ajor
Samuel Ringgold, who fought against
the M exicans up to 1846. However, as
W ebster’s Word H istories inform s us,
since the word was used much earlier in
Spain, it most likely made its way into
English through previous Mexican use.
The criteria for usage and its conno­
tations am ong M exicans or M exican
A m ericans in the Southw est are de­
scribed vividly by Earl Shorris:
A gringo is one who cannot bear the
dust of the desert or the cactus’s
thorny will to survive. A gringo can­
not soften a vowel or countenance
a jalapeno in his stew. A gringo is
always in the process of getting di­
arrhea, having diarrhea, or recover­
ing from diarrhea. Gringos drink
directly from the bottle and eat
tostadas with a fork.... The male of
the species is always in search of a
whorehouse, while the female looks
for a live-in maid. Both are sunburnt
(1992a, 44).
The usage has also connoted white
A m erican imperialism.
See also a g r i n g a d o , A n g l o , T e j a n o ,
YANQUI.
groid. Young w hite people’s or college
slang (also southern) from negroid, used
mainly in the 1970s and referring to a
black person or the racial characteristics
o f black people. It is often jocular but is
usually taken offensively.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references. See especially
N e g ro id .
guido/guidette. Recent derogatory terms
for an Italian man or woman, or a man
or woman of Italian descent, from the
male Italian given name Guido and the
female name Guidette.
See also d a g o , d i n o , e y e t a l i a n , g a r ­
Gullah 97
l ic BREATH, GUINEA, ITALIAN, MACARONI,
M a f i a , p iz z a m a n , s p a g h e t t i , s p ic , U n c l e
Tom (Uncle Giovanni), w op.
guinea, Guinea. First used in the mid-eigh­
teenth century for a black person im ­
ported from the Guinea coast of Africa
(also known as a Guinea Negro), then
for any strong slave (see also b l a c k ) . By
the end of the nineteenth century, it en­
tered the slang lexicon referring pejora­
tively to Italians, among the new imm i­
grants pouring into the United States at
that time and competing for jobs with
other Americans; also to the Italian lan­
guage. “W e’ve had a can cer in this
country.. .the mob, Cosa Nostra, Mafia.
People like me have.. .put most of those
guineas in a box” (policeman in the TV
movie Vanishing Son III, 1994). Its pe­
jorative use for Italians, other im m i­
grants from southern or central Europe,
and Hispanics, all people sometimes of
darker complexion than northern Euro­
peans, suggests a link to the original use
for black people.
The Verrazano Bridge was named for
th e Ita lia n e x p lo re r G io v an n i d a
Verrazano, who sailed up the east coast
of North America in 1524. It links Staten
Island, New York (with a large popula­
tion o f people of Italian descent), and
Long Island, New York, and was nick­
named “the guinea gangplank.”
Guinea has also been extended, usu­
ally contemptuously, to a triracial-mix
people of West Virginia and the Caroli-
nas. In addition, in World War II mili­
tary usage, it meant a South Pacific Is­
lander, especially one from New Guinea,
or other natives of the Pacific area.
See also d a g o , d i n o , e y e t a l i a n , g a r ­
l i c b r e a t h , g u i d o / g u i d e t t e , H is p a n ic ,
I t a l i a n , m a c a r o n i, M a f ia , p iz z a m a n ,
s p a g h e t t i , s p ic , t r i r a c i a l m ix e s , U n c l e
Tom (Uncle Giovanni), w op.
Gullah ['ga-la]. Deriving from a West Af­
rican word, Gullah is the name for a dia­
lect, also known as Sea Island Creole,
98_______ guppy-gobbler________ x
that developed as a plantation Creole.
G ullah is still spoken today by black
Americans, also called Gullahs, on the
Sea Islands and along the coast o f South
C arolina, G eorgia, and northeastern
Florida. Although the dialect has been a
source o f pride for many o f its speakers,
th ese people, w ho once asso ciated
Gullah with a language o f ignorance,
often use the term Geechee among them­
selves. Gullah has also been used by
some white people in the South as a slur
on black people. “People came regularly
looking for ‘Gullah niggers’ to write
about... and the missionaries sanctioned
such research” (in W alt H arrington,
Crossings, 1992, 8 1).
For other words in traditional south­
ern use for black people, see b l a c k ,
cross-references.
guppy-gobbler. See f is h - e a t e r .
g u s a n o [ g u - 's a - rno]. A term m eaning
“worm” or “maggot” in Spanish, applied
by Castro supporters to any Cubans or
Cuban Americans who resisted the revo­
lutionary government of Fidel Castro. In
particular, it refers to a person who was
granted permission to leave the country
after Castro’s change in policy in 1965
that allowed Cubans dissatisfied with or
opposed to his government to embark on
their “Freedom Flights.” This very de­
rogatory term was used to harass those
wishing to go into exile. Other Latinos
may call Cuban A m ericans gusanos
(sometimes in jest) or “los tenia— liter­
ally, ‘the I-used-to-have people,’ because
they often spoke about all they used to
have back in the old country” (Novas
1994, 217-18). “Romantic, then, my vi­
sion of Cuba: an island in the imagina­
tion that existed apart from the resent­
ment of the Cuban gusanos in M iam i...”
(Ruben Martinez, The Other Side, 1992,
52).
See also M a r ie l C u b a n .
G ypsy, gyp. One of the traditionally no­
madic people who, around the fourteenth
century, migrated out o f North India and
are now living throughout the world.
They have been given this name by out­
sid e rs. It d e riv e s fro m th e e a r lie r
'Gypcian, that is, Egyptian, a misnomer
ste m m in g fro m th e c o n fu s io n o f
vjEgyptus M inor (Little Egypt), in the
Byzantine Empire, the first place these
people reached on their m igration to
Europe, with Egypt proper (Them strom
1980). The English, who first came in
contact with these people in England in
the sixteenth century, thought they came
from Egypt.
These peoples often call themselves
Romany, or Romani. (Both spellings also
refer to the language, d erived from
Hindi, o f these peoples.) Use o f Romany
avoids the established derogatory over­
tones o f the word Gypsy and thus helps
avoid ste re o ty p in g th is p e rse c u te d
people as con artists, thieves, and vaga­
bonds. In Hitler’s Nazi regime, where
Romany experienced some o f their most
severe persecution, Gypsies were clas­
sified as “asocial,” and the N azi code
phrase for killing them was ‘T h e G yp­
sies have been reported to the forests.”
Gypsy is sometimes seen with quotation
marks.
Romany, however, is likely to be used
only by officials or journalists, or for
those audiences most likely to know the
w ord’s m eaning. “N azi g en o cid e in
World War II wiped out all but 4,000
Czech Romanies” (David Rocks, Chi­
cago Tribune, 28 Decem ber 1993).
There is no one Rom any term for
Gypsy, but several terms, which vary by
country and speaker. “Perhaps the E n­
glish term ‘people,’ loose and am bigu­
ous as it is... can ju st about be stretched
to cover this rich mosaic of ethnic frag­
m ents w hich now adays m ake up the
populations that outsiders call ‘G yp­
sies’” (Angus Fraser, The Gypsies, 1992,
9). Romany sometimes debate am ong
themselves who are to be designated the
“true Gypsies.”

Those outside the group are lumped
together by Romany as gadzo, similar
in meaning to “yokel.” The spelling of
this term has varied over time, and the
term itself varies by country.
In the sense of the verb to swindle or
the noun sw indle, in the com pound
forms gyp artist (a swindler) or gyp jo in t
(a place of business that cheats its cus­
to m ers), or as a shortened form for
Gypsy, gyp (also gip, jip ) is pejorative
slang that alludes to the stereotype of
Romany life. Gypo (or gyppo), an alter­
ation o f Egyptian, used for a Rom or a
M iddle Easterner, is also pejorative.
Reflecting two aspects often attrib­
u te d to gypsy life , w an d e rin g and
nonnormative behavior, are expressions
such as gypsy trucker (an independent
Gypsy_______ 99
migratory trucker) and gypsy cab (an
independently operated taxi). Gypsy has
also been used as an epithet for eastern
Europeans and, because o f the connota­
tion of wandering, Jews. Still another use
of gypsy is for women of offbeat or mor­
ally questionable character, a meaning
now regarded as sexist but, as in the case
of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, once con­
sidered playful. Bohemian, in the sense
of a person of artistic or literary inter­
ests, may derive from the old miscon­
ception of Bohemia as a European cen­
ter of Romany life; in fact, Bohemian
was once an epithet for Romany.
Gipsy is a British spelling. Gypsy is
usually lowercase in reference to any
person of an itinerant way of life.

H for setting H aitians off from African
Haiti, Hayti. A regional Americanism (ac­
cording to the Dictionary o f American
Regional English, vol. 2 [1991], it is used
in Pennsylvania and Virginia) for the part
o f a city or town inhabited by black
people. It connotes poverty.
See a l s o H a it ia n , n ig g e r t o w n .
Haitian. A person from Haiti. The Haitian
Am ericans who arrived in the United
States in the 1960s and 1970s were likely
to be identified with voodoo and pov­
erty. In the 1990s the association came
to be with AIDS and boat people, though
the idea of poverty remained (Dreyfuss
1993, 20). For many Americans today,
the word H aitian evokes an image of
highly “undesirable” immigrants— dirt
poor and dark-skinned. Like many Cu­
ban and Southeast Asian refugees, many
Haitians came here seeking asylum. But
unlike them, Haitian refugees have had
to suffer im prisonm ent without bond,
mass deportation hearings, and separa­
tion from family. The number of people
in the United States of Haitian descent
is probably underestimated not only be­
cause o f the num ber o f illegal im m i­
grants here but also because some Hai­
tian Americans, especially those of the
second or third generation, may simply
identify themselves as black, suppress­
ing any association with a people and
homeland in bad repute.
Although all Haitian Americans ac­
k n o w led g e the tragedy o f the boat
people, many are also likely to remind
their host society that they are not all
boat peopje and do not like being lumped
with them. Similarly, while acknowledg­
ing the African roots of Haitian culture,
many may be ambivalent about being
labeled as African A m ericans, whom
Haitians may negatively stereotype and
view as having a culture different from
their own. As Michel Laguerre (1984)
has shown, Haitian ethnicity (including
handkerchief head 101
their Creole language) serves as a basis
A m ericans and also for m o bilizing
against white society.
See also b o a t p e o p l e , v o o d o o .
half-breed, halfbreed, half breed. Term
used contemptuously for someone de­
scended from parents of different races,
sometimes shortened to breed. It is of­
ten used in the United States to desig­
nate a person o f mixed Native Ameri­
can and European descent (the mix can
be in any proportions), but is sometimes
also used for someone o f Native Ameri­
can and African American descent. In
C anadian usage, ch ildren o f Indian
women and Scottish or English men be­
came known as half-breeds, whereas
French-Indian mixes became known as
Metis. In the United States, the federal
governm ent tends n o t to reco g n ize
mixed descent Native Americans as In­
dian, even though the Indian community
does. Doing so would allow them to
claim certain entitlements.
Quarter-breed, used in the second
half of the nineteenth century, is seldom
heard today; nor is cross-breed common.
H alf blood and mixed blood may be used
without pejorative meaning for someone
of mixed Native A m erican and other
descent.
See also b i r a c i a l , b r e e d , c h o l o / a ,
HALF-CA STE, INTERRACIAL, M ESTIZO/A,
METIS/METISSE, MISCEGENATION, MIXED,
MONGREL, MULTIRACIAL, TRIRACIAL MIXES.
half-caste, half-cast. Often offensive to
persons of mixed descent.
See also b i r a c i a l , b r e e d , c h o l o / a ,
HALF-BREED, INTERRACIAL, M ESTIZO/A,
MliTIS/MIiTISSE, MISCEGENATION, MIXED,
MONGREL, MULTIRACIAL, TRIRACIAL MIXES.
half nigger. See t r i r a c i a l m ix e s .
handkerchief head. In one sense, an ex­
pression for a black man who covers his
head with a cloth to protect his hairdo,
especially one that imitates white stan­
dards of beauty. The word is best known
102 haole
today among black people (it is black
slang from the 1950s) and white people
in the sense o f an Uncle Tom, a black
person who defers to white people and
is therefore subjected to the criticism of
other black people.
See U n c l e T o m for a quotation. For
other words black or white people use
for black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially A m o s ’ n ’ A n d y ,
c o o n , c o t t o n p ic k e r , h o u s e n e g r o , N e­
g ro , pa n ca k e, S a m b o , S t e p in F e t c h it .
haole, H aole ['hau-,le,-,la]; hapa haole.
H aole, originally a Hawaiian word for
any foreigner, is now ■ widely known
term used in Hawaii for a white person,
often one from the U.S. mainland. It is
sometimes disparaging.
The word haole— which means ‘of
another breath [or air]’— carries
with it many ambiguous associa­
tions and qualities, and because of
that it is an enigmatic word, describ­
ing an unknown quantity, with a
suggestion of someone who is ‘not
one of us.’
—Paul Theroux,
The Happy Isles o f Oceania,
1992, 480
A nonwhite person in Hawaii who
apes the ways o f haoles is said to be
“haolified,” often a criticism directed at
those who appear overly assimilated to
white culture. Ho ’ohaole means “to ape
the ways o f white people or assume airs
of superiority.”
H aoles are graded, including new
haole, old haole (descended o f white
settlers, often affluent and conservative),
and hapa haole or haphaole (hapa, from
English half), for someone who is part
w h ite and, usually , p art H aw aiian.
“H aphaole.. .Half-white, and all adrift”
(Morris West, The Navigator, 1976,16).
But within the Native Hawaiian commu­
nity, even people of mixed Hawaiian and
white descent may be called Hawaiian.
Hapa haole is often reserved for those
who are m ore self-conscious o f their
Hawaiianness. H apa haole may also re­
fer to someone o f mixed Asian and E u­
ropean background (see also A m e r a s ia n )
and to a sort o f pidgin that developed in
the nineteenth century to facilitate com ­
munication between Hawaiians and En-
' glish-speaking plantation owners. The
Portuguese in Hawaii (sometimes known
as “Portugees”), though white, are re­
garded as a category separate from haole
and considered more sympathetically.
See also H a w a iia n .
hate crime. A category o f criminal offenses
consisting o f criminal acts against per­
sons and property motivated often by
prejudice with respect to race, ethnicity,
class, gender, sexual orientation, or reli­
gion. According to Representative John
Conyers, sponsor o f the Hate Crime Sta­
tistics A ct (1990), perpetrators o f hate
crimes intend to harm their victims and
to intimidate entire communities. These
crimes frequently involve physical at­
tacks on A frican Am ericans by w hite
people. Asian Americans, among other
groups, have also been victims o f -such
acts, and minorities are sometimes tar­
geted by other minorities. Such crimes
also entail desecration o f religious in­
stitu tio n s such as sy n ag o g u es. T h e
m eaning o f the term m ay vary from
group to group, and its application can
provoke dispute. “W hen a Berkeley fra­
ternity displays a Confederate flag on
M artin Luther King’s birthday— and the
act is called a ‘hate crim e’— the poten­
tially combustible atmosphere on cam ­
pus becomes painfully evident” (“Race
on Campus,” U.S. News & World Report,
19 A pril 1993, 53). Legal definitions
usually d istin g u ish th e acts o f h ate
crimes from the com munication o f hate
speech. A lso som etim es called b ia s
crime.
See also h a t e r a p e , h a t e s p e e c h .
hate rape. Rape that occurs across racial
lines, especially to harm a woman who
is racially or ethnically different from the

perpetrator. The perpetrator of such a
crim e can be prosecuted under hate
crim e statutes. Some, however, argue
that the distinction is not warranted and
the term, a misnomer: rape, whatever its
motives or whoever its victims, is a vio­
lent act involving hatred. Actually, rape
is more characteristically an act of power
and control, though racial hatred may be
a factor. A ccording to a rape victims
advocacy organization in Chicago, the
statistics show that perpetrators of rape
most often choose a victim o f their own
racial background (personal communi­
cation, 15 June 1995).
See also h a t e c r i m e , h a t e s p e e c h .
h ate speech. Talk or communication that
is likely to be perceived as offensive by
a minority group or a group that defines
itself as a victim. Groups considered to
be the targets o f such speech are usually
racial, ethnic, religious, or national; also
targeted are certain categories including
gender, sexual orientation, age, marital
status, and physical capacity. There has
been some controversy about the use of
the term hate speech itself in political
discourse. M any claim that while mi­
norities also engage in such speech, the
use o f the term often takes the form of
an accusation against members of the
dominant group. Others answer that it
is the dominant who are capable of hurt­
ing; minorities, less powerful in the so­
ciety, are more vulnerable.
In the 1920s and 1930s hate speech
w as referred to as race hate. In the
1940s, when the issue of expanding the
law of libel to cover groups as well as
individuals was being considered, it
came to,be known as group libel. Hate
speech and racist speech becam e the
com mon designations in the 1980s and
1990s (Walker 1994, 8).
The issue o f hate speech has gener­
ated considerable political and legal de­
bate about constitutional protections and
the need to regulate speech. Many who
defend freedom of speech would guar­
hate speech______ 103
antee it to anyone, regardless of intent
or the possible harm that might result
from such speech. In the United States,
the principle of freedom of speech, en­
shrined with other liberties in the First
Amendment, has emerged triumphant in
recent legal skirmishes and debate. As
Samuel Walker (1994) has argued, the
free speech principle has enjoyed strong
advocates, including those groups be­
hind the civil rights movement, who have
themselves engaged in provocative and
offensive forms of expression (although
on college campuses, many black people
have supported speech codes). Accord­
ing to Walker, civil rights groups aban­
doned group libel legislation because it
was seen as a threat to their agenda of
achieving equal rights.
Restriction of expression may not
have enjoyed the same strong advocacy,
but it has had its moments. In 1942, for
example, in the Chaplinksy decision,
involving a Jehovah’s Witness arrested
for using epithets against those who op­
posed Witness proselytizing, the Court
sustained the conviction, and the deci­
sion produced the “fighting words” doc­
trine. The phrase fig h tin g words was
defined as words whose utterance inflicts
harm and words that tend to incite an
immediate breach of the peace. Words
that evoke strong em otions, G ordon
Allport (1958, 182) cautions us, are not
so much symbols as actual things.
R estrictions on speech have been
defended on the grounds of the inju­
ries— psychological, economic, politi­
cal— that are inflicted by hate speech.
In addition, it is argued that “invective
is experienced as a blow, not a proffered
idea” (Charles Law rence, in W alker
1994, 137). In other words, hate speech
brings dialogue to an end rather than
in itiatin g it. Som e cam pus leftists,
among others, advocated restriction dur­
ing the 1980s and 1990s because they
viewed hate speech as carrying a mes­
sage o f exclusion, bringing about the
104 have a C hinam an
------------------------------------------V

denial o f the constitutional protection of In contrast, many indigenous Hawai­

equality. ians today favor a definition of Hawai­
Sfee also HATE CRIME, HATE RAPE, PO­ ian as anyone who is descended from the
LITICAL CORRECTNESS. Islanders who inhabited the island group
h a v e a C h in a m a n . S e e ' C h in a m a n ’s
in 1778, the year that the English explorer
CHANCE.
James Cook arrived. That is, being Ha-
v waiian is not a matter of degree. Linnekin
H aw aiian. From the native word H aw ai’i,
and Poyer (1990, 154-56) further point
or Owykee (homeland), a term usually
out that, in everyday interactions, being
referring to a person of Polynesian de­
Hawaiian is a self-ascribed identity. A l­
scent aboriginal to the Hawaiian Islands.
though ancestry figures into the identity,
Its m eaning, however, is som etim es
in everyday social life being Hawaiian
broader and sometimes ambiguous or
refers not to biological, but to social cri­
offensive.
teria such as cultural behavior associated
The aboriginal Polynesians of Hawaii
with gift giving— generosity, humility,
are also called Hawaiian Natives or Na­
and long-term gift exchanges.
tive Hawaiians, terms preferred by the
If Hawaiian is used to designate a
indigenous people to Native American,
resident o f the state who is not o f the
which may be highly offensive to some
indigenous people, indigenous H aw ai­
Hawaiian people. The objection to apply­
ians may be offended. Indigenous H a­
ing the term Native American is in part
waiians refer to members of other groups
that o f lumping Hawaiians with Ameri­
as, for example, Chinese Hawaiian, Chi­
can Indians, whose histories and cultures
nese, hapa haole (half-w hite), P o rtu ­
are very d iffe re n t from th o se o f
guese, and haole, terms that “describe
Polynesians. Conflating them merges
qualities o f behavior and relative social
identities where Hawaiians wish to pre­
status as m uch as supposed national ori­
serve them as separate. But the major
gin” (Linnekin and Poyer 1990, 155).
problem is that indigenous Hawaiians
L ocals, a se lf-d escrip tio n , refers to
may have difficulty calling themselves
nonmainland inhabitants o f very mixed
“American,” a term they apply to the
ancestry. In Hawaii, race and ethnicity
dominant group that historically dispos­
are o f less significance than the distinc­
sessed them. Many indigenous Hawaiians
tion beween local and nonlocal.
still resent the 1893 coup in Hawaii in
H a w a iia n is a lso u se d fo r th e
which a group o f insurrectionists, led
M alayo-Polynesian language spoken in
largely by American businessmen and
native Hawaii.
assisted by U.S. Marines, overthrew the
See also g e is h a , g r a s s s k ir t , h a o l e ,
co nstitutional governm ent o f Q ueen
h u l a g ir l , K a n a k a , p o i- e a t e r .
Liliuokalani. The coup, eventually result­
ing in annexation to the United States, head nigger in charge. See HNIC.
was the beginning of what became a great heathen. A term from an Old English word
economic hardship for Native Hawaiians. that signifies someone who lives on the
Definitions by law or institutions tend heath, suggesting that the old forms of
to view being Hawaiian as a matter of pagan worship, by which Christians iden­
degree. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs, tified “heathens,” lingered in rural areas
for example, recognizes Native Hawai­ (Hughes 1991,99, n.2). Heathen was his­
ians as those with 50 percent or more ab­ torically used to stigm atize Jews and
original Hawaiian blood; Hawaiians are Muslims, but it was also a general refer­
those with less than 50 percent or those ence to people of polytheistic or anim is­
who cannot prove their exact descent. tic beliefs (as opposed to monotheistic

beliefs) or to any non-Christian peoples,
such as American Indians. Usually ap­
plied with contem pt toward groups out­
side a religious identity, this is one of
the oldest terms o f xenophobia.
The word has been used to call up
images o f savagery and to justify vio­
lence done against the “other.” Norman
Douglas, for example, wrote, “Ah, those
M ’tezo! Incurable heathen!... They filed
their teeth, ate their superfluous female
relations, sw apped wives every new
m o o n , an d n e v e r w ore a stitc h o f
clothes. . . ” (in J. C. Furnas, Anatomy o f
Paradise, 1948, 53). Speaking of six­
teenth-century Spanish colonists in the
Pacific, who killed nearly two hundred
M arquesan Islanders, Greg Dening said,
It was their status in God’s eyes that
made them different from the hea­
then. They might go to hell as good
marksmen, but they went with the
sign on their souls that they had
once been saved. The heathen went
willy-nilly.
Islands and Beaches, 1980, 10
See a l s o c a n n ib a l , p a g a n , p r i m i t iv e ,
SAVAGE.
Hebe, Heeb, hebe, Heebie. From Hebrew,
this term is a disrespectful or derogatory
nicknam e for a Jewish person (usually a
man) that appeared in the 1920s. Aman
(1996, 68) notes use especially for edu­
cated or moderately affluent Jews.
For other words for Jews, see J e w ,
cross-references. See especially H e b r e w .
Hebrew/Hebrewess, heebess. A Hebrew is
a member of an early Semitic group who
were the ancestors of the Jews or any of
the descendants o f the Old Testament pa­
triarchs'Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He­
brew, from an Aramaic word, is used in
the Bible by non-Jewish people to refer
to the Israelites, and it is also used to­
d ay fo r th e H eb rew la n g u ag e , the
Sem itic language o f the ancient H e­
brews. It was also once used, as is Greek,
to signify unintelligible speech.
herring choker 105
Hebrew has sometimes been a gen-
teelism used to avoid the word Jew.
W hen used by gentiles, Hebrew may
carry a derogatory connotation or sim­
ply imply that there is something deroga­
tory about the term Jew. Seldom heard
anymore, as it was earlier in this cen­
tury and in the nineteenth century, is the
phrase Hebrew race. “Be it said to the
honor of the Hebrew race, we very rarely
find one in the poorhouse....” (Congress­
man Joseph G. Gannon, 1910, in Lewis
D. Eigen and Jonathan P. Siegel, The
Macmillan Dictionary o f Political Quo­
tations, 1993, 425).
H ebrew ess is the fem inine form ,
largely derogatory. Heebess, also de­
rogatory for a Jewish woman, is pat­
terned on Jewess. Both are seldom heard
today.
For other words for Jews, see J e w ,
cross-references. See especially H e b e ,
I k e y , J e w e s s , J e w is h A m e r ic a n P r in c e s s ,
k ik e , R achel.
hegemony. See c u l t u r a l hegem ony.
Heinie, heine, Heiney, Hiney ['hl-ne]. A
derogatory term for a German or some­
one of German descent, particularly a
male, but applied especially to a German
soldier and used during both world wars.
It is the diminutive of Heinrich, the Ger­
man male personal name.
See also D u t c h , g e r m , G e r m a n
m easles, H e s s ia n , H u n , J e r r y , k r a u t .
herring choker, herring-choker. Slang
epithet for a Scandinavian or Scandina­
vian immigrant, infrequently used. The
term is based on the Scandinavian oc­
cupation of fishing. The Dictionary o f
American Regional English (1991) lists
the term in this sense as restricted largely
to the western Great Lakes region. Her­
ring- snapper and herring-destroyer are
variants. Herring-choker has also been
used in New England for a Newfound­
lander or a Nova Scotian (M encken
1962, suppl. 1, 611). Partridge (1984)
106 Hessian
gives Herring Choker as a nautical us­
age for a person or ship from New
Brunswick.
S e e a l s o N e w f ie , N o r s k i , S c a n d a -
HOOVIAN, SQUAREHEAD. ' ducing a “high yellow” color in the off­
H essian, hessian. A m ercenary soldier,
originally a German sold in service to
the British army during the American
Revolutionary War (many o f these mer­
cenaries came from the German princi­
pality of Hesse-Kassel). A number of
them stayed in the United States, hav­
ing either deserted or been released as
prisoners of war.
During the Civil War, southerners
sometimes used the word disparagingly
for northerners or northern soldiers. It
later came to be used for anyone who
was overbearing, troublesome, or crude;
for an unruly child; or, in the Ozarks,
acco rd in g to R aw son (1989), fo r a
meddlesome old woman.
S ee also D u t c h , G e r m , G e r m a n
m easles, H e in i e , H u n , J e r r y , k r a u t .
Hiawatha. Epithet for any Native Ameri­
can male, from the character in Henry
W adsw orth L ongfellow ’s poem The
Song o f Hiawatha (1855). Longfellow’s
Hiawatha, depicted as an Ojibwa, was
patterned after a Mohawk culture hero
by that nam e w ho was said to have
founded the Iroquois Confederacy. Use
o f the name by non-Indians to refer to
someone o f Native American descent is
likely to be taken as offensive.
See a l s o I n d ia n , N a t iv e A m e r ic a n .
hidden immigrant. See a lie n .
high yellow, high-yellow, high yaller. Dat­
ing from possibly the eighteenth century
(see M ajor 1994), a term m eaning a
light-skinned black person, or mulatto,
a person o f mixed race. It is usually used
for an attractive black woman (Ameri­
can culture has commonly associated
light skin with femininity). Among black
speakers, the term (pronounced dialec­
tically yallah or yaller) is usually one of
intraracial color discrimination. Davis
(1991) notes that black people once be­
lieved that m iscegenation reflected a
m oral and physical w eakness am ong
those who engaged in it, a weakness pro­
spring. It is not always offensive, how-
'ever. “When the ships cam e in, that’s
when I made money. All them sailors
wanted a brownie. High yellows fared
poorly then” (Lyle Saxon, in the D ictio­
nary o f A m erican R egional E nglish,
[1985]). In 1994 Ford M otor Company
advertised a new car as “high yellow,” a
reference on the one hand to the bright
yellow paint, but also apparently a play
on the ethnic meaning, since two A fri­
can Americans were used in the ad.
The term m ay be com bined w ith
other words to form similar, usually de­
rogatory expressions, such as high-yel­
low heifer. Also known as high brown.
See also b a n a n a , c o l o r , m u l a t t o / a ,
PINKY, SCHOOL BUS, WANNA-BE, YELLOW,
YELLOW SUBMARINE, ZEBRA.
hillbilly, hill-billy, hill-billie. From the
1890s (but according to W ilson-and
Ferris [1989], not seen in print until
1900), a slur on an ethnic A ppalachian
southerner, on any backwoodsperson, or
on a poor, southern white person. It may
also be a positive self-description or one
used in humor by members o f the group.
Hill people and hill fo lk have had few
negative connotations, but the problem
with these terms is that the people re­
ferred to do not usually inhabit the hills
but the valleys in between. They may see
themselves as “ju st plain folks.” Billy
was once a nickname for any man, but
hillbilly is not restricted to males. The
female version, hillnelly, is seldom if
ever used today.
See also A p p a l a c h i a n , B u b b a , c l a y -
eater, C onch, corncracker, crack er,
PECKERWOOD, POOR WHITE TRASH, REDNECK,
RIDGERUNNER, SOUTHERNER, YAP.
Hindu, Hindoo. A term borrowed from the
Persian word Hindu, “an inhabitant o f

India.” Hindu is used today for an ad­
herent o f Hinduism, the common reli­
gion of India. The usage, however, of­
ten extends inaccurately to anyone in the
United States from India, even though
only a small percentage of these imm i­
grants practice H induism . H indoo is
listed in dictionaries as a variant spell­
ing, but it is one that may lend itself to
derogatory use. Among white racists,
Hindu and Hindoo are both hate terms.
Hindustani, which is a form of the Hindi
language, is sometimes inaccurately ap­
plied to Hindus.
See a l s o A s ia n I n d ia n , I n d ia n A m e r i ­
can.
Hispanic, hispanic, Hispanic American.
A collective designation (in the United
States) for any person of Spanish-speak­
ing background or who has a Spanish
surname. From Latin hispanicus, from
Hispania (Spain), Hispanic is dated to
the sixteenth century (late nineteenth
century in A m erican E nglish). L an­
guage, not race, is the primary criterion
for entry in this broad category.
To many, Hispanic is a positive, self-
descriptive term, but it poses some prob­
lems for others. At the center of the de­
bate surrounding this category is the
conflation o f data related to culture,
class, race, and national origin and the
ten d en cy to ignore the diversity o f
people o f Latin American descent liv­
ing in the United States. The U.S. Cen­
sus B u rea u d efin e s H isp a n ic very
broadly as people who identify their ori­
gins as Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain, or
Spanish-speaking countries of the Car­
ibbean or Central or South America.
A lthough sometimes portrayed by the
m ed ia as a relatively hom ogeneous
group of poor immigrants, a large ma­
jority o f these people live above the pov­
erty line, about half were born in the
United States, and the other half com ­
prises people from about twenty-four
different countries. Oboler (1995) points
to the institutional trends that affect the
Hispanic 107
construction of a homogeneous Hispanic
group, including the formulation of gov­
ernment policy; the designing of adver­
tising, media, and business strategies;
and the elaboration of educational and
language policies.
As an overgeneralizing term, H is­
panic has also sometimes been used,
where Latino/a might be more appropri­
ate, to refer to Portuguese-speaking Bra­
zilians. It is also heard in reference to
im m igrants from Spain and Portugal
(Portuguese Americans reject the term
Hispanic when applied to themselves)
and even to Indians o f Latin America
who live in the United States. As Linda
Chavez (Out o f the Barrio, 1991) says,
there is the problem of the homogeniza­
tion of the cultures and histories of the
Hispanic people of this hemisphere: “It
is only in the United States that ‘His-
panics’ exist; a Cakchiquel Indian in
Guatemala would find it remarkable that
anyone could consider his culture to be
the same as a Spanish Argentinean’s”
(Chavez, 1991, 164).
Although Hispanic is often used to­
day instead of Latino/a, there are differ­
ences in social and political connotation
attached to each term. Many regard H is­
panic as Eurocentric (etymologically it
evokes Spain and things Spanish) and
connoting colonialism, as opposed to the
more geographic reference o f Latino/a.
Novelist Sandra Cisneros does not allow
her work to be published in anthologies
that use the term Hispanic, claiming that
“it’s a repulsive slave name” (in Novas
1994, 3). Hispanic may also sound pa­
tronizing, as though the Anglo user were
saying “you’re really like us,” that is,
white Europeans. Some Latinos have
complained that the efforts by members
of the Latino population to define them­
selves are suppressed when more con­
servative Latino groups allow the gov­
ernment or media to define them as His-
panics.
In California, opposition to the word
108______ Hispanicism
Hispanic led to its being barred from the
Los Angeles Times. Although the term
Hispanic Am erican avoids some of the
problems associated with the noun H is­
panic, it is less often used*
Many people o f Latin American de­
scent, however, especially those to the
center or the right of center politically
and those who seek assimilation, prefer
Hispanic. The use by some political co­
alitions of the term Pan-Hispanic to re­
fer to themselves has helped win H is­
panic acceptance, and some components
o f the Hispanic population may use this
designation to link themselves with His-
panics who hold more power or to sig­
nal their sense o f linguistic or ethnic
community in the United States. Many
Cubans in Florida and Mexican Ameri­
cans in much of Texas prefer to be called
Hispanic. At the same time, some self­
defined H ispanics distinguish them ­
selves sharply from Mexican Americans.
Alternatives to Latino/a and Hispanic
are the many names based on country of
origin— for example, Cuban American
(see Dmitri A. Borgmann in Word Ways,
February 1986, for a partial list o f sixty-
four nam es used for Hispanics in the
United States). Hispanic/Latino is some­
times used as an encompassing category.
Som e L atin A m ericans regard them ­
selves simply as white or as American;
according to U.S. Census data, m ost
persons who identify themselves as His­
panic also think of themselves as white.
For words applying to particular His­
panic/Latino groups, see C u b a n , M e x i ­
can, M e x ic a n A m e r ic a n , P u e r t o R i c a n .
See also A n g l o , b r a c e r o , C h ic a n o / a ,
H is p a n ic is m , h is p a n o / a , L a d in o / a ,
L a t in o / a , m e s t iz o / a .
H ispanicism . A focus on Spain and the
Spanish. Among multiculturalists, this
may mean seeing the cultures of Latin
America as having originated in Spain,
ignoring the Indian, m e s t iz o / a , and Por­
tuguese presence and influence. As such,
it is regarded as a regionalized form o f
E u r o c e n t r is m .
See also H is p a n ic .
hispano/a, H ispano/a. Spanish American
word for “Spanish,” capitalized in E n­
glish usage. As opposed to the Spanish
• espahol (Spanish), hispano has gener­
ally referred to the entire Spanish-speak­
ing group. In the United States, Hispano
is better known for meaning a Hispanic
American.
Hispano is used especially for a H is­
panic American o f the U.S. Southwest
who is descended from colonial Span­
iards with no Indian ancestry, although
the term may also be used for someone
o f mixed Spanish and Indian descent.
Since the earliest ancestors o f Hispanos
settled New M exico when it was known
as New Spain, they often see themselves
as S panish A m erican s, o r H isp an ic
Americans— as different from others of
Mexican origin. They are Hispanics in
contrast to Latinos, Americans without
traditions outside the United States. Still,
many newer immigrants may also call
themselves hispanos.
“She prayed for Tom, because like so
many hispanos, nuevo mexicanos, what­
ever he wanted to call himself, som e­
thing about giving h im self over to a
woman was worse than having lunch
with the devil” (Ana Castillo, So Far
from God, 1993, 32). “H ispanos, as we
ca lle d (and ca ll) o u rselv e s in N ew
Mexico, were very much a part o f the
fabric o f the society and there w ere
Hispano professionals everywhere about
me” (Arturo Madrid, in Andersen and
Collins 1992, 8).
See also H is p a n ic , L a t in o / a .
H N IC , N IC . A black person in a key posi­
tion o f influence, usually used pejora­
tively since at least the middle o f the
twentieth century. H NIC means “Head
N egro/N igger in C harge” (som etim es
simply “N egro/N igger in Charge,” or

NIC). “T here’s a part of him that wants
to be the next H.N.I.C.” (Jack E. White,
Time, 7 June 1993, 62). African Ameri­
cans see the term as ironic when the in­
fluence is insignificant and achieved
through white people. A white speaker,
especially one not on familiar terms with
the black person referred to, may be sus­
pected of intending to disparage, particu­
larly if the N is read as Nigger, as it usu­
ally is. The term may also be read as
“High N egro/Nigger in Command,” of­
ten sarcastic in black usage; also BNIC,
“Boss Negro/Nigger in Charge.”
F or other w ords black (or white)
people use for black people, see b l a c k ,
cross-references. See especially n i g g e r .
H olocaust.
The very word Holocaust, embody­
ing anguish so bottomless, horror so
unsurpassed, so unimaginable...is
only faintly suggestive of what hap­
pened, and for having become part
of our everyday language its reso­
nance grows fainter with rote usage.
—Perlmutter and Perlmutter
1982,61
Total sacrificial destruction by fire
(Greek/Latin, “bum everything”), com­
monly used since the m id-1960s to des­
ignate H itler’s program of genocide, or
systematic killing, in which six million
Jews were murdered in Nazi Germany.
This m odern use o f the term, usually
capitalized, is said to have been estab­
lished by Elie Wiesel. Unless used as an
adjective, it is normally preceded by the.
Jew ish exclusivists, as they have
sometimes been called, view the Holo­
caust uniquely in terms o f the Jewish
experience. Jewish universalists, on the
other hand, include in that historic per­
secution the murder of Romany (Gyp­
sies), Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexu­
als, prisoners of war (especially Poles
and Russians), and anti-Nazi political
prisoners.
M ichael R. M arrus notes that H olo­
caust, as a reference to a burnt sacrifi­
homeboy 109
cial offering to God, not only has theo­
logical significance but may suggest an
emphasis on the martyred victims rather
than the victimizers: “It does not sug­
gest perpetrators, and like the Nazis’ own
designation, Final Solution, may easily
lend itself to abuse by misappropriation”
(Marrus 1987, 4).
H olocaust has m ore broadly been
applied to the genocide o f other groups,
including Native A m ericans (usually
low ercase, except som etim es in the
phrase N ative A m erican H olocaust).
“The [Native] American holocaust was
recorded by eyewitnesses who docu­
mented such things in their journals”
(Gabriel Horn, Native Heart, 1993, 97).
African Americans, too, have had a hand
in broadening the usage, speaking of the
slave trade as a Black holocaust or the
African holocaust. Outside the context
of genocide, as The American Heritage
Dictionary (1992) points out, usage may
be frowned upon, though it still occurs.
“They are victims of America’s ‘hemo­
philia holocaust’: the spread of AIDS
among hemophiliacs who received con­
taminated blood products” (Newsweek,
7 February 1994, 44). The term is also
used to mean a natural disaster.
The Hebrew word for the Holocaust
is sho ’ah (catastrophe), known to many
through the popular 1985 film by direc­
tor Claude Lanzmann, Shoah, about the
Holocaust.
See also e t h n i c c l e a n s i n g , e t h n i c
PURITY, GENOCIDE.
hom eboy, hom e boy, homey. From about
the 1930s, a term meaning someone na­
tive to a place, or from one’s hometown,
as used among black people in the South.
T he term later becam e generalized,
meaning a friend or someone of one’s
own group, often a neighborhood teen­
age gang. It spread into white vocabu­
lary via Rap lyrics. A ccording to the
Dictionary o f Am erican Regional E n­
glish (1991), it is used especially among
110 honest Indian
Y'
minority speakers and can be either de­
rogatory— in the sense, for example, of
a rustic— or affectionate.
Although b o y has been a slur for a
black male, homeboy carries none of that
negative load. “Stormy remembers be­
ing comforted by the knowledge that her
homeboys were always there for her”
(A llison Abner, E ssence, July 1994,
116). The female equivalent is homegirl
(also home girl), though homeboy may
be used for either males or females.
The later term, homey (also homie,
home), is a black usage, now also heard
in white and Chicano slang, for some­
one from one’s own town or neighbor­
hood or, in “urbanspeak,” for inner-city
youths versus suburban teens (som e­
tim es called “bradys”). M ajor (1994)
adds as an early black sense o f homey, a
newly arrived southerner in a northern
city.
honest Indian, honest Injun. An Ameri­
canism, first recorded in the late nine­
teenth century. This is heard especially
among children as a way o f pledging
faith. Apparently, it was originally a sar­
castic aspersion on the honesty o f N a­
tive Americans, who are likely to be of­
fended by the usage.
“Say it again, Tom.”
“The money’s in the cave!”
‘Tom— honest injun, now— is it fun
or earnest?”
— Mark Twain
Tom Sawyer, 1876
See also I n d ia n , I n j u n , N a t iv e A m e r i ­
can.
Hongkie. A derogatory term for a Hong
Konger, that is, someone from Hong
Kong (reported in Maledicta Monitor,
Winter 1991,4). Its derisiveness is prob­
ably reinforced by sounding like the ear­
lier epithet, h o n k y .
See a l s o A s ia n A m e r ic a n .
h onk y, h o n k ie, h on k ey (pi. honkies,
honkeys). Sometimes capitalized. Fre­
quently abusive term used by black
x
people primarily for a white person, of­
ten male. According to the Dictionary
o f Am erican Regional English (1991),
honky has been used in Los Angeles for
Chicanos as well as white people. N a­
tive Americans, adopting the term from
.popular 1960s black usage, have also
' applied it to white people or similar,
lig h t-sk in n ed , m id d le-cla ss p eo p le.
A though the term is derisive, w hite
people may not regard it as such. N ew s­
paper columnist Anna Quindlen argues
that “being called a honky is not in the
same league as being called a nigger,”
referring to the lack o f im pact the epi­
thet has on white people, who are less
vulnerable to slurs than are people o f
color. In the 1960s white supporters of
the Black Panthers w ore buttons that
read “Honkies for Huey,” referring to
Huey P. Newton, one o f the founders of
the Panthers.
The term ’s origin is unclear. Many
argue strongly that it is a deformation of
hunk, or hunky (in turn from Hun, from
Hungary), a pejorative word for an im ­
migrant central European laborer. It-ap-
parently came to be generalized in black
use from the white im m igrant workers,
many of whom were com petitors with
black people in the jo b market, to virtu­
ally all white people. Aman (1996, 69),
however, dem urs at this etym ology,
claiming that black people had little con­
tact with newly immigrated eastern Eu­
ropeans. The American Heritage Dictio­
nary (1992) treats it as a blend o f W olof
(a language o f a West African people)
honq (red, pink, o f light complexion) and
hunky.
O thers have uncon v in cin g ly said
honky comes from the honking sound of
pigs, the nasal tone of white people, or
the dating practice o f white men in D e­
troit who sat in their cars and honked
their horns in front o f the houses where
their black girlfriends worked as maids.
It has also been traced to honk, which
was once used by m usicians for a brassy

music played for poor black people and
the places it was played, giving rise to
honkytonk, a word that later came to be
reserved for the music of poor white
people. Many such stories, however in­
teresting, say more about the experiences
o f African Americans with white people
than they do about the origins o f the us­
age.
A “superhonkie” is a powerful white
racist.
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See especially b a l l - f a c e , b l u e ­
e y e d DEVIL, BOHUNK, DEVIL, DOG, FACE,
GRAY, MAN, OFAY.
hooch, hootch. Liquor. Also, a derogatory
term for Native Americans, derived from
their exaggerated reputation as being big
drinkers and reinforced by hoochinoo
(also hootchenoo), the name o f a Tlingit
(Indian) village in Alaska once noted as
a source o f illicit liquor.
For other words white people use for
Native Americans, see I n d ia n , cross-ref­
erences. See especially p o p s i c l e .
hoodlum Irish. Derogatory term for the
Irish, originating in the second half of
the nineteenth century when poor Irish
imm igrants came to the United States,
settling in ramshackle communities that
developed high crime rates.
See also I r is h , J a k e y , l a c e c u r t a in
I r is h , M ic k , n a r r o w b a c k , P a d d y , P a d d y
w agon, P a t , s h a n t y I r is h , s p u d , T u r k .
hooknose. Based on an anatomical stereo­
type, a slur on a Jew. For the same rea­
son, it has also served as a Chinese ste­
reotype of Europeans.
See a l s o e a g l e - b e a k , J e w , J e w i s h
n o s e , s c Hn o z z o l a .
H o rto n esq u e, H orton ize, H ortonism .
From the name of William Horton Jr.,
an African American prisoner in M as­
sachusetts who was convicted o f raping
a woman and assaulting her fiance while
on furlough. During the 1988 presiden­
tial campaign, Horton became a symbol
Hottentot 111
of liberals’ alleged tolerance of crime
(D e m o c ra tic c a n d id a te M ic h ae l
Dukakis, governor o f M assachusetts,
supported the furlough program) and, in
turn, of conservatives’ manipulation of
white peoples’ racial fears (Republicans,
with/George Bush, sponsored a televi­
sion ad campaign that portrayed a bru­
tal black criminal). In an interview with
Nation (Jeffrey M. Elliot, 23/30 August
1993), Horton, in prison in Baltimore,
claim ed that the Bush campaign also
invented the name Willie— to which he
takes strong exception— to play on ra­
cial stereotypes: “big, ugly, dumb, vio­
lent, black— ‘Willie.’” Willie is an old
epithet for a black man.
A m erican Speech (Sum m er 1993,
202-03) reports Hortonism as first ap­
pearing in 1991. Hortonize appeared in
1992, when Democrats accused Repub­
licans of using the issues of homosexu­
ality and single motherhood as they had
used crime in 1988, that is, in attack
politics. Willie Horton has been used as
a verb to mean to exploit racial fears in
making an attack on a political candi­
date.
“They spent much of their TV money
caricaturing the GOP slate...as slavish,
glassy-eyed minions of New Testament
in to leran ce. A t tim es the tone was
Hortonesque” (Newsweek, 8 November
1993, 43).
Hottentot. From the Afrikaans language, a
term referring to the indigenous South
African people and their semipastoral,
cattle-keeping ways; now widely re­
garded as derogatory. The nonbiased
term is Khoikhoi (excellent people),
these people’s name for themselves.
Soon after European contact with
these people, they became stereotyped
as culturally backward and intellectually
primitive, a kind o f missing link joining
humans with the higher apes. The click­
ing sounds in the speech of these people
reinforced this image. Even the other­
112______ house negro
wise scientifically inclined English trav­
eler William Dampier noted in 1697 that
“H ottentot.. .is the name by which they
call to one another...as if every one of
them had this for his nam e” (Hughes
1991,128). The term has also been used
to mean any uncivilized person or some­
one o f inferior intellect and has been
applied to African Americans contemp­
tuously.
M ilk fo r the Hottentots is political
lingo for foreign aid to underdeveloped
nations, the term suggesting its unreal­
istic idealism. H ottentots is slang for
“buttocks,” alluding to nakedness, for
which the Khoikhoi were once known.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references. See especially
A f r ic a n , b u s h ( B u s h m a n ) , E t h io p ia n ,
K a f f i r , M a u M a u , N i g e r ia n , P y g m y ,
Z ulu. See also p r im it iv e .
house negro, house N egro, house nigger.
A pre-Civil War polite term for a black
slave who served in the house o f the
m aster and m istress instead of in the
field. The house negro was often con­
sidered superior to the field slave and
com m only received better treatm ent.
House nigger was the derogatory vari­
ant.
Today, house negro has a related de­
rogatory usage, especially among black
people with more m ilitant views, ex­
pressing contempt for those black people
who do not share those views. “People
with insufficiently militant views were
berated as self-hating, shuffle-along,
‘house nigger’ types, com plicit with
whites in the perpetuation of racial op­
pression” (G lenn C. Loury, in Early
1993, 6). On the other hand, today fie ld
nigger, as used am ong black people,
positively connotes working-class and
unemployed black people as those most
likely to stand up to racism.
For other words in black or southern
use for blacks, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially A m o s ’ n ’ A n d y ,
COON, COTTONPICKER, HANDKERCHIEF HEAD,
N e g r o / N e g r e s s , p a n c a k e , S a m b o , S t e p in
F e t c h it , U n c l e T o m .
h u la g irl. S exist slang for a H aw aiian
woman. The traditional Hawaiian hula
was a dance form surrounded by so
vm uch som ber, o rg an ized ritu a l th at
writer Robert Louis Stevenson, a visitor
to the Islands, once called it “surely the
most dull o f m an’s inventions” (In the
South Seas, 1940, 301). It was Tin Pan
Alley that managed to em bed the hula
deeply in U.S. popular culture as w rig­
gling hips and voluptuous performers.
Show business cliche distorted the dance
into a symbol o f native sensuality. As
with other biased terms, however, it may
be self-descriptive: “In real life, Carrere
is a Hawaiian native (she describes her­
self as a ‘hula girl’) w hose ancestors
w ere Filipino, C hinese and Spanish”
(New People, September/October 1993,
11). Hula Lula is a variant in scarce use.
See also g r a s s s k ir t , H a w a iia n , p in e ­
a p p l e , p o i- e a t e r .
H un. Epithet for a German or a Hungarian,
especially a male. One o f several deroga­
tory terms for a German soldier, it was
used during the world wars, especially
World War I. The term derives from the
name for the fourth- and fifth-century
invaders of Europe, led ultim ately by
Attila, whose devastation of much o f the
w estern h a lf o f th e R om an E m p ire
earned him the epithet “Scourge o f God,”
thus accenting the idea o f barbarism .
Hughes (1991, 128) claim s that unlike
other specific terms used by xenopho­
bic groups for enemies, usually imposed
by the enemy, the application o f Hun to
Germans finds its immediate source in
a speech given by K aiser W ilhelm II to
German soldiers setting sail for China
in 1900. T he K aiser exhorted the troops
to earn the rep u ta tio n a ttrib u te d to
A tilla’s warriors.
“Chinamen, Italians, Huns— the rub­
bish o f the earth I h ate.. .when the m as­
sacring begins, I can get my share o f

’em ” (Frederic Remington, in Richard
Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, 1992, 105).
See f o r e ig n e r for another quotation.
See also b o h u n k , D u t c h , G e r m , G e r m a n
m ea sles, goulash, H e in ie , H e s s ia n ,
J erry, kraut.
hunk, hunkie, hunky. See bohunk.
H ym ie, heim ie. R ecent offensive slang
word for a Jew, from the Hebrew word
hayylm, meaning “life” (Hyman or Yid­
dish Khaym are Jewish personal names
for males).
In an off-the-record remark during
his 1984 campaign for the Democratic
nomination for president, the Reverend
Je sse Ja c k so n re fe rre d to Jew s as
“H y m ies” and to N ew York City as
“Hymietown,” for which he was vilified.
He later apologized for the remark, but
he also explained in Newsweek (1 April
1984, 35) that “when you look at the
num ber o f Hymans and Hymies in the
telephone book, it’s clear that’s not an
offensive statem ent with religious or
political overtones in our vernacular.”
For other words for Jews, see J ew,
cross-references. See also H ymietown.
Hym ietown. Offensive slang for New York
City, because of its large Jewish popu­
lation.
See a l s o H y m ie .
hyphenated American. An American, or
U.S. citizen, whose family origins are
outside the United States, especially an
imm igrant around the turn of the nine­
teenth century; based on the use of the
hyphen in the nam e, as in G erman-
Am erican or Italian-American. During
the ethnic revival o f the 1970s, many
U.S. groups were proud to refer to their
nationality o f origin in hyphenated con­
structions, without feeling any less pa­
triotic as Americans. The hyphen, how­
hyphenated American 113
ever, normally connotes marginal status;
a person who lives in this country but is
not yet completely a part o f it, linked by
the hyphen to his or her ethnic roots.
Today the hyphen is often dropped in
print, as it is in this book, unless the first
term 'is not a free-standing prefix, as in
Anglo-American.
In the early part of the twentieth cen­
tury, T heodore Roosevelt, a fervent
Americanizer, increasingly criticized the
hyphenated Am erican for alleged di­
vided loyalties. “The men who do not
become Americans and nothing else are
hyphenated Americans, and there ought
to be no room for them in this country”
(Theodore Roosevelt, in W inthrop Tal­
bot, ed., Handbook o f Americanization,
1920, 42). The m ost suspect during
World War I was the “German-Ameri-
can.”
The Oxford Companion to the E n­
glish Language (1992,35) suggests that
the disappearance of the hyphen in the
late twentieth century, as in Irish A m eri­
can or Italian American, probably re­
flects greater confidence in dual heritage.
The dropping of the hyphen notw ith­
standing, the term hyphenated American
is still used, referring to these types of
com pound ethnic names even though
they may not be hyphenated (e.g., after
Jesse Jackson’s 1988 call for the adop­
tion of African American, the term was
widely referred to as “hyphenated.”)
Today, for those who are confronted with
racial or ethnic barriers to entering main­
stream American life (Native Americans,
Hispanic A m ericans, A frican A m eri­
cans, and Asian Am ericans), the tag,
hyphenated American, may be harder to
escape (even if they want to) than it was
for Irish Americans or Italian Americans.
See also a s s i m i l a t i o n , m a r g i n a l , o n e
o f t h o s e n a m e s t h a t e n d s in a v o w e l .

I was first recorded, it meant especially
I.C . See INTERRACIAL.
ice people. See w h ite .
identity politics. Reference to the struggle
among some marginalized groups (cul­
tural, ethnic, racial, or sexual) for their
empowerment and resistance to assimi­
lation into the mainstream; also known
as the politics of difference. Identity here
refers to the bond or affiliation that gives
a group a sense of sameness. For many,
the usage reflects the need to challenge
dominant identities and to heed the prob­
lems o f inequality.
To others, however, it evokes a nega­
tive association with cultural national­
ism and political correctness. ‘Tradition­
alists, fearing the erosion of these val­
ues, decry the em ergence o f identity
politics and the thought-control tech­
niques popularly called ‘political cor­
rectness.” ’ (Time, Fall 1993,7). It is also
argued that a politics based on defend­
ing self-identified groups— those wear­
ing the badges of authentic oppression—
forces people’s experience into exclusive
categories tantamount to walls that sepa­
rate us.
The practice of identity politics in the
United States is commonly traced to the
rise in the 1960s o f a more aggressive
African American vision than that of the
integrationists. African American intel­
lectuals today, however, have been fo­
cusing less on race-based identity poli­
tics (viewed increasingly as a matter of
political posing) and more on the sig­
nificance of American citizenship in race
relations.
See also n a t i o n a l i s m , p o l i t i c a l c o r ­
re c tn e s s .
Ikey, Ike, Ikie, Iky, Ikeymo. A slur on a
Jew, from the diminutive nickname of
Isaac, a m ale Jew ish personal nam e
taken from the Old Testament name for
the son of Abraham. It was first used in
England; Partridge (1984) notes that in
immigrant______ 115
the nineteenth century, when the term
“a Jewish receiver of stolen goods.” In
the United States it has been used also
as a verb meaning to “haggle” or “cheat.”
Often lowercase. Ikeymo (from Ikey plus
Mosks) is a close synonym.
For other words for Jews, see J e w ,
cross-references.
illegal alien. See a lie n .
immigrant. Someone who comes to a new
country to work and live; commonly
someone who identifies with the coun­
try he or she enters as opposed to the
one left behind. The verb form, immi­
grate, is a seventeenth-century English
word; immigrant is an American word
of the late eighteenth century. Immigrant
differs from migrant, which means sim­
ply “one who moves from one place to
another,” by denoting movement across
national boundaries.
The term is also distinguished from
emigrant, applied to people who leave
the country o f their birth or national
identity. The immigrant can be said to
have taken flight from the old country,
usually in search o f employment or bet­
ter wages but also to escape political op­
pression or natural disaster. In colonial
America, colonists, although coming to
the new land to settle, thought o f them­
selves as emigrants, emphasizing their
connection with old England and their
intent to create a country— a new En­
gland— in the image of the one left be­
hind.
To use immigrant in any way other
than for one who voluntarily moves from
one country to a new one may stretch
the m eaning uncom fortably. W ithout
denying the significance of the peopling
of the Americas with black Africans,
including some free black immigrants,
only a grossly distorting euphem ism
would characterize African Americans,
whose ancestors for the most part were
brought to America in shackles, as im­
116 inclusiveness
migrants, or even “involuntary im m i­
grants.” For that matter, most Anglo-
Ameficans have forgotten that Mexican
A m ericans (their homeland seized by
U.S. aggression in 1846) were anything
but immigrants. Native Americans simi­
larly did not become part o f the nation
voluntarily, though attempts to empha­
size their claim to ethnic priority have
sometimes made them “the first immi­
grants.”
Im m ig ra n t m ay sig n ify p rid e in
ethnicity. European im m igrants have
enjoyed particular esteem, as political
candidates show when they praise their
own immigrant parents or grandparents.
On the other hand, the term may also
connote the stigma o f being a minority
(especially if non-European) reviled for
its cultural differences. Members o f a
nonwhite minority, however, are more
likely to be disparaged by the biased use
o f the term aliens.
Immigrant hordes (see also y e l l o w
h o r d e s ) referred historically to the large
num ber o f so-called new imm igrants
from southern and eastern Europe who
arrived in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century and became the targets
o f the nativism movement during that
time. The same kinds of sentiments re­
appear whenever a rising tide o f immi­
gration causes alarm. In August 1993,
Pete W ilson, governor o f California,
declared the country “under siege” from
undocumented immigrants.
See also a l i e n , p i o n e e r , s e t t l e r .
inclusiveness. See p o litic a l c o rre c tn e s s .
In d ian . Someone aboriginal to the Ameri­
cas. The word Indian com es perhaps
from Medieval Latin Indianus (Latin In­
dia, “Asian subcontinent,” plus -anus,
“-an”). Initially, it referred to a native or
inhabitant of India (and is still used this
way) or the “East Indies.” The term has
also been used historically for a British
person living in India or o f mixed Brit­
ish and Asian Indian descent and for in­
digenous peoples o f New Zealand and
Australia.
C hristopher C olum bus nam ed the
first Native Americans he encountered,
the Arawak o f the Bahamas, Indios, the
Spanish word for inhabitants o f India,
vbecause he mistakenly believed that he
had found his way to the Indies, or Asia.
First appearing in print in a letter w rit­
ten by Columbus in 1493, this m isno­
mer, which we know as Indian, came to
be used for any aboriginal person o f the
Americas.
Native Am erican, especially appli­
cable to Indians o f the forty-eight coter­
minous states, but also used for Alaska
Natives, cam e into use in the 1960s,
partly as a corrective to Columbus’s mis­
nomer and other biases. M ore recently
it has been generally regarded as “po­
litically correct.” Axtell (1988), how ­
ever, notes that reservation and rural In­
dians often p refer In d ia n to N a tive
Am erican. O rganizations such as the
National Congress o f American Indians
and the American Indian M ovement use
A m erican Indian. Indian is rooted in
English usage, is regarded as standard
in some contexts, and is used in neutral
terms such as Plains Indian or Paleo-
Indian. A ccording to Indian activist
Suzan Shown Haijo, speaking on a tele­
vision talk show in 1994, all names given
to Indians by white people are Eurocen­
tric and racist, so in the final analysis, it
does not make much difference.
In the United States, particularly out­
side of Alaska, the concept o f “Indian,”
under which all native people have been
lumped, has obscured the wide cultural
diversity of the hundreds of indigenous
societies north of the Rio Grande. It has
also o b scu red th e ir ro o ts. A s V ine
Deloria Jr. (Buenker and Ratner 1992,
2) points out, scientists postulate the ra­
cial unity of Indians, saying that all N a­
tive American peoples migrated from
Asia by way of a land bridge across the
Bering Strait. This view, however, is re­

jected by many Native Americans, who
see themselves as having separate ori­
gins, migrations, or creations.
The criteria for who is an Indian vary
depending on who is doing the defining.
The Bureau o f the Census considers be­
ing an Indian a m atter of self-identity:
An Indian is someone who sees himself
or herself as being an Indian. The Bu­
reau o f Indian Affairs often applies more
specific criteria: an Indian is defined as
a person who is part of an Indian band,
tribe (or nation), or other community that
the federal government “recognizes,” or
officially accepts as a sovereign politi­
cal entity; who lives on or near a reser­
vation; and whose ancestry is one-quar­
ter or m ore Indian (Bureau of Indian
Affairs 1987).
Some federal laws define Indian in
other ways: for the purposes o f the In­
dian Health Care Improvement Act of
1976, Indians are members of “recog­
nized” tribes. This act does not specify
blood quantum for determination of who
is an Indian. It provides a broad defini­
tion that also includes Eskimos (Inuit)
and Aleuts. The Indian Education Act of
1972 includes urban Indians and those
from tribes that have been “terminated”
(i.e., whose federally recognized status
had ended). According to some federal
definitions, Indian is reserved for Na­
tive Americans living in the forty-eight
coterminous states and does not apply
to the Indians, Eskimos, or Aleuts of
Alaska, who are called Alaska Natives.
Indian tribes themselves use different
criteria for determining who is a mem­
ber of their tribe. (See U tter 1993, 11­
13, for an extensive discussion of who
is an Indian.)
N ot accurately referred to as Indians
in most instances are the Inuit, or Es­
kimo, and Aleut. Because Native A m eri­
can refers to these groups as well as to
Indians, it is useful w hen the w riter
wishes to be inclusive. Conversely, the
terms Indian, Aleut, and Inuit are pre­
Indian 117
ferred when distinctions are useful or
necessary.
The use o f Indian after a group name
may be eliminated when ethnic identity
is clear. For example, Indian after N a­
vajo is usually redundant.
American Indians are legally referred
to as U.S. citizens if they were bom in
the United States or bom of citizens of
the United States. U.S. citizenship is not
regarded as excluding membership in a
nation (tribe). Indians are also residents
of the states where they live. However,
some Indians with a traditional orienta­
tion view themselves only as citizens o f
their nations (see D eloria and Lytle
1983).
Depending on the user or context of
use, the following terms may be dispar­
aging: bow and arrow (meaning a N a­
tive American); brave] buck; chief (when
this title is not ap p licab le); Indian
maiden; injun; papoose; powwow (also
pow-wow, derived from an Algonquian
term for a native healer or spiritual leader
and still used in that sense among some
eastern Indian peoples); squaw, wam­
pum; and warpath. Witch doctor, for an
indigenous healer, is regarded as deroga­
tory, and many Native Americans prefer
medicine person, doctor, spiritual leader,
or diagnostician to the anthropologist’s
shaman. Berdache has been used to de­
scribe a N ative A m erican m an who
adopts the dress and ways associated
with women. However, as a term derived
from a Persian word meaning “a boy
kept for unnatural purposes,” it is now
regarded as offensive by these people
and discredited as being ethnocentric. It
is being replaced by two spirit, referring
to N ative A m erican s w ho are gay,
transgendered, or lesbian. Wild Indian
has been used to refer to an unruly child.
“It’s a wonder some of them w eren’t
killed throwing lumps of coal and ragged
rocks at each other like a band of wild
In d ia n s ” (Jam es T. F a rre ll, Young
Lonigan, 1932, 14). To get one's Indian
118 Indian
up means to become angry.
R edskins, savages, warriors, and
c h ie fs, am ong o th e r n ic k n am e s or
American Indian monikers, have been
in use by high school, college, and pro­
fessional sports teams (see Dorsey and
Lynn 1991). Peter Filichia (Professional
Baseball Franchises, 1993) notes that
since baseball began in 1869, there have
been 138 major or minor league base­
ball team s in the U nited States and
Canada named for “Indians.”
Although not all American Indians
are offended by the use o f Indian mas­
cots, many are, regarding their use as
racist, stereotypical, and disrespectful of
such symbols as feathers, painted body
d esigns, and so-called peace pipes,
which are considered sacred in Native
A m erican cultures. N ative A m erican
protests during the 1991 World Series
between the Atlanta Braves and the M in­
nesota Twins, however, did not stop
Braves fans from dem onstrating their
support o f the team by retaining the tra­
ditional “tomahawk chop” gesture, and
the 1995 W orld S eries betw een the
C lev e lan d In d ian s and the A tla n ta
Braves revived the controversy. The uni­
versities of Wisconsin and M innesota
adopted the “nickname rule,” which bars
en g ag in g in n o nleague gam es w ith
schools that use Native Americans as
symbols.
The terms people and nation were
used for Native American groups earlier
than tribe (Fried 1975), which some­
times connotes backwardness. Nation is
often preferred because it connotes sov­
ereignty. Indian national and cultural
names are used with pride by many Na­
tive American groups.
See also A m e r i n d , a p p l e , B l a c k I n­
d i a n , b r a v e , b r e e d , b u c k , C r o , E s k im o ,
g o o d In d ia n , h o n e s t In d ia n , h o o c h , I n ­
d ia n A m e ric a n , I n d ia n c o u n tr y , In d ia n
g iv e r , In d ia n h a i r c u t , In d ia n p rin c e s s ,
I n d ia n p ro b le m , I n ju n , N a tiv e A m e ric a n ,
NOBLE SAVAGE, POPSICLE, R ed PO W ER,
r e d s k in , sa v a g e, s c h m o e h a w k , s q u a w ,
TR IB E, TRIRACIAL M IX ES, U N C L E T O M
(Uncle Tomahawk).
Indian Am erican. A term that has been
used in two ways: ( 1) as a synonym for
vAmerican Indian (Native American), one
which Deloria (1974, 6) claim s is un­
welcome among most Native Americans
because it arose from the m elting pot
concept o f the United States, an idea
deemed harmful to Indian tribal identity;
and ( 2) m ore com m only, to refer to
A m ericans o f South A sian descent—
specifically, from India. Those o f other
South Asian countries may be offended
by use o f the term to refer to them. Also
heard in sense num ber two are A sian
Indians, Asian-Indian Americans, or In-
dia-American.
See also A s i a n I n d i a n , I n d i a n , N a ­
t iv e A m e ric a n .
Indian country. According to Deloria and
Lytle (1983), distant lands largely un­
know n and inhabited by peoples re­
garded by Europeans as uncivilized. In
U.S. military usage, also often consid­
ered offensive, it has long meant “en­
emy territory.” In legal terminology, the
phrase is used for designated geographic
areas in which tribal and federal, but not
state, laws usually apply. In addition,
Indian country can mean the national
Native American population, sim ilar to
African American community. F or more
on this usage, see U tter (1993,167-70).
“Solutions to Indian problems in Indian
country m ade in W ashington rarely
work” (Daniel K. Inouye, 1991, in Lewis
D. Eigen and Jonathan P. Siegel, The
M acmillan Dictionary o f Political Quo­
tations, 1993, 429).
See also I n d i a n , I n d i a n p r o b l e m ,
N a tiv e A m e ric a n .
Indian giver. Expression for someone who
offers a gift then takes it back. Although
Indian giver is likely to be used in inno­
cence, and often by children, it may give
offense. Waldman (1994) says the ex­

pression originally referred to the cus­
tom o f some Native Americans of ex­
pecting an equivalent gift or more after
a display of generosity. He also notes that
activists have applied this term to white
officials who reneged on land rights to
Native Americans. Jack Weatherford, in
th e title o f his book Indian G ivers
(1988), uses the expression ironically to
refer to the Native American as a con­
tributor to American culture.
See a l s o G y p s y , j e w / j e w d o w n , w e l s h .
In d ia n h aircut. An Old West expression for
a scalping. “The traditional wisdom of
American history asserts that the ‘sav­
age’ Indians scalped ‘civilized’ whites
in their resistance to the ‘tam ing’ of the
continent,” says James Axtell (1981,17),
exploring the question o f w hether it
m ig h t have been w hite people who
taught Native Americans “the unkindest
cut.” In fact, scalping was practiced be­
fore the arrival of white people in the
A m eric as, at least by som e N ative
American tribes along the St. Lawrence
River and in some parts of what is now
the eastern U nited States. European
colonists, however, also engaged in the
practice and offered scalp bounties to
friendly Indians to encourage them to
kill enem y Indians. In any case, as
Waldman (1994) notes, “Scalping is not
necessarily fatal.”
In d ia n princess. A black female, probably
originally meant as a euphemism, but
today carrying tones of both racism and
sexism.
For other words for black women, see
b l a c k , cross-references. See especially
B ap , b ro w n s u g a r.
In d ia n problem . A reference to the fron­
tier question o f “H ow ...the newly ar­
rived immigrants [were] to deal with the
Native inhabitants of the land” (Deloria
and Lytle, in U tter 1993, 25). As Utter
(19 9 3 ,2 4-27) has pointed out, this term
came into use during the first European
encounters with Native Americans. Over
Indian problem 119
the centuries of contact, the meaning of
the phrase has varied, evolving from its
use by white society, including the fed­
eral government. It has referred to (1)
Native Americans and their use of and
claim to the land, especially in areas
desired by w hite settlers; (2) Native
Americans’ resistance to measures im­
posed on them to coerce or persuade
them to give up their land, their identity,
and their cultures; and (3) their efforts
or lack of opportunities to reorganize
their societies after conquest, their place­
ment on reservations, and their continu­
ing legal battles with state and federal
governments regarding rights.
For many, use may imply that the vic­
tim is the guilty party; the problems that
have been visited on the Native Ameri­
can— colonialism and paternalism, vio­
lence and discrimination— are thus ob­
scured by language. By the late nineteenth
century, after hundreds of thousands of
Native Americans had been killed or sub­
dued by white people or decimated by
diseases introduced by them, the U.S.
government tried to solve “the Indian
problem,” as it was called, by a policy of
forced assimilation that resulted in fur­
ther loss of Indian land and tradition.
U sage carries different m eanings
among Native Americans. They have of­
ten turned it against white society, re­
ferring to its dealings with Indian groups
and to Indian resistance to encroachment
or assimilation as “the white man’s prob­
lem.” For Native Americans still engaged
in asserting their rights and holding on
to what they are entitled to, the “prob­
lem” is one of legal and economic issues.
The term plight, often associated with
conditions am ong Native Americans,
suggests more sympathy than does prob­
lem. “As the W hitem an’s invasion of
North America continued, other newly
introduced evils only increased the plight
o f the su ffe rin g In d ia n ” (R u sse ll
Thornton, in James A. Clifton, ed., The
Invented Indian, 1990, 36).
120 indigenous people
See also In d ia n , In d ia n c o u n tr y ,
N a tiv e A m e ric a n .
indigenous people. See n a tiv e .
inglesado. See a g rin g a d o . '
ingroup/outgroup, we/they. Ingroup and
outgroup refer respectively to the group
that “we” belong to and the group that
“they” belong to. The terms were coined
by nineteenth-century sociologist Wil­
liam G raham Sumner, who spoke of
them also as we-group and others-group
{Folkways, 1906). Either one could be
any kind o f group, a minority as well as
the dominant group. Many of the deroga­
tory terms in this book reflect the activ­
ity o f name-calling by an ingroup o f an
outgroup. The hostility of the ingroup
toward the outgroup is related to the de­
gree o f solidarity of the ingroup, their
ethnocentrism, and the nature and extent
o f any threats perceived as coming from
the outgroup.
We/they and us/them are expressions
representing the ingroup/outgroup dis­
tinction. The w e ’s (one’s own group)
usually have it, whatever is in question—
virtue, moral fiber, even humanity; the
theys lack it. According to Philip Slater
(1991), one of the ten signs o f a grow­
ing authoritarianism in the United States
is the dualistic “us versus them” think­
ing. “Officials and writers in both Cali­
fornia and Florida blame their state’s
p ro b lem s on im m ig ra tio n — on the
‘them s’ that came in to ruin paradise for
‘us’” (Carl T. Rowan, Boston Sunday
Herald, 10 October 1993, 37).
The phrases those people and you
p eo p le refer to the u n d ifferentiated
outgroup, often a racial or ethnic group,
and are frequently biased, distancing the
speaker from those labeled. “ ‘Those
people’ languishing in the drug infested,
economically depressed, crime ridden
central cities— those are our people. We
m ust be in relatio n sh ip w ith them ”
(Glenn Loury, in Robert S. Boynton,
Atlantic M onthly, March 1995, 67). A t­
Y
tention was called to the bias o f the ex­
pression you people during the presiden­
tial campaign o f 1992 when candidate
Ross Perot was chastised for using it
when addressing the NAACP.
Multiculturalists seek to obliterate the
'in g ro u p ’s ethnocentric sense o f “them”
w ithout, however, eradicating ethnic
identity. They wish by the same token
to ensure an inclusive “we” in “we the
people,” as opposed to the preemptive
“we” that originally m eant the m ore
privileged white people. Inclusion, how­
ever, is not a natural process in m ost
groups. Sometimes what seems like a
gesture o f inclusion may, in fact, be a
patronizing act that only reinforces a
sense o f “us,” as when white Americans
once referred to African Americans in
the armed forces as “our colored boys”
or when white people call Asian busi­
ness allies “honorary white people.”
See also e t h n o c e n t r i s m , f o r e i g n e r ,
o t h e r , x e n o p h o b ia .
Injun, Injin, ’jin. Injun is an early collo­
quial form o f Indian, resulting from a
corruption of the di sound to a soft g.
According to Spears (1991), it has been
used in U.S. dialect and stereotypical
cowboy jargon since the nineteenth cen­
tury without necessarily being deroga­
tory. It is considered disrespectful today,
however. “An Injun never raised nothin’
but hell an ’ hair” (Charlie Russell, in
Ramon F. Adams, Western Words, 1956,
83). The expression ’j in is also used as
an epithet for a Native American, espe­
cially by black people.
For another term that represents the
same form o f corruption o f sound, see
C a j u n . See also I n d i a n .
inner city. A euphemism appearing in the
1960s to refer to slum s or ghettos—
Latino and, especially, black neighbor­
hoods— where poor people o f color are
surrounded by white people. The stereo­
typical associations are often with sub­
stance abuse and other forms o f street

crime. “Inner-city schools have started
adding ‘drive-by-shooting drills’ to tra­
ditional fire drills” (U.S. News & World
Report, 8 November 1993, 32). It may
also connote the ethnic diversity of the
city.
See also b l a c k p r o b l e m , g h e t t o , s o ­
c ia l PATHOLOGY, UNDERCLASS.
in s titu tio n a l ra c is m . Discriminatory prac­
tices seen as being built into the struc­
ture o f a society, rooted in social, edu­
cational, and economic contexts that do
not necessarily involve conscious racist
intentions, and held in place by agents
o f social control. Such practices are part
o f the normal operation of a society, as
was, for example, the principle of sepa­
rate but equal, which resulted in the de­
nial of educational opportunities to black
p eople that w ere available to w hite
people.
B lack activist Stokely Carm ichael
(now Kwame Toure) and political sci­
entist Charles Hamilton are credited with
developing the concept of institutional
racism (1967), which became very popu­
lar with the media and academia during
the 1960s. The phrase is still seen in print
today, commonly in sociology texts; yet
according to Feagin and Sikes (1994,5),
at least among mainstream white ana­
lysts and some black neoconservatives,
it is being replaced by less harsh or less
radical term s that reflect recent— but
much disputed— views that the signifi­
cance o f race is declining in U.S. soci­
ety.
See a l s o r a c e , r a c is m .
in te g ra tio n . See s e g r e g a t io n .
A reference to any aspect of
in te rc u ltu ra l.
interaction between people of different
cultural backgrounds. It is most often
used in the phrases intercultural com­
munication and intercultural education
or intercultural training, although it also
appears in more specific contexts, such
as intercultural marriage and intercul­
tural negotiations. Use of intercultural
interracial 121
implies a systematic effort to adopt atti­
tudes and behaviors designed to elimi­
nate cultural biases and stereotyping
from human interactions.
The term is usually synonymous with
cross-cultural, though efforts have been
made, unsuccessfully, to confine cross-
cultural to that which involves compari­
sons between cultures, not that which is
interactive. Traditionally, among anthro­
pologists, for example, cross-cultural
has referred to the strategy o f using data
from many cultures to explore certain
cultural relationships or patterns.
As a description of a kind of advo­
cacy of ethnic diversity, intercultural is
virtually synonym ous with m ulticul­
tural. And as with multicultural, there
are bound to be jabs taken whenever
usage is not as inclusive as it pretends to
be: “A tV assar...the word ‘intercultural’
recently took on new m eaning after
members of the Celtic Society and the
Jewish Union were told there was no
room for them in the school’s new In­
tercultural Center. To ensure that no one
would again mistake its real purpose, the
facility was renamed the Intercultural
Center: A Center for Asian, Black and
Latino Students” (U.S. News & World
Report, 19 April 1993, 568).
See also in t e r r a c ia l , m u l t ic u l t u r a l ­
is m .
in te rn a tio n a l. See f o r e ig n e r .
Of, or involving, different races
in te rra c ia l.
or members o f different races. The term
generally refers to interaction between
people of different racial backgrounds.
However, it is also used more specifi­
cally to refer to those situations, con­
texts, and even people— dating, mar­
riage, adoptive families, biracial persons,
and so on— in which more than one ra­
cial element has been joined or juxta­
posed, in such a way usually as to chal­
lenge socially and economically those
involved (though the possible up side to
this is pride in diversity o f background).
122 Inuit
Interracial may be synonyous with m ul­
tiracial, which, however, does not em ­
phasize interaction so much as the m ix­
ing o f racial com ponents. T he term
sounds like jargon, almost as much as
its cousin word intraracial. Neverthe­
less, and in spite of the discredited no­
tion o f race, interracial is current today.
It does not carry the negative connota­
tions once associated with m ixed nor is
it likely to evoke the animosities still as­
sociated am ong many with interm ar­
riage. The periodical Interrace claims
its market is “interracial couples, fami­
lies, and people.”
I.C. is a recent slang abbreviation for
interracial couple. The abbreviation,
used by these couples themselves, is not
derogatory as of this writing.
See also b i r a c i a l , d i v e r s i t y , i n t e r -
c u ltu ra l, m is c e g e n a tio n ,
m u ltic u ltu ra lis m , m u ltira c ia l, ra c e ,
ra in b o w .
In u it, In n uit. See E s k im o .
invisible/invisibility. A metaphor favored
by m ulticulturalists and sociological
writers in discussing oppressed peoples.
It refers to those not socially seen or eco­
nomically apparent to a dominant group,
characterizing those relegated to second-
class citizenship or other subordinate or
oppressed positions. “I am an invisible
man. I am a man of substance, of flesh
and bone, fiber and liquids— and I might
even be said to possess a mind. I am in­
visible, understand, sim ply because
people refuse to see me” (Ellison 1952,
3).
Invisibility refers to the effect a domi­
nant society has by ignoring or pushing
out of sight those minorities whose pres­
ence m ight spoil the illusion that the
dominant society is acting legitimately
or who might challenge the dominant
society’s power. “Increasing the quan­
tity o f references to a people doesn’t
m ulticulturalize a textb o o k ...; at the
same time, invisibility definitely hurts”
(Rethinking Schools, W inter 1992-93,
10). In The O th er A m eric a (1 962),
Michael Harrington argued that the poor
in America are conspicuous by their in­
visibility.
See also d i s c o v e r e d , m a i n s t r e a m ,
'm i n o r i t y , n o n p e r s o n , o p p r e s s i o n , t o k e n .
Irish. From Old English Irisc, from Iras,
o f Celtic origin, “people o f Ireland.”
However, o f the people o f Ireland, the
Catholics are m ore likely to think of
themselves as Irish.
The use of the adjective Irish in de­
rogatory com pound forms dates from
about the seventeenth century in E n ­
gland. Partridge (1984) derives the de­
rogatory adjectival usage from the ste­
reotypical association of Irish with un­
couthness and lack o f education before
the nineteenth century. Roback (1979)
m ix e d ,
lists fifty-nine ethnic slurs formed with
Irish. Here is a sampling of these slurs:
Irish buggy, m eaning a wheelbarrow,
said to be the means by which the Irish
learned to walk on their hind legs; Irish
clubhouse, a reference to a police -sta­
tion, alluding to the old stereotype of the
Irish as criminals; Irish dinner, “noth­
ing to eat,” evoking the poverty o f the
Irish in the nineteenth century; and Irish
kiss, “a slap in the face.”
A m ericans, follow ing the English,
had already regarded the Irish as braw l­
ers (hence, such expressions as “to get
one’s Irish up,” meaning to get angry).
With the arrival o f a large num ber of
mainly poor immigrants competing with
other immigrants for jobs between 1846
and 1860, many pejorative terms were
directed against the Irish, sometimes re­
garded as “niggers turned inside out,”
and they became even more the butt of
jokes. In the 1870s, cartoonist Thomas
Nast popularized the derogatory depic­
tion of the Irishman as a dumb brute with
apelike features.
The term Irish A m erican was first
used for the Irish in the U nited States in

the 1830s, m ore than a decade before the
wave o f Irish immigrants reached this
country as a result of the Irish potato
famine o f 1846. Early in the twentieth
century, it was also used for the language
spoken by Irish Americans. Irish A m eri­
can once resonated with both the Catho­
lic and, especially, the ethnic element,
the Irish having long been stereotyped
as lower class; and it probably still does
today to a slight extent am ong m ain­
stream Protestants. In Irish Americans
(1979), however, M arjorie R. Fallows
depicted Irish Americans as fully assimi­
lated.
African Americans may use Irish to
m ean white people in general.
F o r s lu rs a g a in s t th e Iris h , s e e h o o d ­
lum I r i s h , J a k e y , l a c e c u r t a in I r i s h ,
M ic k , n a r r o w b a c k , P a d d y , P a d d y
w agon, P a t , s h a n t y I r is h , s p u d , T u r k ,
yello w -belly. F o r s im ila r s lu rs d ire c te d
a t o th e r E u ro p e a n g ro u p s , se e D utch,
F r e n c h , G r e e k , I t a l ia n , J e w , P o l e ,
S c o t c h , S p a n is h , w e l s h .
Israelite. S e e Jew .
Italian. A n inhabitant of Italy or someone
o f Italian descent. Italian has had a his­
tory o f biased usage. Roback (1979) lists
several slurs based on Italian, including
Italianfootball (a hand bomb, also called
a guinea fo o tb a ll), Italian hurricane
(spaghetti with garlic), in the Italian
m anner (anal intercourse), and Italian
perfum e (garlic). Mencken (1962, suppl.
1, 607) notes that in Chicago in the A1
Capone era, Italian Americans protested
the frequent use o f Italian in the news­
papers for a gunman, w hereupon the
new spapers switched to Sicilian.
Lipski (1976), who argues that some
forms o f mispronunciation of the name
o f an ethnic group are correlated with
Ivan 123
prejudice against the group, points to the
deliberate mispronunciation of Italian as
eyetalian, frequently found among those
with a low regard for Italians. Consider­
ing that most people pronounce Italy and
Italian without exaggeration, says Lipski
(113), “the exaggerated spelling pronun­
ciation [i.e., eyetalian, with an initial
long i] may, at least originally, have in­
dicated a desire to ridicule.” As a re­
gional characteristic, however, or a us­
age among older or less well-educated
speakers, this pronunciation may not be
intended as derogatory.
In the early history of Italian immi­
gration, Italian Americans did not think
of themselves as Italian, but identified
with particular villages or provinces of
their home country. Italian Americans
have also been known as “Children of
Columbus” (an association that still car­
ries some pride for Americans o f Italian
descent) and neutrally as Italo-Ameri-
can. The assim ilation of Italians into
American culture has been explored in
Richard D. A lba’s Italian Americans,
1985.
For slurs against the Italians, see
DAGO, DINO, EYETALIAN, GARLIC BREATH,
GUIDO/GUIDETTE, GUINEA, MACARONI, M a ­
FIA, PIZZA MAN, SPAGHETTI, SPIC, UN CLE
T om (U n c le G io v a n n i), w o p. F o r s im ila r
s lu rs d ire c te d a t o th e r E u r o p e a n g ro u p s ,
s e e D u t c h , F r e n c h , G r e e k , I r is h , J e w ,
P o l e , S c o t c h , S p a n is h , w e l s h . F o r a
s im ila rly m is p ro n o u n c e d n a m e re la te d
to b ia s , s e e A ra b (A y -ra b ).
Ivan. From the Russian personal name for
a man, a generic nickname for a Rus­
sian, applying especially to a Russian or
(formerly) Soviet soldier. W hile often
used stereotypically, the term is not nec­
essarily derogatory.
See a l s o R u s k y , R u s s ia n .

J such terminology applied to the Japa­
J a k e . D erogatory appellation for a Jew
based on “Jacob,” the name of the grand­
son o f the Jewish patriarch Abraham.
See also J e w . See especially U n c l e
T o m (Uncle Jake).
Jak ey . D erogatory term used by some Irish
A m erican Catholics in W isconsin for a
non-Irish A merican Catholic. The term
c a rrie s th e sense o f being from an
outgroup with a different ethnic heritage.
It may also be used in a teasing or affec­
tionate manner.
See a l s o I r i s h .
Ja p . Pejorative dating from perhaps as early
as the mid-nineteenth century for a Japa­
nese person; also used for things made
in Japan. In its earlier decades of use,
the derogatory overtones may not have
been as definite, and it is still less pejo­
rative in Britain than in the United States.
According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictio­
nary o f English Usage (1989), deroga­
tory use can be traced to West Coast
newspapers during the first decade of the
tw entieth century.
As the Japanese began to surpass the
Chinese in num ber in the United States,
they were subjected to numerous pain­
ful epithets, such as dirty Jap and yel­
low Jap. Jap, however, was especially
w idespread during World War II. After
the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor
in 1941, Japanese Americans on the West
Coast were greeted by storefront signs
that read, “We kill rats and Japs here,”
and some U.S. newspapers were stereo­
typing the Japanese as sly and sneaky
(an image-that preceded, but was rein­
forced by, Pearl Harbor). After the Japa­
nese attack on Pearl Harbor, the expres­
sion “to pull a Jap” came to be used for
any sn e a k a tta c k o r d e c e p tio n
(Wentworth and Flexner 1975).
During the war, Americans used the
terms Nazi and Fascist to distinguish the
German and Italian enemy from German
Jap 125
Americans and Italian Americans, but no
nese, all o f whom— both American citi­
zens and the foreign enem y— w ere
“Japs” (Hosokawa 1969,247). Similarly,
w hile A m ericans fo u g h t H itler, the
“Japs,^ not Tojo or Hirohito, were their
enemy during the war. The expression
“After all, a Jap is a Jap” was used to
justify the government’s rounding up o f
Japanese Americans and sending them
to relocation camps.
The editor o f the New Republic once
defended the publication’s use of a head­
line that read “How to Gyp the Japs,”
arguing that the term is only a national
nickname, similar to Yanks, Brits, or, at
worst, Frogs. The Asian American Hand­
book, which cites this example, coun­
tered that words such as Jap and nip­
pers are “not nicknames. They are slurs
never to be used” (1991, 4.2).
In 1986, Sense o f Congress Resolu­
tion 290 recommended to the Commit­
tee on Education and Labor that the stan­
dard abbreviation Jap (for Japan and
Japanese) be replaced by the nonoffen­
sive Jpn. In the 1990s, however, the rac­
ist slur stayed in force in response to
Japanese success in American economic
markets, as shown, for example, in a
bumper sticker reading “No Jap crap for
this American.”
Jap has also been inaccurately and
pejoratively applied to Chinese A meri­
cans and Korean Americans, among oth­
ers.
Although Japanese itself is seldom
heard as a slur, Roback (1979) offers a
few dated exceptions in which it appears
in ethnic references, including/ierce as
a Japanese mask (frightful, hideous) and
silent as a Japanese (ominously taciturn,
watchful). After World War II, and be­
fore the economic rise of Japan in the
past few decades, the expression made
in Japan signified a product that was
cheap and inferior.
For other words for the Japanese, see
126 JAP
B u d d h a h e a d , C h e r r y B l o s s o m , d in k ,
GEI$HA, GOO-GOO, GOOK, KOTONK, N lP,
RICE-EATER, s l a n t , s l o p e , t o j o , y a p , y e l ­
l o w , zip. See also A s i a n A m e r i c a n , m o d e l
m in o rity , O r i e n t a l , r e lo c a tio n .
JA P. See J e w is h A m e r ic a n p r i n c e s s .
' today may be used as a collective name
Je rry , je rry ; G erry. One of several epithets ’
used by British and U.S. troops for Ger­
man soldiers during both world wars, but
especially World War I. It was used also
for a German airplane. In general, “a
German” or “Germany.” “I killed more
Jerries than any five officers put to­
gether” (Frank Sinatra, as a character in
the 1954 film Suddenly).
The etymology of the term Jerry is
unclear. The term was nineteenth-cen­
tury English slang for a cham ber pot
(also called a jeroboam), and World War
I German soldiers’ helmets resembled
the pot; but M erriam-W ebster’s Colle­
giate Dictionary (1993) notes that it is
p ro b ab ly an a lte ra tio n o f G erm an.
Rawson (1994) adds that one of the more
imaginative theories for the origin of the
ad jec tiv e je r r y -b u ilt, w hich m eans
“flimsy construction,” derives from the
ethnic slur jerry, the reference is to what
were regarded as the shoddy construc­
tion techniques o f German soldiers.
A close kin to Jerry is Gerry (based
on German). It, too, is derogatory slang
for a German, usually a German soldier
during wartime, or for someone o f Ger­
man descent.
See a l s o D u t c h , G e r m , H e in i e , H e s ­
s ia n , H un, kraut.
Jew . A member of a people who trace de­
scent from the biblical Israelites or
postexilic adherents o f the religion of
Judaism. N ot of any one race, nor part
o f any single country, Jews are unified
by their religion and take their identity
also from com m on ethnic traditions.
A lthough an individual may be con­
verted to Judaism, someone bom a Jew
who rejects Judaism may still identify
with Jews and be regarded as one.
Jew, which has a long history of forms,
derives originally from Judah (Hebrew
Yehiidhdh), the name o f the fourth son of
Jacob, the tribe o f his descendants, and
the ancient kingdom o f southern Pales­
tine peopled by his tribe. Israel, which
for all Jewry and, since 1948, for the Jew­
ish state, referred in particular to the
northern kingdom o f ten tribes. Hebrew
was used in the Bible by other peoples as
a name for the Israelites; today it refers
to the Hebrew language. Israeli applies
to a citizen o f the State o f Israel, but not
all Israelis are Jews, and o f course, not
all Jews are Israelis. Israelite, the respect­
able term for a Jew in the United States
in the m id-nineteenth century, is still
largely a neutral term when it refers to a
Jew of ancient times. However, it may
carry some derogatory connotations when
used for modem Jews, as, similarly, might
Semite.
Throughout history, the term Jew has
often been used in a context o f racial
malice. For example, in Nazi Germany
Jew (in German, Jude) appeared in the
middle o f a mandatory yellow star sewn
on one’s clothing to mark a Jewish per­
son (this “Jewish badge” was also worn
by Jews during the M iddle Ages). Since
at least the early seventeenth century,
Jew has been used pejoratively in E n­
glish for a usurer, a shrewd person of
many wiles, or any rogue or swindler.
Besides being money-hungry, the Jew
has long been considered poison to in­
nocent gentile morals, and the word as
an epithet is often linked with other sup­
posedly malignant religious and politi­
cal or economic forces: “He [Alfred E.
Smith, first Rom an Catholic candidate
for U.S. president] will get the vote of
the Jew-Jesuit movie gang who want sex
films and Sunday shows to coin millions
through the corruption o f youth” (The
Rail-Splitter, in M yers 1960, 268). The
lowercase je w is a slur, and dirty Jew,
Jewboy, Jew banker {Jew R othschild

banker), and Jew problem are highly
contemptuous. Roback (1979) lists some
fifty-seven English-language slurs car­
rying the adjective Jew, Jewish, or Jew ’s,
all invariably disparaging, as are the vari­
ous antisem itic folk ditties or chants,
such as
Jew, Jew,
Two for five
That’s what keeps
Jew alive.
As a result of such usages, for many
people Jew does not sound free of anti­
semitism. In addition, the singular Jew
may sound overly ethnic to non-Jews or
even Jews who prefer assimilation.
Adrienne Rich writes of her 1940s
social milieu: . .the word ‘Jew’ was not
used by polite gentiles. I som etim es
heard my best friend’s father, a Presby­
terian minister, allude to ‘the Hebrew
people,’ or ‘people o f the Jewish faith.’
‘Ideals’ and ‘manners’ included not hurt­
ing som eone’s feelings by calling her or
him a Negro or a Jew— naming the hated
identity” (Brown and Ling 1993, 93).
Some writers still resort to the circum­
locution Jewish person. Even the plural
form, Jews, has been avoided as a refer­
ence to informal and individual groups
o f Jews as opposed to Jewish people as
a collectivity (the Jewry).
Perlm utter and Perlmutter note that
the pejorative edge o f Jew has now been
d u lled , but they recall the tradition
am ong Jews themselves in the United
States o f offering guidelines and warn­
ings about usage, as appeared in a 1918
A nti-Defamation League tract:
A certain touch of opprobrium and
contempt has attached to the very
name “Jew,” which has lasted to
some extent down to the present day
among the common people, and
even among some of the educated,
not one of whom could probably
trace the real origin of his prejudice.
— Perlmutter and Perlmutter
1982, 28
jew/jew down______ 127
In the U.S. writings of antisemitism,
the code words German, European,
banking elite, Eastern elite, internation­
alist, international bankers, and shadow
government are frequently used to allude
to Jews./
For other words referring to Jews, see
A b ie , A b i e K a b i b b l e , A r a b ( A y - r a b ) ,
b a g e l, C h r is t k ille r , c ity boy, e a g le -
b eak , E a s te r n e r (E a s te rn e lite ), E s­
k im o , GREENHORN, GYPSY, H EBE, HEBREW /
H e b r e w e s s , H y m ie , I k e y , J e w b o y , J e w e s s ,
J e w is h A m e r ic a n p r in c e s s , J e w Y o r k ( e r ),
K h a z a r s , k i k e , L i t , m o c k y , n o s h r im ,
porker, R a ch el, sch n o zzo la , sh a d y ,
SH E EN Y , SH IK SE, SHY LO CK , U N C L E T O M
(Uncle Jake), Yid.
S ee also a n t i s e m itis m , C h o sen
P e o p le , d o w n to w n , g e n o c id e , g e n t l e ­
m a n ’s a g r e e m e n t , g o l d e n g h e t t o , Ho­
l o c a u s t , H y m ie to w n , J e w c a n o e , je w /je w
d o w n , J e w f l a g , J e w is h d is e a s e , J e w is h
n o s e , J e w is h p l o t , J e w is h p ro b le m , J e w -
m a ic a n , J e w s o f t h e C a r ib b e a n , J e w s o f
t h e O r i e n t , p o g r o m , y e l l o w , Z io n is m .
Jewboy, jew boy. From the early nineteenth
century, used as a slur on a Jewish male
of any age, a denial of manhood. Jew
girl and Jew man have also been used
pejoratively. Many remember President
R ichard N ixo n ’s references to “Jew
boys” on the Watergate tapes.
For other words for Jews, see Jew,
cross-references.
Jew canoe. A big, expensive automobile,
alluding to the stereotypical wealth of
Jews.
For other words referring to Jews, see
Jew, cross-references.
jew /jew down, Jew /Jew down. To cheat by
sharp practice or to haggle or bargain till
a price is reduced. The form to jew seems
to have originated in the early nineteenth
century, while to je w down appeared
somewhat later. Both are Americanisms.
Jaher (1994, 239^-0) cites an example
of the use of the verb from 1818 that links
Jews with another group stereotyped as
128 Jewess
shrewd traders: “All Jews and worse than
Jew§— [are] Yankees, for ■ Yankee can
Jew a Jew directly.” The expression “to
jew someone out of something” refers to
cheating.
A lth o u g h Jew s them selv es w ere
among the first users o f the expression
to jew , by the first half o f the twentieth
century, Jews were determined to ban the
use o f the word as a verb.
For other words referring to Jews, see
J e w , cross-references. See also G y p s y ,
I n d ia n g iv e r , w e l s h .
Jew ess. A traditional term for a Jewish
woman, usually regarded as offensive,
both as an ethnic slur and as a sexist
word. In the 1890s, the Jewess often
appeared in fiction stereotyped as a beau­
tiful but flaw ed heroine, as in N oel
D unbar’s Jule the Jewess and Harriet
Newell Baker’s Rebecca the Jewess. In
spite o f these biases, The Colum bia
Guide to Standard A m erican English
(1993), among other guides, reports that
some Jewish women still seem to use the
word for themselves.
For other words for Jews, see J e w ,
cross-references. See especially H e -
brew /H ebrew ess, J e w is h A m e r ic a n p r in ­
cess, R achel.
Jew flag, Jew ish flag. Slang from the early
tw entieth century for a dollar bill or
banknote, alluding disparagingly to the
alleged obsessive concern o f Jewish
people w ith money. W entw orth and
Flexner (1975) labeled the term “vaga­
bond use.” Sometimes it is capitalized,
and thus rendered even more derogatory.
For other words referring to Jews, see
J e w , cross-references.
Jew -hating. See a n t is e m it is m .
J e w is h A m e r ic a n p r in c e s s , J e w is h -
A m erican princess, Jew ish princess.
Often used in acronym form (JAP), a
slang term stereotyping young Jewish
women as wealthy, pampered, grasping,
and self-centered. It has been used with
what some (non-Jews as well as Jews,
especially Jewish men targeting Jewish
women) have regarded as humor (known
as JAP-bashing or -busting). In the 1980s
this usage acquired, or at least was rec­
ognized for, the sexist and antisemitic
tone it carries today.
v According to Evelyn Torton Beck (in
A ndersen and C ollins 1992, 8 8 -9 5 ),
there are a number o f “war zones,” as
she calls them, to the use o f the term.
She cites both antisem itism and m i­
sogyny (JAP is the female version o f the
antisem ite’s Jew, hungry for money and
a parasite on society). She also gives
class hatred (old money resenting new,
i.e., the Jew is resented for “making it”)
and racism (the acronym is the same
word used for our enemies in World War
II; see J a p ) as dimensions o f the epithet’s
use.
The male equivalent, Jewish A m eri­
can prince, used occasionally in the
1970s, never acquired the force or sting
that the female version did.
For other words for Jews, see J e w ,
cross-references. See especially H e -
brew /H ebrew ess, J ew ess, R ach el.
Jew ish disease. During the decades o f the
great migration o f East European Jews
to the United States beginning in the
1880s, tuberculosis was considered a
disease spread by Jews, whose general
health was considered to be inferior to
that o f the Anglo-Saxon stock. Tuber­
culosis was also known as “the tailors’
disease,” a reference to an occupational
stereotype o f Jews. Actually, as Alan M.
Kraut (1994, 155) notes, tuberculosis
was “neither peculiar to Jews nor to
those who worked in the garment indus­
try.” Roback (1979) lists Jewish disease
in use also as psychiatric slang for amau­
rotic idiocy (Tay-Sachs disease) and
medical slang for diabetes.
Jews were not the only ones accused
o f being disease carriers. O ther im m i­
grant groups, including Irish, Chinese,
and Italians, bore the unfair stigma o f
pestilence carriers.

For other words referring to Jews, see
Jew, cross-references.
Jew ish nose, nose. Part o f a common ste­
reotype o f a Jewish person: an aquiline
nose, said to resemble a written “ 6” with
a stem that slants. H owe (1976, 46)
q u o te s the D ic tio n a ry o f R aces or
Peoples, published in 1910 by the Im ­
m igration Com m ission, a creation of
Congress: “ ...th e Jewish nose, and to a
less degree other facial characteristics,
are fo u n d w e ll-n ig h e v e ry w h e re
th ro u g h o ut the ra c e ....” A ntisem ites
have gone so far as to identify this bio­
logical mark o f Jewishness with the al­
legedly long Jew ish penis, both per­
ceived as signs of the Jew ’s lewdness
(Sander L. Gilman, in Jaher 1994,232).
M encken (1962, suppl. 1,617) notes the
rare slang use o f nose for a Jew.
For other words referring to Jews, see
Jew, cross-references. See especially
EAGLE-BEAK, SCHNOZZOLA.
Jew ish plot. The belief that Jews are per­
petually plotting against the welfare of
the U nited States. This old form o f anti­
semitism has occurred throughout the
twentieth century but was perhaps par­
ticularly prevalent during the fascist
m ovem ents o f the 1930s. Right-wing
extremists, contrary to all evidence, be­
lieved Jews to be in control o f signifi­
cant institutions in the country. This
phantom notion is often associated to­
day with neo-Nazis and other far right
groups, but others have played a role in
keeping it alive. The following comment
was made by Khalid Abdul Muhammad,
a spokesm an for the Nation of Islam,
before an-audience at Kean College in
New Jersey in February 1994: “I don’t
care who sits in the seat at the White
House. You can believe that the Jews
control that seat.”
For other words referring to Jews, see
J e w , cross-references. See also a n t is e m i ­
t is m , J e w is h p r o b l e m , Z io n is m .
Jew-maican 129
Jew ish problem , Jew p ro b lem , Jew ish
Q uestion. A common and largely Prot­
estant concern in the early part o f the
twentieth century with keeping Jews out
o f exclusive or monopolized areas of
social, economic, and political life. In
his hfstory o f H arv ard U n iv ersity ,
Samuel Eliot M orison wrote, “The first
G erman Jew s...w ere easily absorbed
into the social pattern; but at the turn of
the century the bright Russian Jewish
lads from the Boston public schools be­
gan to arrive...and [by 1921] Harvard
had her ‘Jewish problem’” (Three Cen­
turies o f Harvard, 1936, 147). In 1920,
The Intern a tio n a l Jew, The W orld’s
Problem, a reprint of twenty antisemitic
articles from the Dearborn Independent,
a newspaper owned and published by
industrialist Henry Ford, began with
such wild assertions as “Not only does
the Jewish Question touch those matters
that are common knowledge, such as fi­
nancial and commercial control, usurpa­
tion of political power, monopoly o f ne­
cessities, and autocratic direction o f the
very news that the A m erican people
read; but it reaches into the cultural re­
gion and so touches the very heart of
American life” (in Myers 1960, 282).
For other words referring to Jews, see
J e w , c ro s s -re fe re n c e s . S ee also
g e n t l e m a n ’s a g r ee m e n t , J e w is h p l o t .
Jew -m aican. An epithet, intended to be
derogatory, based on the attribution of
an entrepreneurial spirit, stereotypically
a Jewish characteristic, to West Indian
im m ig ra n ts, so m e o f w hom w ere
businesspeople or professionals in the
W est Indies before m igrating to the
United States, “ ...self-em ploym ent is
not so pronounced among West Indians
as to support crude popular notions con­
cerning ‘Jew -m aicans’...” (Steinberg
1989, 279).
See also J e w , J e w s o f t h e C a r ib b e a n ,
J e w s o f t h e O r ie n t .
130 Jews of the Caribbean \
Jew s o f the C arib b ean . Often derogatory
referen c e ap p lied to C ubans in the
United States, viewed as economically
successful. However, the phrase may
also be self-descriptive. Thus, a book
review o f David Rieff’s The Exile, about
C uban A m erican s, says th a t “R ieff
brings sensitivity and insight to this poi­
gnant study o f the people who call them­
selves ‘the Jews o f the C aribbean” ’
(Playboy, A ugust 1993, 32).
See a l s o J e w , J e w - m a ic a n , J e w s o f t h e
O r ie n t .
Jew s o f th e O rien t. Usually derogatory
reference to Chinese Americans, viewed
stereotypically as shrewd, frugal, and
successful— characteristics also attrib­
uted by stereotype to Jews.
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , J e w . For
sim ilar labels see J e w - m a ic a n , J e w s o f
the C a r ib b e a n .
Jew Y ork(er), jew york(er). Epithet link­
ing Jews with New York City because
o f the large population of Jews residing
there.
For other words for Jews, see J ew,
cross-references. See especially c i t y b o y .
Jezebel. Phoenician princess and queen of
Israel, wife o f Ahab, known in the Old
Testament as an idolator; in common
usage, a scheming, shameless, betray­
ing, or evil woman. When used for an
attractive black woman, this is a deroga­
tory reference to her alluring ways, re­
garded as tempting white men. “In these
streets out there, any little white boy
from Long Island or Westchester sees me
and leans out o f his car and yells...Say
there, Jezebel!...B et you know where
there’s a good tim e tonight” (Lorraine
Hansberry, To B e Young, Gifted, and
Black, 1969, 98). It may also serve to
censure a black woman regarded as sell­
ing out her people in order, for example,
to support a feminist cause.
For other words for black women, see
b l a c k , cross-references.
jigaboo, jig g ab o , jib ag o o , zig, zigaboo.
Contemptuous terms for African A m eri­
cans, also som etim es used for o th er
dark-skinned people. The Oxford D ic­
tionary o f M odern Slang (1992) relates
it to jig (a black person), after bugaboo.
v Jig was a sixteenth-century English
and colonial American term meaning a
dance, sport, or joke; but the term and
its variations, such as jiggle, jigger, jig -
jig, and jig-a-jig, were also used to refer
to copulation. Hence, both jig a b o o and
its cousin epithet jig connote the physi-
cality and sexuality that have long been
ste re o ty p ic a lly a ttrib u te d to b la c k
people. “ [Tom] Ire la n d rem e m b ers
events like the Colored Elks Street Fair
in 1898, when the ‘jig bands played from
booth to booth’” (Rudi Blesh and Harriet
Janis, They A ll Played Ragtime, 1950,
23). Jibagoo and zigaboo are like terms
patterned on jigaboo. M ajor (1994) lists
ziggaboo as a black usage that means a
black person, or a very dark-skinned
person. Jig g er is rhym ing slang for
nigger.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references.
Jim Crow, jim crow. Jim, a common name,
plus crow, referring to black or a black­
bird. It has been claim ed to derive from
the name o f a black slave, James Crow.
In any case, the white minstrel Thomas
“Jim C row ” R ice, w hose 1828 “Jim
Crow” song and dance founded the m in­
strel tradition, fixed the nam e in our lan­
guage. The refrain o f “Jim Crow” goes
like this:
Wheel about, and turn about, and
do just so;
And every time you wheel about,
Jump Jim Crow.
It may also mean any old black song
(once called “nigger songs”) or piece of
music; a street actor, especially a black
person who sang and clowned; or any
black person, or black people in general.
It has been expanded to Jim Crowism,

referring to discrimination or segrega­
tion. A “Jim Crow car” was a railroad
ca r to w hich black people w ere re­
stricted. All but the sense o f segregation
are restricted largely to the nineteenth
century. In current black use as a verb,
it refers to segregating oneself from
white people, or being clannish: “D on’t
go over there with those white people if
all you’re going to do is Jim Crow your­
selves” (Henry Louis Gates Jr., Colored
People, 1994, xii).
See also b l a c k , c r o w , n i g g e r , s e g r e ­
g a tio n .
John Cheese. See c h e e s e - e a t e r .
John Chinam an, John. Term was once
used as a personification o f all Chinese,
reflecting white people’s view of a ho­
mogenized mass o f people. At the time
the nam e was popular (the m id-nine­
teenth century) the Chinese in the United
States were primarily laborers. Usage
then also revealed an attitude toward the
Chinese as drudges, the legendary kind
sought out by white employers: “John
could work twelve hours on a handful
o f rice; im passive John could handle
blasting jobs that other men were too
nervous to carry out; brave John would
work all day at the end of a hundred-
foot rope, chiseling notches for trestle
su p ports.... G ood old John” (Murray
Morgan, in Hosokawa 1969, 42^43).
For other words for the Chinese, see
C h in a d o l l , C h in a m a n /C h in a w o m a n ,
C h in a m a n ’s c h a n c e , C h in e e , C h in k ,
c h o p s tic k s , c h o p su e y , c h o w , c o o lie ,
d in k , d r a g o n l a d y , f o r t u n e c o o k ie ,
LITTLE BROWN BROTHERS, M ICE-EATER, P A T ,
p ig ta il, s l a n t , s lo p e . See also A sia n
A m e ric a n .
Johnny Navajo. Any Indian man, thus ob­
scuring individuality. The term dates
from the second half of the nineteenth
century.
S e e a l s o I n d i a n , N a t iv e A m e r ic a n .
Judas. See C h ris t k ille r.
jungle bunny 131
jungle. Slang usage common in the first half
of the twentieth century for a hobo camp
or place where the urban unemployed
found temporary shelter. Urban jungle
has long been a metaphor for the rough-
and-tumble, amoral world of city streets
(Allen 1993, 36-38). Although the allu­
sion to the wild, animalistic side o f the
city probably originally reflected on
laissez-faire capitalism, this term some­
times shows up where the allusion is just
as much to the primitive and is meant as
a slur on black people. African Ameri­
cans, the racist stereotype goes, are both
tough, mean street people and biologi­
cally primitive— people close to their
ancestors in the “jungle.” D uring the
1967 race riot in Newark, New Jersey,
for example, the governor of New Jer­
sey, Richard Hughes, whose assistants
later denied any racist intent, fumed:
“We have determined that the line be­
tween a jungle assault on law and order
may as well be drawn here as anywhere
else in America” (in Safire 1993b). The
allusion, perhaps meant only to describe
the absence of civil order, did not go
unnoticed by African Americans.
Jungle is now the name of a techno
music style. In this context the connota­
tions are positive.
See also a p e , b u s h ( B u s h m a n ) , d a r k ­
e s t A fric a , ju n g le b u n n y , ju n g le fe v e r,
m o n k e y , p rim itiv e , s p e a r c h u c k e r , v o o ­
doo.
jungle bunny, junglebunny. Derogatory
term for a black person, originally for a
slave newly arrived from Africa, allud­
ing to primitiveness; also African bunny.
P erhaps because o f the dim inutive-
sounding bunny, this term may some­
times be used with jocular intent. Nev­
ertheless, it is racist and figures into the
white supremacist lexicon. It was a slur
used by one of T V ’s most popular big­
ots, Archie Bunker, who helped, as Allen
(1990, 12) has noted, to introduce the
suburbs to this old sign of contempt from
132 jungle fever
the city streets. Among the slurs on A f­
rican A m ericans that appeared in the
press in connection with personalities
in v o lv ed w ith b la ck ce le b rity O .J.
Simpson, who was acquitted of murder
in 1995, was jungle bunny.
From at least the 1950s, the term has
been aimed not only at African Ameri­
c a n s b u t, in p a rtic u la r, a t A fro -
Caribbeans, and Partridge (1984) notes
use for Asian Americans.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially a p e , j u n g l e , j u n g l e
f e v e r , m o n k e y , s p e a r c h u c k e r , VOODOO.
ju n g le fever. Black slang for the strong
desire o f white people to date A frican
Americans. The underlying belief is that
a black lover offers a tabooed prim al
passion. In the Spike Lee film Jungle
Fever ( 1991), this expression referred to
' the desire and curiosity, constituting a
kind o f affliction, behind the sexual li­
aison between a dark-skinned black man
and his white secretary.
See also j u n g l e , j u n g l e b u n n y .

K to be perfectly happy. One hopes it
K affir, kaffir, K afir (pi. Kaffirs, collect.
K affir). D isparaging term (form erly
Cafar, Caffer, from the Arabic kafir, “in­
fidel”) originally used by Arab traders
and slavers for the non-M uslim people
o f the east coast o f Africa. It later found
use in the nineteenth century as a Euro­
pean name for the Xhosa people of South
A frica or for any black African. During
apartheid, the South African government
required all black people to carry passes
allow ing them to move or work in a
white area. This requirem ent led to the
com m on bureaucratic insult, “Kaffir,
w here’s your pass!” Today, still a racist
slur to denote a black person, it is an
a c tio n a b le in s u lt in S o u th A fric a.
“K a ffir...is the equivalent of the term
nigger. I was called a ‘K affir’ many
tim es” (M ark M athabane, Kaffir Boy,
1986, xiii).
The term is also used outside of South
Africa to disparage black people. In fact,
the Los Angeles Times Style and Usage
Guide (1995) bans from use in the Times
the term K affir lily, a botanical term,
because o f its association with the slur
on black people. Kaffir lover, also white
kaffir, a white person who befriends or
favors black people, is a slur in the
U nited States as well as other English­
sp eak ing countries (see also n i g g e r
l o v e r ).
For other words in white use for black
people, see b l a c k , cross-references. See
especially A f r i c a n , b u s h ( B u s h m a n ),
E t h io p i a n , H o t t e n t o t , M a u M a u , N ig e ­
r ia n , P ygm y, Z ulu.
K an a k a, k a n a k a [ks-'na-ka]. Term (from
Hawaiian for “person”) used in the South
Pacific Islands contemptuously or affec­
tio n a te ly to d istin g u ish in digenous
people from white people. It reflects the
supercilious colonial attitudes o f the
white interlopers in the islands. “M ost
o f the Hawaiians lived in odd comers on
kike 133
fish and poi, a healthy diet, and were said
pleased them to see how thoroughly the
haoles were enjoying themselves in the
Kanakas’ lovely islands” (J. C. Furnas,
Anatomy o f Paradise, 1948, 172).
See also C a n u c k , g r a s s s k ir t , H a w a i ­
ia n , h u l a g ir l , p o i-e a t e r .
keskydee. See F rench.
K h a z a rs. The aristocracy o f the Turkic
people, who were converted to Judaism
in the eighth century. Their Jewish em­
pire held the balance of power between
the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim
Caliphate for nearly four centuries.
In the United States, the name has
been twisted into an antisemitic concept
by an ultraright group and theology called
the Christian Identity Church. This group
preaches Aryan racist ideas derived from
a nineteenth-century movement called
A nglo-Israelism or British Israelism.
Their usage contrasts today’s Jews, or so-
called Khazars (seed of Satan), with the
“true Jews,” whom Identity sees as the
tribes that fled Babylon after exile from
Israel in the sixth century B.C., migrating
north to become Caucasians. By this
logic, white Anglo-Saxons are made into
the true “Chosen People” of the Bible.
For other words for Jews, see Jew,
cross-references. See especially c h o s e n
people.
kike, Kike, kyke. A highly pejorative term
meaning an uncouth Jewish merchant, but
may be used for any Jew ish man or
woman. Dating from perhaps the late
nineteenth or early twentieth century, this
Americanism is now used in other coun­
tries. Kike comes closer than most ethnic
slurs do to the offensiveness of nigger.
Although it may not have been pejora­
tive when coined, it is likely that it was
used early as an epithet by assimilated
German Jews for the new immigrants
from central and eastern Europe, the
Ashkenazis. Its use persisted among some
Jews to refer to a Jew regarded as vulgar
134 Kluxer
and greedy. Kikey is the adjective that re­
fers contemptuously to things Jewish.
Som ew hat d isputed is its origin,
which some say was names ending in ki
or ky. G erman A m erican Jews called
eastern European Jews “kikis.” Others
have speculated that Kike is an alteration
o f the name Ike, or Isaac.
According to a well-accepted theory,
espoused by Leo Rosten in The Joys o f
Yinglish (1989), the term derives from
the Yiddish word kikel, “circle.” Jewish
immigrants arriving at Ellis Island who
did not know E nglish letters used a
circle, instead o f the usual x (avoided
because it resembled the Christian cross,
the sign under which Jews had experi­
enced persecution) on entry forms. Im ­
m igrant inspectors then cam e to call
those who signed with a circle a “kikel,”
then a “kike.” Similarly, Mencken (1962,
su p p l. 1, 6 15) c ite s Dr. G o tth a rd
Deutsch, who wrote that a certain Rus­
sian immigrant became a drummer in the
United States, a profession that required
entering facts in a notebook. Since the
imm igrant could not read or write, he
used a system of circles called kikels, and
thus came to be known as a “kike.”
“They called me a dirty Jew and a
stinking k ike” (line in G en tlem a n ’s
A greem ent, E lia K azan ’s 1947 film
based on the novel by Laura Hobson).
For other words for Jews, see Jew,
cross-references.
K luxer, K u K luxer, K lucker. Black epi­
thet for any white racist, particularly a
member o f the Ku Klux Klan, the orga­
nization o f violent white racists first
formed in 1866 by Confederates to pre­
serve white supremacy over the South
during the Reconstruction era. The Klan
was later resurrected to terrorize and
control “un-American” groups such as
A frican A m ericans, Catholics, labor-
unionists, and foreigners.
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences.
K otonk, k ato n k , co rn y -k o k . N icknam e
used by people o f Japanese descent liv­
ing in Hawaii (especially World War II-
era Nisei) for their U.S. m ainland coun­
terparts. “It is an onomatopoeic word,
the sound a Japanese head makes when
vit is struck by a hard o b je c t” (Paul
Theroux, The Happy Isles o f Oceania,
1992,476). The Hawaiian Japanese ste­
reotype o f a Kotonk is a person who is
standoffish, materialistic, and accultur-
ated. In the following quotation, refer­
ring to a teacher’s desire to see his Japa­
nese students in Hawaii speak standard
English, kotonk emphasizes accultura­
tion: “Sometimes I think that Mr. Harvey
doesn’t mean to be mean to us. He re­
ally wants us to be A mericans, like my
kotonk cousins from Santa Clara. H e’d
probably think they talked real straight”
(L o is-A n n Y am an ak a, in L o ri M .
Carlson, American Eyes, 1994, 12).
See also B u d d h a h e a d , p i n e a p p l e .
k ra u t, K ra u t. Derogatory nickname for a
German (sometimes also for the German
language); also often jocular. The refer­
ence is to the German food, sauerkraut,
made o f fermented cabbage (nineteenth-
century German and sometim es Dutch
im m ig ra n ts w ere a lso k n o w n as
cabbagehea d s, an o th er m ean in g o f
which is a “fool”). Sauerkraut in U.S.
use is traced to 1819; the shortened eth­
nic form kraut was used in wartime, in­
cluding both world wars. During World
War II, U.S. army propaganda used the
term for the German enemy. As Taylor,
writing during the war, put it, “ ‘B oche’
and ‘Heinie,’ common in the 1914—1918
war, are seldom heard today. ‘Krauts’ has
been noted in letters from American sol­
d ie rs in F ra n c e ” (1 9 4 4 , 4 2 ). A lso
krauthead.
Germans have also been known as
sausage and limburger, also references
to cultural preferences for food.
S ee also D u t c h , G e r m , G e r m a n
m e a s le s , H e in ie , H e s s ia n , H u n , J e r r y .

L (Shorris 1992a, xvi), some of it divisive.
lace curtain Irish. Poor Irish immigrants
who rose to a high social status in U.S.
society (see, e.g., Stephen Birmingham’s
R eal Lace, 1973). A synonym is FIF,
“First Irish Families.”
See also I r i s h , s h a n t y I r i s h .
ladino/a, Ladino/a. In the southwestern
United States, a Spanish American word
referring to a mestizo/a or a Spanish­
speaking I n d i a n . It has this and other,
related senses throughout Latin America.
In its most basic sense it means simply
“Spanish speaking.” In obsolete Span­
ish it meant “versed in languages,” and
it may have carried the pejorative sense
of someone learned but cunning or wily.
See also Hispanic, Latino/a, m e s tiz o /a .
laissez-faire racism. See ra c is m .
L a tin o /a . A Latin or Hispanic man or
woman, som eone sometimes broadly
designated as an Ibero-American. The
word derives elliptically from latino-
americano, “Latin American,” and was
first recorded in American English in
1946.
E arlier labeling preferences in the
United States for people of Latin Ameri­
can descent were Spanish and Spanish­
speaking, and then Latin American. Be­
cause it refers to a geographic area as
opposed to a colonial area, Latin Am eri­
can, which can be used for anyone liv­
ing in the Americas south of the United
States, is still sometim es preferred to
Hispanic. However, those who are re­
ferred to as Latin American but do not
speak a language based on Latin may
object to, the use o f the term to desig­
nate themselves.
In 1980 the U.S. Census Bureau de­
cided against using Latino for purposes
o f census classification because a com­
plaint was lodged that the word sounded
too much like Ladino, which, in one of
its se n se s, m ean s th e la n g u ag e o f
Sephardic Jews. Hispanic was chosen
Latino/a 135
in ste a d , fo llo w ed by m uch d eb a te
There has been no serious charge, how­
ever, that Latino carries negative conno­
tations. Yet probably any term applied
to a U.S. ethnic minority can be subject
to stich m eanings. A m ong people of
white European descent in the United
States, Latino may, as Marc Zimmerman
suggests, conjure up “machismo, black
hair, gold crosses on chains, beaded cur­
tains, tropical music, etc.” (1992, 14).
Hispanic, on the other hand, is less likely
to carry these connotations.
Latino/a is preferred to Hispanic or
Spanish by many o f Latin American de­
scent and culture, especially those to the
left politically. Although Latino/a is not
seen as often in print today as Hispanic,
it is regarded by some as less Eurocen­
tric (in spite o f Latin being an oblique
acknow ledgm ent o f the Spanish lan­
guage). It may also be less patronizing
{Hispanic may suggest that one is like a
w hite A m erican — H isp an ic b u t not
"spic"). In addition, Latino/a may be
preferred because, unlike the noun H is­
panic, it was not coined by a government
bureaucracy. Some see it as more appro­
priate for naming the multiethnic cat­
egory of Latin American immigrants.
Shorris’s rationale for using Latino/a is
that “Latino has gender, which is Span­
ish, as opposed to Hispanic, which fol­
lows English rules” (1992a, xvii).
A multitude o f variables normally
determine use. These include one’s eth­
nic and regional origins in Latin America;
occupational status; social and political
identification or affiliation in the United
States, often flexible; and class and gen­
erational as well as contextual differ­
ences. Latino/a is popular in Chicago
(though Hispanic is common in the m e­
dia) and in C alifo rn ia (H isp a n ic is
avoided in the Los Angeles Times as pe­
jorative), and both Hispanic and Latino/a
are used in New York. In Chicago, the
use of Latino/a as a collective designa-
136______lily boy
tion has promoted the mobilization of
Puerto Rican and Chicano coalitions to
work on problems, such as job discrimi­
nation, that neither group could resolve
alone.
There is, however, still no common
L atin o group identity in the U nited
States, though there are signs of its emer­
gence (Totti 1987). “Graciela Italiano
commented on the difficulty in the nam­
ing o f a culture— ‘A re we H ispanic,
Latino? Excuse us, we’re still trying to
determ ine our identity’” (B ooklist, 1
September 1993, 71).
For words applying to particular His­
panic/Latino groups, see C u b a n A m e r i ­
c a n , d a g o , M e x ic a n , P u e r t o R i c a n . See
also b r a c e r o , C h ic a n o / a , H is p a n ic , H i s -
PANICISM, HlSPANO, LADINO/A.
lily boy. See w h i t e b o y .
lily-white, lilywhite, lily white. Originat­
ing in the United States in the nineteenth
century, a derogatory slang reference to
racial segregation; in particular, to ex­
clusion o f black or dark-skinned people
from a white community, especially its
politics. “One can imagine that the ar­
riv al o f so m any im m ig ra n ts in to
lilywhite suburbs, especially when they
represent distinct ethnicities...w ould
inspire a great deal o f apprehension”
(Sarah J. Mahler, Report on the A m eri­
cas, July 1992, 23). African Americans
may use it to refer to white people, es­
pecially WASPs or racists.
S ee a l s o s e g r e g a t i o n , w h i t e ,
WHITEBOY.
limburger. See k ra u t.
limey, Limey, limy, lime-juicer. An En­
glishman. Limey is a late nineteenth-cen­
tury short form o f the obsolete Ameri­
can and A ustralian expression lim e-
juicer, a slang reference to English sail­
ors who, by law, drank lime juice to pro­
tect them selves from scurvy on ship.
(Limey was also used for a British ship.)
Rawson (1994) claims that the term has
been falsely connected with an area in
London’s East End called the Limehouse
district, where kilns for burning lim e­
stone w ere located. O riginally a slur
am ong American sailors for a Briton,
during the world wars the term cam e to
be used with some affection,
v “You got a big mouth, limey. C are­
ful someone doesn’t nail it shut” (an Irish
A m erican to an E nglish detective, in
Cracker: M en Should Weep, 1994 made-
for-TV movie).
See also B r i t , B r it is h e r .
Lit, Litvak, Litvac [' lit-vak]. Derogatory
slang for a Lithuanian, one o f the new
immigrants o f the early twentieth cen­
tury, from an alteration o f the proper
name. Litvac, a Yiddish word, is som e­
tim es derogatory, som etim es jo c u la r
slang for a Lithuanian or a Lithuanian
Jew; also for a pedantic or humorless
Jew.
See also B o h u n k .
Little Black Sambo. S ee S am bo.
little brown brothers. During the U.S. oc­
cupation o f the Philippines, a paternal­
istic American reference to Filipinos, as
long as they rem ained am icable. The
term was coined by President W illiam
Howard Taft. It was also used as an epi­
thet for the Chinese during World War
n.
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , F il ip in o / a .
For derogatory words for Filipinos, see
F il , F il ip in y o c k , g o o - g o o , g o o k , m o n k e y .
Lotus Blossom. See C h e r r y B lo s s o m .
lower class. A term often used am ong so­
cial scientists and journalists to refer to
a stratum of people who are uneducated,
unskilled, often unem ployed, and poor
(sometimes also known as the “disrepu­
table poor”). Although most lower-class
people in the U nited States are white,
this stratum disproportionately com ­
prises people of color and women. Func­
tional illiteracy, social segregation, and
a self-perception o f being marginal are
also associated with it.

Although low er carries considerable
negative freight, this term is often ap­
plied to these groups as though it were
neutral. The least empowered of people
in our society, those in this class have
little say in what they are called. The
term is not, however, so frequently ap­
plied to those in the stratum just above,
the so-called “respectable poor.” These
people have been more vocal about their
preference for class identification: polls
and greater participation in the economy
lower class 137
have given them more of a voice. This
level, comprising many nonwhite people
and sometimes known in sociology as
the “upper lower class,” resents the la­
bel “lower” and prefers to call them ­
selves “working class.” The problem
with the term working class, however,
is that it may be stereotypically associ­
ated with white people alone.
See also c u l t u r a l l y d e p r i v e d , d i s a d ­
v a n ta g e d , m a rg in a l, p o o r, u n d e r c la s s .

M ers).
m acaroni, marcaroni smacker. Derisive
reference to an Italian, Italian soldier (in
British slang), or someone o f Italian de­
scent, alluding to the ethnic preference
for pasta in the diet. In the eighteenth
century the term was used by the British
for an Italianate fop. M ore recently, it
has also been used for a black pimp, ac­
cording to Allen (1990, 49).
See also d a g o , d i n o , e y e t a l i a n , g a r ­
l i c b r e a t h , g u id o /g u id e tte , g u in e a , I t a l ­
i a n , M a f i a , p i z z a m a n , s p a g h e t t i , s p ic ,
U n c le T om (Uncle Giovanni),
m ackerel snapper, m ackerel-snapper.
See FISH-EATER.
Mafia. A Sicilian word meaning “a spirit
o f hostility toward the law,” possibly
originally from a dialectical word for
“b luster” or “bravura.” A lthough the
original and main sense of this term is a
secret criminal organization o f Sicily or
Italy, and although it is used in the United
States for such an organization of crimi­
nals o f Sicilian or Italian descent, it has
also been used to name any underground
crim inal organization.
M afia may occur as a slur on Italians
in general (much as Shylock is on Jews).
Although stereotypes o f Italian A meri­
cans as criminals date largely from the
turn o f the century, to the image o f the
Black Hand assassin wielding a stiletto,
the stereotypes were reinforced during
the era o f Prohibition gangsters. In the
1960s the M afia becam e a symbol of
crime. A recent example of the use of
the term in name-calling is found in the
rum ors that associated the then New
York governor Mario Cuomo with the
Mafia. Giordano (1987), however, re­
ported FBI statistics showing that of the
some 50,000 people involved in orga­
nized crim e, 20,000 w ere associated
with the M afia network, and only about
1,700 o f these were of Italian descent.
Immigrants have commonly been stig­
majority______ 139
matized as criminals (and disease carri­
Members of the Mafia are said to find
the term offensive, preferring instead
Cosa Nostra (our thing), a term coined
by Joseph Valachi in 1962. Police and
crirhinals alike often refer to it as “the
Mob.”
Mafia is often not capitalized when
referring to a group like the Mafia. A ma-
fioso/mafiosa (pi. mafiosi), often capi­
talized, is a member o f the Mafia.
See also d a g o , d i n o , e y e t a l i a n , g a r ­
l i c BREATH, GUIDO/GUIDETTE, GUINEA, ITAL­
IAN, MACARONI, PIZZA MAN, SPAGHETTI, SPIC,
w op.
U n c le Tom (Uncle Giovanni), w op.
mainstream, mainstream America. A ref­
erence to the people— largely white Eu­
ropean A m erican s— seen as having
provided U.S. society with its dominant
cultural patterns and standards. It also
refers to those cultural patterns and stan­
dards themselves and tends to render
either as deviant or as invisible much that
lies outside them. Though largely a syn­
onym, dom inant culture may be pre­
ferred, especially by those to the left,
because o f its emphasis on difference in
power: a dominant group influences and
controls many aspects of a culture and
assigns a minority group to its subordi­
nate status. “Dramatically, race came to
permeate public discussion of a wide
variety of issues, for many white people
assumed that African-Americans consti­
tuted a group apart from ‘mainstream’
America” (Jones 1992, 2-3).
See also E u r o p e a n A m e r i c a n , i n v i s ­
i b l e , MAJORITY, MARGINAL, MINORITY, WHITE
POWER STRUCTURE.
majority, majority group, social m ajor­
ity. An ambiguous term, sometimes used
for a numerical majority, sometimes for
a social majority. The social majority is
the dominant group of a society— the
group that, regardless o f its actual num­
bers, holds and protects its economic and
political power and sees its. way of life
140 Malcolm
----------------------------------v---------
or racial characteristics as superior to
those of other groups in the society.
M inority group is frequently heard in
reference to black people and other non­
white groups in U.S. society. However,
black people may refer to the white ma­
jority (dominant) society as the “white
power structure” or use a variety o f epi­
thets (for derogatory terms in black use
for white people, see w h i t e ).
S ee a l s o m a i n s t r e a m , m i n o r i t y ,
PROMAJORITY, WHITE POWER STRUCTURE.
M alcolm . A term, modeled on Malcolm X,
ap p arently som etim es jo c u lar, used
within the A frican American political
community (notably the Congressional
Black Caucus). It means a leader who is
hardened in his views and unlikely to
com prom ise on issues. “[Rep. Craig]
Washington is emblematic o f the split
personality o f the caucus: the Malcolms
and the dealmakers” (Howard Fineman,
Newsweek, 5 July 1993, 26).
See a l s o A n g e l a .
M a lin c h e , L a ; M a lin c h e . N am e used
am ong Chicanos to insult a M exican
A m e ric a n w ho is reg a rd e d as an
assimilationist or a traitor to her people.
L a Malinche, also known as Malintzin
to the Indians and Dona M arina to the
Spanish, and sometimes regarded as the
“M e x ica n E v e,” w as th e In d ia n
(Nahuatl) woman who served as inter­
preter and spy for H ernando Cortes,
Spanish conqueror of M exico (she was
also his mistress and bore him a son).
Calling someone La Malinche is a way
to censure or exert control over a person
who threatens to break from the group
or its rules. Derived from this term is
malinchismo, meaning “selling out ones’
people or Mexican culture.” Also used
are La Chingada (fucked one) and La
Vendida (sello u t). F or m ore on L a
M alinche and the treasonous aspects of
the roles of other such interpreters and
guides, see Frances Karttunen’s Between
Worlds, 1994.
Chicana feminists have reinterpreted
the story o f La Malinche. She has been
defined as “the feminine messiah who
m ust return to redeem h er fo rsak en
daughters, bom out o f the violence o f
the Spanish and Aztec religions and cul­
tures” (Marcella Trujillo, in Kramarae
and Treichler 1992).
S ee also a g r i n g a d o , C h i c a n o / a ,
M e x ic a n o f a ls o , p o c h o /a , T io T a c o ,
v e n d id o /a .
m am m y. Old southern term for a black
woman, particularly one serving as nurse
to a white child or as servant to a white
family; it was used especially by white
children, usually with respect and affec­
tion. Today it is regarded as racist, con­
noting subservience to w hite people,
though it may be used ironically among
black people. A s p art o f th e w hite,
slaveholding household, the m am m y
was often considered to have her loyal­
ties with white people. “M am m y...w as
shining black, pure African, devoted to
h e r la st d ro p o f b lo o d to th e
O ’H aras...the terror of the other house
servants” (Margaret Mitchell, Gone with
the Wind, 1936).
M ichele Wallace (in Kramarae and
Treichler 1992) describes the myth o f the
mammy in these terms: “workhorse,”
“w onderful housekeeper,” “very reli­
gious.” “She’s always had more oppor­
tunities than the black man because she
was no threat to the white man so he
made it easy for her.” “Tough, unfem i­
nine. Opposed to w om en’s rights m ove­
ments, considers herself already liber­
ated.”
The word is also considered sexist;
M aggio (1991) points out that there is
no parallel term for a man.
For other traditional southern words
for black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially A u n t , A u n t J a n e ,
A u n t J e m im a , A u n t T o m , h o u s e n e g r o ,
R a s tu s , S am bo, U n c le Tom .

man, the; the M an. A m an in a position of
authority— the government or any other
authority (also, in jazz use, a leader of a
band). The man became especially popu­
lar in black English in the 1960s as a
reference to the white establishment in
general, to a boss or to the police in par­
ticular. “The criminal arrests o f Snoop
D oggy Dogg, [the late] Tupac Shakur,
and the like serve as authenticators [of
their ghetto affiliation]...they are true,
righteous outlaws, role models for mod­
e rn re b e llio n a g a in st th e ‘m a n ’ ”
(C larence Page, Show ing M y Color,
1996, 123).
See a l s o p ig , w h i t e p o w e r s t r u c t u r e ,
WHITE SLAVE MASTER, WHITE SUPREMACY.
m ancha, la [la 'man-cha]. M eaning liter­
ally “stain,” a term used by Puerto Ricans
to refer to the “m ark”— for example,
something about the voice, dress, or de­
meanor— of a new Puerto Rican immi­
grant to the mainland. Tener la mancha
del platano means “to have the stain of
the banana,” that is, to be typically a
native o f Puerto Rico, an allusion to the
banana grower (Stephens 1989).
See a l s o b r o w n , H i s p a n ic , L a t i n o / a ,
N u y o r ic a n , P e d ro , P R , P u e r to R ic a n ,
SPILL, SPOOK.
m anifest destiny. The nineteenth-century
A m erican slogan and doctrine that the
U nited States had the right and the obli­
gation to expand across the continent and
eventually beyond, fulfilling its “des­
tiny.” T his view was identified with
“G od’s will” and supported especially
by southern states seeking more land for
proslavery plantation owners. John L.
O ’Sullivan, editor of The United States
M agazine and D em ocratic Review, is
said to have coined the phrase in 1845,
in regard to the acquisition o f Texas.
N ot all historians o f the nineteenth
century supported this notion uncriti­
cally, and by World War I, the term was
largely dropped from use because o f its
arrogance and implied aggression. To­
Mariel Cuban 141
day, among critics of the Eurocentric
treatment of U.S. history, it is consid­
ered a white American myth that perme­
ated American thought and provided the
ideology behind the conquest and settle­
ment of the western part o f the conti­
nent and the killing of its native peoples.
“The real meaning and history of M ani­
fest D estiny...is nothing less than cal­
culated and deliberate genocide” (James
Baldwin, The Evidence o f Things Not
Seen, 1985, 43).
See also E u r o c e n t r i s m .
marginal, marginalization. Reference to
placement on the fringe of a group, or
between groups, where the individual or
the group marginalized is excluded as
an outsider. A marginal group is a group
or category o f people who have been
pushed to the outside. There is a “grow­
ing genocidal level o f destruction predi­
cated on the prem ise [that] there are
marginalized youth with no jobs or fu­
ture, and therefore expendable” (Luis J.
Rodriguez, Always Running, 1993, 7).
In the late 1960s these terms, originally
used by sociologists, were incorporated
into the talk of Black Power, feminist,
and gay rights groups to call attention
to their positions as minorities.
Although marginality has tradition­
ally been thought o f as a position of so­
cial conflict and psychological difficulty,
marginal groups or individuals may also
be viewed as agents of change and adap­
tive links to the dom inant group (see
Charles Willie, “Marginality and Social
Change,” Society, July/August 1975,10­
13).
See also m a i n s t r e a m , m i n o r i t y .
M ariel Cuban, M arielisto/a, Marielito.
Reference to a member o f a controver­
sial wave of Cuban immigrants to the
U nited States (arriv in g in southern
Florida in 1980), fleeing Cuba on the so-
called freedom flotilla. The name is based
on that of the Cuban port town, El Mariel,
from where these people departed.
142 m arshm allow
--------------------------------V
In Cuba, it has often been a deroga­
tory reference to the emigrants as out­
casts; and in Florida, M arielito remains
a stigma. Unlike the earlier wave (1959—
62) o f businesspeople and professionals,
w ho w ere w elcom ed to the U nited
States, the Mariel Cubans were stigma­
tized as criminals, degenerates, and lu­
natics that Castro wanted to dump (‘T his
is the fictionalized account of one of
those Mariel Cubans”— introduction to
Brian De Palma’s 1983 film Scarf ace,
about a Cuban cocaine trafficker in M i­
ami). According to some scholars, how­
ever, less than 5 percent o f these imm i­
grants were mental patients, hardened
criminals, or other undesirables (Bach,
Bach, and Triplett, 1981, 29^48). The
main differences were in level o f educa­
tion (Mariel Cubans were, overall, rela­
tively uneducated laborers) and race
(many Mariel Cubans were black, or at
least were perceived as such [Gamarra
1984, 53-56]).
The nam e may also be applied to
other exiles or refugees from the Carib­
bean area, especially if they are un­
wanted in the United States. “We’ve got
another Mariel boatlift in the making in
Haiti” (Dan Stein, director o f the Fed­
eration for American Immigration Re­
form , in B ill Frelick, R eport on the
Americas, July 1992, 35).
See also H is p a n ic . See especially b o a t
p e o p le , g u s a n o .
m arshm allow . Twentieth-century epithet in
black English for a white person, allud­
ing to color or to softness (i.e., weak­
ness).
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences.
m assacre. The killing of a number o f usu­
ally helpless people; connotes atrocity.
From the Middle French massacre, hav­
ing the same meaning, the term was ap­
parently first popularized during the
w holesale slaughter o f H uguenots in
France in 1592.
Because o f em otional overtones it
may carry, it has long been used in the
United States as propaganda to m anipu­
late and distort. In the case o f “the B os­
ton M assacre” (occurring in Boston in
1770 when some British soldiers, caught
v up in civilian-military tensions, fired on
townspeople), the killing o f five persons
led Samuel Adams to rouse the indigna­
tion o f the colonists with the stigma o f a
“massacre.”
M ore recently, Native Americans and
revisionist historians have objected to the
term ’s use in distorting the history o f
w hite-Indian relations. F or exam ple,
ac co rd in g to G ab rie l H o rn (N a tiv e
Heart, 1993, 53), a park sign at the en­
trance to Dade City, Florida, recently
read “Site of the Dade M assacre.” “It’s
called a massacre,” says Horn, “because
the natives w on” (w hite people won
“battles”). M assacre has been removed
from the commem orative plaques and
maps o f the “W hitman M assacre Site,”
near Walla Walla, Washington, along the
O regon T ra il. It is now c a lle d th e
Whitman Mission National Historic Site.
Here, in 1847, after a plague o f measles
wiped out nearly half o f a band o f Cay-
use Indians in two weeks, the Indians
killed fourteen o f a settlement of about
seventy-five white people whom the In­
dians associated with bringing the death
(the white people were spared the dis­
ease). In another instance, massacre has
been substituted for battle: “Sand Creek
Battle,” at which in 1864 a Colorado
militia force attacked and killed at least
150 Cheyenne, is now known as “Sand
Creek Massacre.”
See also p o g r o m .
M a u M a u , m a u -m a u , m a o -m ao . M au
Mau is a Kikuyu name (hidden ones) for
an anti-European secret society orga­
nized by the Kikuyu that sought through
a variety of means, including terrorism,
to end British rule in Kenya in the 1950s.
“The colonial government o f K enya...
succeeded in convincing the world press

that Mau Mau was a crime wave, not a
military rebellion, and that the Mau Mau
rebels were ‘bestial gangsters’” (Robert
B. Edgerton, M au Mau, 1989, x).
Based on this term is the American
slang word m au-mau (also m ao-mao)
attributed to w riter Tom Wolfe, mean­
ing to terrorize or threaten, as a minor­
ity group acting aggressively to support
its cause. The term is also used deroga­
torily in Great Britain, and to a lesser
extent in the United States, for any black
person. W hen applied to a black activist
(in the 1960s, it referred to revolution­
ary black youth who identified with the
antiwhite Kenyan Mau Mau) or street
gang m em ber in the United States, it is
not necessarily derogatory.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k . See especially A f r i c a n , b u s h
(B u sh m a n ), E th io p ia n , H o tte n to t,
K a f f ir , N ig e ria n , P y g m y , Z u lu .
m e a n w hite. A ssociated with black use,
referring to a poor white person, similar
in meaning to poor white trash.
See also A p p a l a c h i a n , c l a y - e a t e r ,
C onch, c o rn c ra c k e r, c ra c k e r, h ill­
b illy , p e c k e rw o o d , p o o r w h ite tr a s h ,
REDNECK, RIDGERUNNER, SOUTHERNER.
m elange. See M e ti s /M a tis s e .
m elting pot. Traditionally, the blending of
ethnic groups to create a culturally amal­
gam ated America in which something
new emerges. This ambiguous metaphor
was popularized by Zionist writer and
suffragist Israel Zangw ill in his 1908
play The Melting-Pot, with its steelmak-
ing imagery o f “melting” and “reform­
ing.” As some scholars have observed,
the m etaphorical pot, in which a new
A m erica'is bom from Old World immi­
grants, suggests a womb.
In the first part of the twentieth cen­
tury, the melting pot idea became popu­
lar in large part because of the belief that
A m erica had a divine mission: to create
out o f the com ing together o f diverse
ethnic groups a transcendent, unified,
melting pot______ 143
new society. In the second half o f this
century, however, it came to be identi­
fied negatively with enforced cultural
assimilation.
This broad term is used in a wide
variety of ways. In some instances it may
identify racial (as opposed to ethnic)
blending. It may occasionally be synony­
mous with ethnic diversity or pluralism,
though these terms, now generally more
acceptable than melting pot, lack the idea
o f fusion, implying today’s more politi­
cally correct idea of retention of sepa­
rate ethnic identities. In addition, it has
been used by conservatives to suggest
the purging away of foreignness to pre­
serve the original Anglo-Saxon flavor of
the country.
M elting p o t is often used to evoke
some o f the best that is America, its leg­
endary receptiveness to immigrants and
their contribution to an evolving national
c u ltu re . “In th e m e ltin g p o t o f
A m erica...w e have welcomed all and
have all shared in the diversity and rich­
ness that each has to contribute” (Rich­
ard M. Nixon, 18 October 1956). At the
sam e tim e, it m ay d escrib e tro u b le
spots— places w here the p o t “boils
over”— in the multicultural society. “Un­
less action is taken soon, it may be only
a matter of time before M iami’s melting
pot blows its lid again” (Time, 30 Janu­
ary 1989, 29). Creating his own meta­
phor, Norman Solomon defines melting
pot as “an oratorical recipe for America,
without mentioning that those at the bot­
tom are most likely to get burned” (1992,
163). Black people have traditionally
been excluded from the melting pot. “I
hear that melting pot stuff a lot and all I
can say is that we haven’t melted” (Jesse
Jackson, in D aniel B. Baker, Power
Quotes, 1992).
S im ila r m e ta p h o rs o r c o n c e p ts
abound in recent U.S. literature, includ­
ing crucible, another vessel used for
melting; kaleidoscope, cultural rainbow,
orchestra, and tapestry, which carry nu-
144 Melungeon
ances of color, harmony, or beauty; terms
and concepts that suggest the retention
o f individual ethnic identities within ■
whole, such as mosaic, and the often-
heard culinary figures of'speech, such
as stew, goulash, salad, and flo w er gar­
den (with various blossoms). M ore pe­
jo rativ e are hodgepodge, m ishm ash,
chop suey, and pressure cooker, espe­
cially pejorative are dum ping ground,
village pound, and catch basin (Gleason
1992,13-14). Boiling p o t has been used
in reference to race riots. Ralph Waldo
E m erson spoke o f a “sm elting pot”
(Emerson in His Journals, ed. Joel Porte,
1982,347), and before him French writer
Michel-Guillaume-Jean de Cr&vecoeur,
in Letters from an American Farmer, said
o f A m erica, “H ere individuals o f all
races are melted into a new r a c e ...” (in
Daniels 1990, 101-02).
Although the m elting pot idea has
taken on negative connotations associ­
ated with assim ilation, som e writers
have managed to retain the notion of cre­
ativity and change implicit in it. “Japa­
nese technology,” said Harvard Univer­
sity professor W erner Sollors o f the
“melting pot” of New York City, “is sold
by Hasidic Jews on 47th Street to imagi­
native artists w ho...living in Harlem or
Brooklyn use this technology to create
rap [music]” (Itabara Njeri, Los A nge­
les Times, 13 January 1991, E2).
M elting p o t has been applied to the
United States as a whole or to parts, for
example, Hawaii. It has also been used
for other countries, such as Israel.
See also a s s i m i l a t i o n , d i v e r s i t y , m o ­
s a ic , m u ltic u ltu r a l is m , p lu r a lis m , r a i n ­
bow .
M elu n g eo n , m alu n g eo n . See trira c ia l
MIXES.
m enace. A person or people considered,
because o f their behavior or beliefs—
and often, race— to present a danger or
threat to the dominant society. Through­
out the colonial era, the term was com ­
monly applied to indigenous peoples, as
in “the Indian menace,” who would not
comply with the demands o f the dom i­
nant group. As with the term s cannibal
and savage, the reference has sometimes
set the ideological stage for wars o f ex-
vtermination. It is akin to other term s that
exploit nativistic fear, such as invasion,
hordes, peril, and breed like rabbits, re­
ferring usually to nonwhites, non-Chris­
tians, immigrants, or other foreigners. In
the early part o f the twentieth century,
The M enace was the nam e o f a weekly
published in Aurora, M issouri, known
for its nativistic diatribes against Catho­
lics.
See also a l i e n , c a n n i b a l , i m m i g r a n t ,
o th e r , sav ag e, y e llo w h o rd e s , y e llo w
p e ril.
m estizo/a. A person o f mixed blood. From
Spanish mestizo, from Latin mixtus, past
participle o f miscere, “to mix,” this term
was first recorded in English in 1582.
Commonly in Latin Am erica it has re­
ferred to a European-Native American
mix, especially the offspring of a Span­
iard and a Native American, a product
o f the Spanish conquest. The racial mix
may also include black African. In some
instances, it means an Indian who has
adopted European ways, a cultural m es­
tizo who speaks Spanish. The designa­
tion has acquired so many meanings in
Mexico that it was dropped from census
reports. In the Philippines it can refer to
a person o f Chinese and indigenous an­
cestry. In the U nited States it is used
largely for M exican A m ericans— who
are predominantly o f mixed Spanish and
Indian background— but also sometimes
for the mixed white-black-Native Ameri­
can people o f the eastern United States
(see t r i r a c i a l m ix e s ) .
The first generation of mestizos in
M exico included the offspring o f the
Native American nobles and the Span­
ish soldiery. This new class o f people
were acknowledged as Creoles or Span­
ish. M ixing between the Spanish and the

com mon classes of Native Americans,
however, created a category of “illegiti­
m a te ” m estizo s. Som e o f th ese a t­
tem pted to obscure their Indian back­
ground in favor of their Spanish descent.
As mestizos increased in numbers, how­
ever, eventually becoming the large part
o f Mexican society, they acquired legiti­
macy. The m odem Mexican and M exi­
can American is a result of the post-Co­
lombian m estizaje blending of cultures
and genes.
See also b i r a c i a l , C r e o l e , h a l f ­
b r e e d , HALF-CASTE, INTERRACIAL, METIS/
MfiTISSE, MISCEGENATION, MIXED, MONGREL.
m etis/m etisse, M etis, m etis [m a-'te(s)].
F ro m the early n in e tee n th century,
th ro u g h F re n c h fro m L ate L atin
m ixticius (“mixed”), meaning a person
or people o f mixed blood. M etis is usu­
ally capitalized when denoting those
who identify with a definite ethnic heri­
tage, such as Canada’s Metis, people of
mixed Native American and European,
especially French, descent.
In Canada, the M etis were often a
result o f m ixing, casually or through
marriage or enslavement, between Eu­
ropean fur traders and soldiers and In­
dian women, particularly Crees. These
mixed offspring com bined native and
white cultures. In Louisiana, metis was
a Louisiana French term meaning “mon­
grel” or “half-breed.” In addition, the
term has been used for an octoroon, or a
mestizo, or any mixed-heritage person.
W hile metis is commonly used for
any person o f mixed descent, metisse is
used only for a woman of mixed descent.
T h e o n lin e m a g az in e M e tisse says
“ ...m eti§se women can play a key role
in our society as bridge builders between
groups that frequently m isunderstand
each other” (from the Internet, Winter
1996). Also sometimes seen is the spell­
ing metif. The French term bois brule is
a synonym. M elange is another French
word, meaning “mixed,” used today by
some persons o f black and white ances­
Mexican American 145
try.
See also b ira c ia l, h a lf-b re e d , h a l f ­
CASTE, INTERRACIAL, MESTIZO/a, MISCEGE­
NATION, M IXED, m o n g r e l , o c t o r o o n ,
t r i r a c i a l m ix e s .
M ex, tylexie. Mex: a shortened form of
Mexican, often derogatory, dating to at
least the early twentieth century. It is
used for a Mexican, someone o f M exi­
can descent, Mexican Spanish, or things
Mexican. Mexie is an epithet for a Mexi­
can.
See also M e x i c a n , M e x i c a n a t h l e t e ,
M e x ic a n b r e a k f a s t , M e x ic a n d is h ,
M e x to w n .
M exican. A native or citizen o f Mexico
(also, in the U.S. Southwest, a person of
mixed Spanish and Indian descent).
Derives from Spanish mexicano ['me-
he-kano], one of seven Nahuatl tribes of
the central region of the country. M exi­
cans call themselves mejicanos.
Because of use of the term to evoke
prejudice, especially in the U.S. South­
west, and because of its slang use for
something cheap or inferior (e.g., water
referred to as M exican beer), som e
M exican Americans, especially those
who call themselves Chicanos, have pre­
ferred to avoid it. “At a young age, I
learned to try to be anything other than
a ‘dirty M exican’” (Ruben M artinez,
The Other Side, 1992,49). Some M exi­
can Americans may also resent the im ­
plication when labeled “Mexican” that
they are not American.
For a complete list of terms related
to Mexican, see M e x i c a n A m e r i c a n .
M exican A m erican. An American of Mexi­
can descent. From the point of view of
the Chicano/a (usually the more activist
and politicized M exican A m erican),
Mexican American connotes the more
docile, assim ilated, and m aterialistic
American of Mexican descent (but see
Garcia [1989] for a description of ways
some Mexican Americans o f the pre-
Chicano generation fought discrimina-
146 M e x ic a n a th le te
-------------------------------------------V7
tion and segregation). A stronger, clearly
pejorative term is vendido, m eaning
“sellbut.” For some, M exican American
thus stands as pejoratively to Chicano/a
much as Negro stands to black.
Others, however, read the term favor­
ably. As L am pe (1982) has show n,
Chicano and M exican American are not
simply different ways to name the same
reality but indications of different reali­
ties. In his study o f responses to ethnic
labels, Lampe found that African Ameri­
cans, Anglos, and Hispanics all indicated
a m ore positive response to M exican
A m e r ic a n th an to C hica n o . W hile
Chicano has lost most of its pejorative
edge today, Mexican American for the
most part still remains positive or neu­
tral.
Mexican American was in use before
the Chicano movement and is today still
the preferred term among most members
o f the com m unities o f A m ericans o f
Mexican descent. Also favoring its use is
the fact that it parallels usages for other
Americans, such as African American or
Japanese American. Alternatives, used for
different groups or in different contexts,
are Mexican, American o f Mexican de­
scent, or Mejicano', also Latin American,
Hispanic, Latino/a, or Spanish-speaking.
Califomio/a refers to a Spaniard or some­
one o f Hispanic descent who settled and
lived in California until the imposition of
U.S. rule during the Mexican War (it is
also used more generally for a California
Mexican American).
The term preferred by individuals or
groups is likely to reflect their social
identity and understanding o f their past.
Use is also a matter of the situation. This
situational perspective is illustrated by
Mirande andTanno (1993,383): “We are
Mexican because that is our ethnic heri­
tage and national origin, Chicano/a be­
cause it is a term that recognizes our
unique political status in the U nited
States, and Latino/a because we identify
with other Latin Americans.”
F o r w ords re fe rrin g to M e x ican
Americans or things M exican, see b e a n -
e a t e r , b ro w n , C h ic a n o /a , C h ic o , c h ili-
e a t e r , F r i t o B a n d i t o , g r e a s e r , H is p a n ic ,
L a tin o /a , M e x , M e x ic a n , M e x ic a n a t h ­
l e t e , M e x ic a n b r e a k f a s t , M e x ic a n d is h ,
v M e x ic a n s ta n d o f f , M e x to w n , M o n te z u ­
m a ’s r e v e n g e , P e d r o , p e o n , s p ic , t a c o ,
TAMALE, T E JA N O /A , WETBACK, YELLOW
BELLY.
For words Mexican Americans use for
other Mexican Americans, see c h o l o / a ,
L a M a lin c h e , M e x ic a n o f a ls o , p a c h u c o ,
p o c h o /a , te e -ja y , T io T a c o , v e n d id o /a . See
also BARRIO, b r a c e r o , H is p a n o , i m m ig r a n t .
M exican athlete. Offensive term for an ath­
lete who doesn’t make the team.
See also M e x i c a n A m e r i c a n .
M exican beer. See M e x ic a n .
M exican break fast. A cigarette and glass
o f water, alluding pejoratively to the ste­
reotypical poverty and alleged lack of
sophistication or laziness o f Mexicans
or people of M exican descent.
See also M e x i c a n A m e r i c a n .
M exican dish. From the A m erican slang
dish (a woman or girl); an offensive al­
lusion used by Anglo m en largely in the
1920s and 1930s for an attractive M exi­
can or M exican American woman.
See also M e x i c a n A m e r i c a n .
M exican fox-trot, M exican tw o-step. See
M o n t e z u m a ’s r e v e n g e .
M exicano falso. A Mexican American dis­
paraged for seeking assimilation, as seen
by Mexicans or Mexican Americans who
maintain their cultural ties. The term
may be used to exert control over the in­
dividual threatening to leave the group
or to violate its norms.
See also a g r i n g a d o , L a M a l i n c h e ,
p o c h o /a , T io T a c o , v e n d id o /a .
M exican standoff. A deadlock; stalemate.
Referring to its offensiveness, Chapman
(1986) notes that the use o f M exican
seems to imbue the situation with a sense
o f danger or crudeness, “as if two per­

sons faced each other directly with raised
m achetes or loaded guns.”
See a l s o M e x i c a n A m e r i c a n .
M extow n, M ex town. Derogatory name for
a barrio.
See also b a r r i o , e t h n i c n e ig h b o r ­
hood.
m ice-eater. Strong pejorative for Chinese,
used largely before World War II, at
which time China became an ally o f the
U nited States. Actually, a num ber o f
cultures in Asia, including some in Laos,
Thailand, and the Philippines as well as
China, have included rodents in their
diets. This practice is usually done out
o f poverty and necessity.
See also A s i a n A m e r i c a n , C h i n a
d o l l , C h in a m a n /C h in a w o m a n , C h in a ­
m a n ’s c h a n c e , C h i n e e , C h i n k , C h i n e s e ,
c h o p s tic k s , c h o w , c o o lie , d o g - e a te r ,
d r a g o n l a d y , J o h n C h in a m a n , l i t t l e
b ro w n b r o th e r s , P a t, p ig ta il.
M ick, m ick, mickey, micky, mike. Deroga­
tory nickname for an Irishman or Irish
immigrant, used first in the United States
and Australia. It derives from the Irish
nam e M ichael (some sources relate it to
the prefix M e, used in many Irish sur­
names). In the United States, the term
came into use by the mid-nineteenth cen­
tury, soon after the wave o f poor Irish
im m igrants escaping the Irish potato
fam ine began to arrive in the United
States. About the use o f Irish laborers in
building New O rleans’s New Canal in
the 1830s, an old song refers to the many
deaths resulting from the construction:
Ten thousand Micks, they swung
their picks
To dig the New Canal.
But-the choleray was stronger ’n
they,
An’ twice it killed them all.
— quoted in Daniels 1990, 137
Whiskey m ick was used as an epithet
for an Irishman because of the stereo­
typical association o f the Irish with ex­
cessive drinking.
minority 147
Mick has also been used for any Ro­
man Catholic; for any immigrant or la­
borer; and, probably because o f a social
resemblance to the lower-class Irish la­
borers, for Mexicans.
See also f i s h - e a t e r , h o o d l u m I r i s h ,
Iris h , Jakey, la c e c u rta in Iris h ,
n a rro w b a c k , P a d d y , P a d d y w ag o n , P a t,
s h a n ty Ir is h , sp u d , T u r k .
m ickey vickey. This singsong, rhyming
epithet has been used among some black
people in reference to a Korean A meri­
can or other Asian Americans.
See also A s i a n A m e r i c a n . See espe­
cially M i s t e r P a r k m a n .
m idnight. Reference to a very dark-skinned
black person; usually derogatory.
For other words for black people al­
luding to color, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See also c o l o r .
minority, social m inority, m inority group.
A minority is a group that differs in some
respect from the mainstream population
or a member of that group. An ethnic
minority group, for example, shares cul­
tural attributes different from those of
the dominant group in a society.
A llan B loom , draw ing upon the
founders of this country, is one o f many
who holds a strong view on the mean­
ing o f minority.
For the [U.S.] Founders, minorities
are in general bad things, mostly
identical to factions, selfish groups
who have no concern as such for the
common good.
—Allan Bloom, The Closing
o f the American Mind 1988, 31
Multiculturalists, in contrast to Bloom,
generally see minorities as something to
celebrate and protect— a vital part of the
country.
Usage, including that in the social
sc ie n c e s and g o v ern m e n t, u su a lly
equates minorities with being subject to
prejudice and discrimination, being seg­
regated, and having less power over their
lives than does the dominant group. In
148 miscegenation
addition, in the United States, as the term
implies, such groups have usually been
numerical minorities, though discrimi­
nation and limited access to power, not
numbers, have become essential in de­
fining the term. “Women, though actu­
ally a majority o f our population, have
acquired the dignity and the claims o f a
‘m inority,’ w hile for some reason or
other Jews seem to have lost that claim”
(Daniel J. Boorstin, Cleopatra’s Nose,
1994, 59).
There are a number of other ways the
meanings and implications o f the term
vary. After desegregation in the United
States, m inority acquired quasi-legal
meanings. Typical governm ental pro­
grams have denied m inority status to
white ethnic groups. In addition, minor­
ity and minority group have become part
of Americans’ racial code-word lexicon,
used often for poor African Americans
or Latinos (a European group, when
Europeans were considered minorities,
was likely to be called an ethnic minor­
ity). Also in the context of race, white
Americans may associate minority with
so-called reverse discrim ination. As
such, it is sometimes used with scarcely
disguised annoyance or even pejorative
intent. “W hite European Americans are
being displaced, insulted and even as­
saulted by politically protected and po­
litically correct racial ‘minorities’” (Let­
ter, Irish America, M ay/June 1995, 8).
M inority may also imply a person who
is childlike; such a person may be pro­
tected but is not granted autonomy.
The popularity o f the term in the
United States may be attributed to the
fact that it serves political interests, as
when minority status confers access to
resources under affirmative action poli­
cies. As minorities grow in numbers and
acquire some political influence, usage
will no doubt change. “It’s not a white
world. It isn’t even close. Yellow people,
brown people, black people— we aren’t
minorities; w e’ve got you outnumbered.
Why don’t you worry about making it
in our w orld?” (A lden R. C arter, in
Donald R. Gallo, ed., Join In, 1993,76).
A synonym, borrowed from the le­
gal usage applying to naturalized citi­
zens, once subjected to a num ber o f re­
stric tio n s o f rights, is second-class citi­
zens. This term is applied especially to
A frican A m ericans. In m u lticu ltu ral
studies, another close synonym is sub­
altern, sometimes used broadly for any­
one who suffers domination, exclusion,
or exploitation.
Some sociologically minded would
object to the use of group for m ost m i­
norities. Minorities are social categories,
groupings o f people who share a com ­
mon status but do not necessarily inter­
act in any regular fashion, as do groups
as normally defined.
See also e q u a l i t y , e t h n i c g r o u p ,
MAINSTREAM, MAJORITY, MARGINAL, MODEL
MINORITY, NONWHITE, OPPRESSION, PREJU­
DICE, RACE, TWOFER.
m iscegenation. From the Latin miscere (to
mix) and genus (race), a reference to a
m ixture o f races or to the m arital or
sexual relations or cohabitation between
a man and woman o f different races, usu­
ally a black person and a white person.
New York journalist David Goodman
Croly probably coined the term, which
appeared in his anonym ous pam phlet
entitled Miscegenation: The Theory o f
the Blending o f the Races, Applied to the
A m erican W hite M an a n d the Negro
(1863). It was no coincidence that this
pamphlet appeared around the tim e that
P re sid e n t A b rah am L in co ln , in th e
E m a n cip atio n P ro c lam atio n , w h ich
threatened many white Americans with
the possibility o f mass mixing between
the races, declared free all slaves in ter­
ritory in rebellion against the U.S. gov­
ernment. Montagu (1974, 445) says the
term was invented to raise the issue of
race in aggravated form by attributing
to the a b o litio n ist R e p u b lic a n s th e
thoughts presented in Miscegenation. It

was a satire on the Republican effort to
grant the enslaved black people the fran­
chise.
In the second half o f the nineteenth
century, m iscegenationist w as used,
much like nigger lover, with particular
hostility by southern white people for
any white person seen as favoring black
people or tolerating the crossing o f the
co lo r line. T he in itial syllable, mis,
though from the Latin for “to mix,” sug­
gests fault or shame, as heard in words
such as miscreant, miscarry, m iscon­
ceive, and misfit.
See a l s o b i r a c i a l , i n t e r r a c i a l , m e s ­
t i z o / a , m e t i s / m e t i s s e , m ix e d , m o n g r e l .
M iss A nn, M iss A nne, M iss A nnie. Ironi­
cal U .S . b la ck E n g lish for a w hite
woman, based on the plantation use of
terms o f respect for white people. It is
dated to the 1920s.
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See especially M i s t e r C h a r l i e .
M iss S a ig o n . S tereo ty p e o f an A sian
woman— in particular, a Vietnamese—
as helpless and submissive. She is some­
one who pins her only hope in life on
being rescued by a foreign, especially
white, male lover. In A lain B oublil’s
A m erican musical, M iss Saigon (1991),
based on M adame Butterfly, the Asian
w om an’s hero is an American.
For other words for Asian women,
see C h e r r y B l o s s o m , C h i n a d o l l ,
d r a g o n l a d y , f o r t u n e c o o k ie , g e is h a .
See also A s i a n A m e ric a n .
M is te r C harlie. Charlie evokes an image
o f a southern slave overseer. M ister
Charlie was used in the language o f the
civil rights m ovem ent as a pejorative
nicknam e for a white male, including a
white policeman, landlord, or employer.
James Baldwin named his 1960s play
about a young black man murdered in
the Deep South Blues fo r Mr. Charlie.
Today, claims Michael Meyers, re­
flecting on changes in African Ameri­
mixed 149
can relations with white society since the
1950s and 1960s, “Jew has been substi­
tuted for M r Charlie” (Society, Septem­
ber/October 1994, 23).
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See especially C h a r l i e , c r a c k e r ,
Miss Ann.
M ister P a rk m an. Recent black slang for
a Korean American, alluding to the com­
mon Korean surname Park and appar­
ently modeled on M ister Charlie, the
black ironic pejorative word for a white
person. In recent years, conflict between
Korean immigrants and African Ameri­
cans has been reported extensively in the
media. There are reasons for this con­
flict besides distinct cultural differences
and the resulting m isunderstandings.
Many Koreans locate their businesses in
lo w -in co m e u rb an n e ig h b o rh o o d s,
where doing business involves the risk
o f being robbed or assaulted and may
lead the Koreans in turn to attack Afri­
can Americans. In addition, as middle­
men, they sell corporate products to mi­
norities, receiving hostility and rejection
from their customers (Pyong Gap Min,
in Pincus and Ehrlich 1994,253-63), an
attitude that is exacerbated by the grow­
ing economic success of Korean immi­
grants that often exceeds that o f poor
black people. Ice Cube’s rap lyrics in
“Black Korea” refer to this interethnic
conflict: “Pay respect to the black fist or
we will bum your store down to a crisp.”
See also A s i a n A m e r i c a n . See espe­
cially DINK, DOG-EATER, GINK, GOO-GOO,
GOOK, MICKEY VICKEY, M lSTER CHARLIE,
MODEL MINORITY, ORIENTAL, SLANT, SLOPE,
ZIP.
m ixed, mixed blood. A person usually of
mixed white and black or w hite and
N ative A m erican descent. A lthough
some persons of mixed white and black
descent may identify themselves in these
terms (or as biracial), mainstream soci­
ety usually regards them as black.
150 mixed nuts
V'
M ixed came into use in 1863 to refer
to integration; and, especially for those
opposed to racial mixing, the term has
carried some negative connotations. The
phrase mixed marriage, meaning usually
a marriage between a white and a black,
was heard a few years after m ixed came
into currency. This phrase carries no
derision, although the tone o f voice ac­
companying its use may.
The category of “mixed” background
has been used by the federal government
in association with social security pro­
grams and the preparation of statistics
to determine compliance with civil rights
laws. Some have argued that members
o f mixed racial or ethnic groups have
classified themselves with government-
defined minority categories in order to
qualify for benefits. However, the real is­
sue for many mixed people is with what
group to identify— or refusing to iden­
tify with any commonly defined category.
Lisa Bonet, formerly of The Cosby Show,
when asked how she felt about being a
leading black spokeswom an, replied,
“I ’m not black, I ’m mixed” (in Kathlyn
Gay, Bigotry, 1989, 103).
See also b i r a c i a l , b r e e d , c h o p s u e y ,
HALF-BREED, HALF-CASTE, INTERRACIAL,
MESTIZO/A, METIS/METISSE, MISCEGENATION,
MIXED NUTS, MONGREL, MULTIRACIAL, RAIN­
BOW, TRIRACIAL MIXES.
m ixed nuts. Derogatory term for someone
o f mixed racial descent. See also b i r a ­
c i a l , MIXED.
m oac. See b u f f a lo s o ld ie rs .
mocky, m ockie, mockey. Early nineteenth-
century derogatory term for a Jew, es­
pecially a male. Mencken (1962, suppl.
1, 616) confined its use largely to the
New York City area and surmised a re­
lationship to mock. Other possibilities
are that it derives from the Y iddish
makeh, meaning a boil or sore, or from
an underworld slang word meaning “a
phoney.” In any case, the Yiddish moxie,
meaning “courage,” has no relationship.
■«
For other words for Jews, see Jew,
cross-references.
m odel m inority, ideal m in o rity . Stereo­
typical description o f a m inority group,
usually Asian, as diligent, well educated,
responsible, and materially well off— a
vkind o f id ealized C au casian . A sian
A m ericans may also be idealized b e­
cause they seldom resort to political con­
frontations with white people in order
to achieve their success (w hich helps
explain the less often used synonym
quiet American). In the 1980s in particu­
lar, the popular press pointed to the
strong family values and family struc­
ture o f A sians to explain the “model
minority success.” This explanation is
now viewed as an oversimplication o f
the case (see Takaki 1989, 475).
Use of the term may obscure differ­
ences in socioeconomic status among
Asians and divert attention from the ex­
istence of discrimination against even
those who are successful economically
(Civil Rights Issues Facing Asian A m eri­
cans in the 1990s 1992,19). It may also
put undue pressu re on young A sian
A m erican s to be su p e ra ch ie v ers in
school, although not all young A sian
Americans object to the positive stereo­
type o f being smart. In schools, teach­
ers hold high expectations o f students
of Asian background and may even con­
clude that the success they display in
academic pursuits has to do with “race.”
Reflecting the tendency to stereotype
A sians as A m erica’s latest econom ic
“success story” is the term yappie. M od­
eled afte r yu p p ie, th is w ord m eans
“young Asian professional.” The refer­
ence may also be a self-identification,
sometimes self-conscious, among those
Asian Americans who have reached the
higher income levels o f the professional
or business classes. “The future’s hot­
test careers are reserved for bilingual
yappies” appeared on the cover o f the
November 1994 issue o f Transpacific.
The model minority stereotype has

also been used against other minorities:
if Asian Americans can succeed in the
U nited States, why can’t African Ameri­
cans and Latinos? “ ...the Chinese, un­
like certain other minorities, are believed
to be ‘making it’ without depending on
public assistance.... Chinese Americans
are perceived as the ‘model m inority’”
(Kwong 1987, 5).
See a l s o A s i a n a m e r i c a n , m i n o r i t y .
M oham m edan, M uham m adan. A fol­
low er o f the M uslim faith; based on
M uhammad, name o f the Arab prophet
and founder o f Islam. Both terms are
now often avoided as derisive. “Univer­
sally Arabs, if they ever arose in the con­
scio u s m ind, loom ed as uncivilized
‘M ohammedans,’ robed and turbaned fa­
natics who lived in tents and survived
on the caravan trade” (Sandra Mackey,
Passion and Politics, 1992, 3).
See a l s o A r a b , M o o r , M u s l i m .
m ojado [ m o - 'h a - i h o ] . See w e t b a c k .
M ongoloid. A pseudoscientific term for
Asian people, also popularly but inac­
curately stereotyped as “yellow” (if the
reference is to Native Americans, be­
lieved by anthropologists to be o f Asian
origin, they are “red”). As a racial cat­
egory, it is not a valid taxonomy, and the
-oid ending carries pejorative connota­
tions.
As an old reference to Down’s syn­
drome, mongoloid, often lowercase, de­
rived from features (e.g., broad faces,
narrow eyes) that appeared sim ilar to
physical features o f Mongols (people of
Mongolia). As Rawson (1989) notes, the
Japanese view children bom with this
condition as resembling Caucasians.
See' a l s o C a u c a s ia n , N e g r o id , r a c e ,
yellow .
m ongrel, m ongrelization. From an Old
English word (gemong, “crowd”), terms
d en o tin g a cro ss betw een d ifferen t
groups or races and carrying strong de­
risive connotations. To refer to an indi­
vidual as a mongrel would be similar to
monkey 151
saying he or she was a “bastard”— that
is, had been debased— or a dog (also
used is mutt). Usage suggests a norm o f
racial purity that in fact does not exist.
In the context o f ethnic relations in
the United States, mongrelization has
been used as a cry o f protest against the
m ixing o f b la ck p eo p le and w h ite
people, with the specific intent of deny­
ing rights to those who are black. “[The
Truman civil rights plan] wants to reduce
us to the status o f a mongrel, inferior
race, mixed in blood, our Anglo-Saxon
heritage a mockery” (Dixiecrat F. Dixon,
in The New York Public Library Book o f
20th C entury A m erican Q uotations,
[1992,394]). In the South especially, be­
cause o f the historical social taint on
m iscegenation and white m en’s guilt
over mixing with black women (and of­
ten their suspicion and fear o f white
women mixing clandestinely with black
men), m ongrelization “is a revealing
word with connotations of broken taboos
and gu ilt too terrib le to say alo u d ”
(Lillian Smith, in Hemton 1988, 98).
See also b ir a c ia l , b r e e d , h a l f - b r e e d ,
H A LF-CASTE, INTERRACIAL, M ESTIZO /A ,
m £ t is / m 6 t is s e , m is c e g e n a t io n , m ix e d ,
MIXED NUTS, MULTIRACIAL, NIGGER LOVER.
monkey. Derogatory name in black use for
a white person, dating from the mid-
1900s. Spears (1991) relates it possibly
to the slang term for female genitals or
to ape. It has also been used by white
people as an epithet for black people.
Monkey chaser was a black usage for a
black or someone from the West Indies
(Major 1994).
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. For other words white people use
for black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences.
Filipino imm igrants earlier in this
century were also called “monkeys,” al­
luding to what was believed to be their
upbringing in the jungle. “ ‘In those days
[1 9 2 0 s -1 9 3 0 s ],’ re c a lle d Jo se
152 m onoculturalism
--------------------------------------- ----- 'v
Sarmiento, ‘they [Filipinos] were fol­
lowed in the streets, with people calling
them all kinds of names, like ‘go-go,’ and
‘monkey,’ and such’” (Okihiro 1994,
110). The epithet has been applied to
other Asians as well, as has the short­
ened monk, used especially for a Chi­
nese or Chinese American. The connec­
tion with the Chinese may be through
the early Chinese im m igrants’ opium
habits, monkey here referring to a nar­
cotic addiction.
See a l s o a p e , A s i a n A m e r i c a n , F i l i ­
p in o /a , j u n g le .
m onoculturalism . The sharing of a single
culture or participation in a culture that
is self-contained, homogeneous, and lack­
ing in contact with or appreciation of
other cultures. W hile often simply de­
scriptive, as when referring to a charac­
teristic of most people in dominant cul­
tures throughout the world, monocultur­
alism is frequently used by multicultur­
alists with at least mild approbation.
Members of white Eurocentric American
culture are identified as lacking contact
with, failing to respect, and acting to ex­
clude and oppress minority cultures. At
one extreme of ideological multicultur-
alism , th e im p lic a tio n o f b ein g ■
monoculturalist is that one is a racist.
“So you might say that my upbring­
ing was monocultural, in fact classically
colonial, in the sense that it concentrated
on the history, literature and values of
W estern Europe and, in particular, of
England, and not much else” (Hughes
1993, 87).
See also a s s i m i l a t i o n , d i v e r s i t y ,
m a in s tre a m , m u ltic u ltu r a lis m , p l u r a l ­
ism .
M ontezum a’s revenge (curse). An allusion
to Montezuma (or Moctezuma) II, the
Aztec em peror conquered by Spanish
invaders, used jocularly since the 1960s
to describe the diarrhea often experi­
enced by visitors to Mexico. The expres­
sion may be regarded as offensive by
M exicans. A lso known as A ztec hop,
Aztec revenge, A ztec two-step, M exican
two-step, and M exican fox-trot.
M oor. A once com mon name for a M uslim
o f North A frica and the Berbers who
established them selves in the Iberian
Peninsula from the eighth to the seven­
teenth century; from Latin Maurus, “in­
habitant of Mauretania.” M oor has also
been used in the United States, like Arab,
for a people o f mixed American Indian,
black, and white descent living in the
Southeast (see t r i r a c i a l m i x e s ) . T he
U.S. epithet does not refer to any cul­
tural connection with North A frica but
m ost likely stems from the relatively
dark complexion of these people.
See also A r a b , M o h a m m e d a n , M u s ­
lim .
m osaic. A metaphor for diversity. “Cana­
dians have recently adopted a m ore sat­
isfactory metaphor for their society, call­
ing it a mosaic, in which groups tend to
retain certain characteristics yet at the
same time become Canadian” (Daniels
1990, 8). For those opposed to m ulticul­
tural programs in education and society,
the term may be used mockingly.
See also d i v e r s i t y , m e l t i n g p o t , p l u ­
ra lis m .
m ose/m osella. A pejorative w ord w hen
used generically by white people for a
black man or woman, connoting aver­
age qualities or conventionality. T he
term is based on the biblical name M oses
and is derived from its perceived fre­
quent use in African American Protes­
tant religious services. “So many times
we’ve said, ‘We’re going to New York,
w e’re going to Harlem, w e’re going to
Chocolate City. We’re going to see Mose
and M osella.’ W hich are certain charac­
terizations o f black people” (Jesse Jack­
son, speaking of the usage as nonbiased
in black English, in Newsweek, 9 April
1984, 35).
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references.
 mulatto/a 153

M oslem . See M u s lim . origin and early use o f the term.) Its ear­
liest recorded appearance is 1595 (the
m u d people, m u d race. Terms that come
rare feminine form mulatress was in use
as close as any epithet can in rivaling
by the early nineteenth century). In early
the abusiveness of nigger, if not exceed­
ethnic discourse, mulatto loosely meant
ing it for viciousness. Actually, used
a person o f mixed descent, especially
am ong right-wing racist and white su­
someone half African, or someone half
premacist groups, it means more than a
Native American and half white, or half
black person. It can be used for any non­
Native Am erican and half black; but
white, non-European, non-Christian, or
typically and now almost always white
foreigner targeted by hate groups. Jews,
and black. More specifically, it refers to
however, may be regarded as a separate
a person descended from one black-iden­
category.
tified and one white-identified parent. In
Although m ud has long been used in
the United States, someone designated
slang to mean defamation or to refer to
a mulatto is not typically regarded as
a fool (as in mud-head), there seems to
belonging to a special category, although
be no parallel to m ud people for its de­
differences in skin color are socially and
rogatory connotations: lowlife, sticky
psychologically significant, both in the
formlessness, dirt (the slur gook carries
w hite po p u latio n and am ong black
sim ilar connotations of dirt or slime),
people (see Russell, Wilson, and Hall
and darkness. So-called mud people are
1992). The mulatto category was part of
thought of as descendants of Satan mated
the U.S. Census until 1920.
with animals. “Mud people,” the extrem­
The response to mulattoes during the
ists argue, are “pre-Adamic,” thus out­
era of enslavement was often ambiva­
side humanity and lacking souls. “We
lent. They represented the “horrors” of
need to cleanse this nation of all non­
m iscegenation, but because o f their
white m ud-races for the very survival of
white “blood,” they were believed to be
our own people and the generations of
more intelligent— and often more attrac­
o u r c h ild ren ” (Tom M etzger, W hite
tive— than black people with no white
Aryan Resistance telephone hotline, 27
ancestry. As W illiam son (1995) has
June 1988, in Dees and Fiffer 1993, 8).
pointed out, before 1850 in the lower
As defined among right-wing extremists,
South, white people, harsh toward black
the process o f race mixing is known as
slaves, could be lenient toward the free
“m uddying” the “pure white race.” mulattoes; real distinctions were made
D an iela G ioseffi (1993, xi) finds between these two groups. But after
irony in the ultraright’s abusive use of 1850, mulattoes, under pressure from a
the term, since mud is biogenetically the growing intolerance of miscegenation,
source o f life: “ ... without the fertile mud turned increasingly toward engagement
o f creation, no life could exist on Earth.” with blacks. The “tragic mulatto” is a
For other words for black people, see stereotype o f the mixed-race person as
b l a c k , cross-references. See especially
someone tormented by emotional prob­
n i g g e r : See also g o o k , m o n g r e l , r a c i s m ,
lems resulting from an unstable mix of
WHITE SUPREMACY.
“blood.”
m u la tto /a (p i mulattoes, mulattos). From Today in the United States, mulatto
Spanish and Portuguese mulato, from is common but may still be associated
m ulo (from Latin mulus), “a mule”; in with its historical context of enslavement
other words, a hybrid. Some believe it (hence its potential derogatory connota­
has an Arabic origin. (See Forbes 1993, tion). The term is not necessarily used
131-50, for a detailed discussion o f the today with pejorative intent and in fact
154 multiculturalism
may be a self-identification, preferred
because it is more specific than biracial.
However, if the etymology of mulatto,
implying an animal metaphor, is known,
it is likely to be taken as offensive. The
terms o f biracial status are still a fuzzy
area. M ixed or person o f m ixed ancestry
are usually neutral today. See b i r a c i a l
for a quote.
See also b a n a n a , b l e a c h , b r e e d ,
b ro w n , b ro w n ie , c o l o r e d , h a l f - b r e e d ,
h a l f - c a s t e , h ig h y e l l o w , m e tis /m e tis s e ,
MISCEGENATION, MIXED, MONGREL, MULTI­
RACIAL, OCTOROON, PINKIE, SCHOOL BUS,
TOUCH OF THE TARBRUSH, TRIRACIAL MIXES,
YELLOW, YELLOW SUBMARINE, ZEBRA.
m u lticu ltu ralism . An ideal in which di­
verse groups in a society coexist amica­
bly, retaining their individual cultural
id e n tities. T hrough equal access to
power (pluralism), they enrich one an­
other. This term was heard in the 1960s,
though it is normally traced to the mid-
1980s, when it becam e trendy. W hat is
sometimes referred to as the multicul­
tural movement, at least in the academy,
is said to derive from the development
o f A fro-A m erican studies in the late
1960s (Gates 1992, xii). But much of
what is known as multiculturalism is the
culmination o f the cultural pluralism o f
the early twentieth century. In its more
radical forms, however, multiculturalism
lacks any trust in common culture fea­
tured in pluralistic beliefs.
Multiculturalism is often linked with,
and dismissed as, a form o f political cor­
rectness. Its lexicon has become particu­
larly visible and is sometimes excori­
ated. Bernstein (1994,8) notes that those
on the “radical left...bring into service
a vocabulary to which multiculturalism
has an almost salacious attraction, words
like ‘racist,’ ‘sexist,’ and ‘homophobic.’ ”
The word multiculturalism, though
often reduced to a single “ism,” refers
to a heterogeneous bag of concerns, con­
cepts, categories, principles, and prac­
tices (see Goldberg 1994). In general,
however, multiculturalism is the celebra­
tion o f racial and cultural diversity, see­
ing other cultures (especially those tra­
ditionally excluded) on their own terms,
in contrast especially to those o f a main­
stream white and patriarchal society. It
•incorporates what Catherine Stimpson o f
Rutgers University has called “cultural
democracy,” paying attention to a plu­
rality o f voices in order to understand
our history, and may express a cosm o­
politanism in w hich different groups
support one another and create m ore
solidarity for everyone. It also em bod­
ies the belief that with words and ideas,
marginalized groups can be empowered
and justice be brought to the world. In
its broadest— and perhaps m ost widely
accepted sense— it refers to social ju s ­
tice and equality o f opportunity.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, multi­
culturalism unleashed a backlash among
observers in the press and conservative
political groups who bem oaned the re­
surgence of interest in ethnic diversity
and w ho leveled various com plaints
against m ulticulturalism and its sup­
posed (and sometimes real) excesses. It
was, so they said, going to exacerbate
ethnic chauvinism, fragmenting society
into a maze o f ethnic enclaves. A favor­
ite attack expression o f those making this
charge is “Tower o f Babel,” referring to
the tower o f the ancient city o f Shinar,
whose construction was abandoned be­
cause o f the confusion o f the languages
o f the building crews. “Balkanization”
(referring originally to the divided states
o f the Balkan Peninsula) is also fre­
quently heard.
In addition, according to its oppo­
nents, the movement threatened to pull
from library shelves those books that
present a minority group as anything but
perfect and to politicize the school cur­
riculum with courses in “victim” or “op­
pression studies.” Demands for separate
Asian, African American, or Hispanic
studies would lay extra financial burdens

on institutions and threaten the influence
o f Western culture in the United States
by introducing new, non-Western barbar­
isms into society. Critics have further
argued that w hereas m ulticulturalism
ideally refers to all cultures in our soci­
ety, it is often used exclusive of the white
dominant culture, which is attacked as
racist and hegemonic. As such, the term
is regarded as a misnomer.
D efenders w ould argue that such
charges, made in the so-called culture
wars, are exaggerated and politicized. At
best, they say, multiculturalism as por­
trayed by the cultural conservative does
not reflect the diversity of views (which
have their critics within the movement)
or the positive values o f the movement,
including listening to minority voices.
Nor, it is argued, do detractors often
understand the non-W estem cultures
they readily dismiss in favor of Western
traditions.
C o n cern , how ever, has been ex­
pressed by many liberals that promot­
ing difference limits people to involun­
tary ethnic identities. It also may entail
learning to live with racism or can en­
courage the development of ethnic en­
claves that do not benefit from the ad­
vances o f the larger society. Still others
see the movement as a cosmetic that does
little to ameliorate conditions of minori­
ties except, for instance, to sell a glam­
orized version o f the ghetto: “Much of
what the ’90s is experiencing is not mul­
ticulturalism but mass cultural appro­
priation.... A nd the truth of the matter
is that y o u ’re ripping m e o f f ’ (Joan
Morgan, Rebelle, Summer 1994, 34).
M ulticulturalism has been described
as a corollary o f the newly globalized
consum er economy: “Are the multicul­
turalists truly unaware o f how closely
their treasured catchphrases— ‘cultural
diversity,’ ‘difference,’ the need to ‘do
away with boundaries’— resemble the
stock phrases of the modem corporation:
‘pro d u ct diversification,’ ‘the global
multiracial 155
m arketplace,’ and ‘the boundary-less
com pany’?” (D avid Rieff, H a rp e r’s
Magazine, August 1993, 66).
Multiculturalism has also been used
simply in reference to ethnic diversity
or to the relations between different cul­
tures. In the United States, multicultur­
alism “for an increasing num ber o f
Americans is not a cause, fad, or theory
but a lived reality” (John Francis Burke,
Commonweal, 5 Novem ber 1993, 5).
M ulticultural occurs as a synonym of
multiracial, which refers to the interre­
lationship o f “races.” M ulticult (“multi­
cultural” or “multiculturalism”) is slang;
m ulticuld may be used for advocates of
multiculturalism.
See also a s s i m i l a t i o n , c a n o n , c u l ­
t u r a l HEGEMONY, CULTURAL RELATIVISM,
d iv e rs ity , DWEM, e q u a lity , id e n tity
POLITICS, INTERCULTURAL, INTERRACIAL,
MELTING POT, MONOCULTURALISM, MOSAIC,
MULTIRACIAL, OPPRESSION, PLURALISM, PO­
LITICAL CORRECTNESS, RACE, RAINBOW, VIC­
TIM.
m u ltira c ia l. Consisting o f or involving
more than one race, often more than two
(biracial is used when only two races
are involved). The term is often heard in
reference to persons from mixed-race
backgrounds or in a mixed-race relation­
ship (also called interracial), but it is also
frequently used to refer to the variety of
minorities that make up American soci­
ety. “Does it not make good business
sense for com panies to redefine their
relationship with a multiracial society?”
(Rev. Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., New
York Times, 31 August 1993, C l).
The term denotes genetic code; there
is, as of yet, no culture— no shared val­
ues, religion, or food preferences— of
m u ltira c ia lis m . Yet th e issu e o f
multiracialism expresses and affects so­
cial and political values and ethnic iden­
tity; and if it catches on, as it seems to
be, it could disrupt the polar black-white
thinking about race in the United States.
156 Muslim
In some political contexts, such as right-
wing extremism or black nationalism,
the term may be used negatively.
The identity, and thus self-descrip­
tion, of an individual o f multiracial back­
ground will be expressed differently de­
pending on the individual and his or her
family preferences, on the social and
political context (and often pressure), or
on the legal definitions o f the state the
individual lives in. Typically, an indi­
vidual with a black and a white parent,
or parents o f even greater mix, has been
regarded by the broader society as black,
and the individual often grows up with
that identity. “M ost interracial parents
realize that their children are not white—
and will, in fact, experience the preju­
dices their single-race minority counter­
parts experience” (Francis Wardle, New
People, September/October 1993, 7).
In the early 1990s, legal definitions
began to change, reflecting grass-roots
pressure from mixed-marriage parents
wanting their children to have an appro­
priate choice in school— and also on
hospital, census, and federal forms and
other records— between black, white, or
biracial. Ohio was the first state to cre­
ate a multiracial classification in school
records for complying with the report­
ing requirements o f the state board of
education. In 1993, the Illinois Senate
and the House passed a bill that also cre­
ated a multiracial classification for pur­
poses o f school reporting. Such m ea­
su res p u t a m u ltir a c ia l bo x on
standarized test forms, alongside white,
black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander,
and N ative Am erican, for identifying
race or ethnic origin. “Supporters believe
that as m ore states create the multiracial
designation, the pressure will mount for
the federal government to follow suit”
(Karen Berkowitz, Evanston Review, 20
May 1993, 5). Some multiculturalists
have expressed concern that creating a
new classification only divides com mu­
nities of color and distracts from the cen­
tral issues o f injustice, thus buttressing
racism. Others see it as a challenge to
the traditional system o f racial classifi­
cation in the United States, which shoves
mixed-heritage people into definite ra­
cial boxes.
v See also b i r a c i a l , b r e e d , c h o l o / a ,
CHOP SUEY, DIVERSITY, HALF-BREED, HALF­
C A STE, IN TERCULTURAL, IN TER RA C IA L,
MgTIS/MfiTISSE, MINORITY, MISCEGENATION,
MIXED, RACE, RAINBOW, TRIRACIAL MIXES.
M uslim . Arabic muslim, from aslama (to
surrender to God, to seek peace)— an
adherent o f Islam. Islam (surrender, sub­
m ission) corresponds in m eaning to
Muslim. As The Concise Encyclopedia
o f Islam (1991) explains, the s in M us­
lim is pronounced with a hiss; to pro­
nounce it as the s in nose alters the mean­
ing in Arabic to “cruel,” thus becom ing
offensive.
As both adjective and noun, M uslim
is preferred by adherents o f Islam to the
Westernized M oslem. A ccording to re­
search done for Allan M. Siegal, assis­
tant managing editor o f the New York
Times, Muslim is seen in print almost two
to one to M oslem (reported in Safire
1991).
In the United States, M uslim is used
to refer to a diverse population o f Ameri­
can M uslims, including African A m eri­
can Muslims and imm igrants from Pa­
kistan, Egypt, India, and many other
countries (an Arab, however, is not nec­
essarily a M uslim ). Steven B arb o za
(American Jihad, 1993, 12) argues that
until recently, the U.S. press has branded
black converts to the faith in the U nited
States as M uslim and reserved M oslem
for those who practice in the Old World,
even though basically the same religion
is being practiced.
In C anada and the U nited States,
many M uslim women (two out o f three,
according to Professor Yvonne H addad
o f the University o f M assachusetts, cited
in the New York Times, 1 May 1993, A13)
marry non-M uslim men, some o f whom
 convert to Islam. Among those who do,
according to Professor Haddad, many
convert pro forma, and other Muslims
dism iss them as “Cupid’s Muslims.”
See also A r a b , B l a c k M u s l i m , M o o r ,
M oham m edan.

m u tt. See m o n g re l.

N U.S. territory into white and black ar­
n a g u r. See C h in e s e .
n arro w b a ck . A slang epithet for an Irish
person, usually a m ale, dating from
about the middle o f this century; not in
com mon use. A popular explanation of
the origin o f this term draws upon dif­
fe re n c e s b etw e en the ac cu ltu ra te d ,
A m erican-born Irishman and the imm i­
grant. The former, rising from the work­
ing-class status o f his immigrant forefa­
thers, was said to lack the broad back or
shoulders required for doing manual la­
bor.
“Im m igrants and ‘narrow backs’...
seemed to mingle quite well in organi­
zations like the Clan-na-Gael and the
A ncient O rder o f Hibernians” (Michael
F. Funchion, in Jones and Holli 1981,
32).
See a l s o h o o d l u m I r is h , I r is h , J a k e y ,
LACE CURTAIN IRISH, MlCK, PADDY, PADDY
native/native people; aborigine. A native
w a g o n , P a t, s h a n ty Iris h , sp u d , T u r k .
n atio n alism . A people’s devotion to their
nation; emphasis on group interests, pri­
marily territory and culture; and the ad­
vantage of nations acting independently
as o p p o sed to collectively. W hen a
people or nation is under the domina­
tion o f another country, nationalism re­
fers to the aspiration for independence.
Although the concept of nation has
sometimes and in some places been in­
dependent o f that o f race, the two con­
cepts often cross. In Japan, for example,
nationality and race are conceived o f as
coterminous, and certain European na­
tions have sim ilarly identified them ­
selves racially.
In multicultural discourse, a nation­
alist is one who rejects or, at least, re­
m ains skeptical o f the pluralist belief
that, under favorable conditions, diverse
groups can coexist amicably in the same
society. Black nationalists in the United
States, for example, reject assimilation-
ism and have, at one tim e or another, set
native/native people 159
such goals as separatism (separating
eas), exchange of populations between
the United States and Africa, cultural or
political revolution, and achievement of
the necessary natural and human re­
sources to establish a black nation. Cul­
tural nationalism refers to the emphasis
placed by som e in the B lack Pow er
movement on the celebration of Africa
and African culture and the repudiation
o f white culture.
Ethnic groups that seek political au­
tonomy, including those who have lost
it and wish to regain it, may be called
nationalities. One of the relatively re­
cent acronyms in “Pentagon-speak” is
ENS war, an “ethnic, nationalist, and
separatist” conflict.
See also a s s im il a t io n , d iv e r s it y , f a s ­
c i s m , id e n t it y p o l it ic s , m e l t in g p o t , m u l ­
t ic u l t u r a l is m , p l u r a l is m , s e g r e g a t io n .
is an individual bom in a given location.
Native connotes permanence and sug­
gests origin in a region. It differs some­
what from resident (a person who resides
in a place) but less so from indigenous
(which refers to large groups— a species
or race— and implies not having been
introduced from outside). It may also be
distinguished from aboriginal, which
implies being the first to occupy a re­
gion (see below in this entry).
In the United States, Native A m eri­
can is commonly used for American In­
dians, Aleuts, and Inuit. Native people
is still usually used neutrally, for ex­
ample, “By reaffirming traditional val­
ues, Alaska’s native people are educat­
ing a generation o f stronger children”
(Cultural Survival, Fall 1992, 34). In
Canada, Native Canadian and Native
People are used officially to refer to the
original inhabitants.
Native may be somewhat derogatory,
however, when connoting parochialism;
local residents may be stereotyped as
160 N a tiv e A la s k a n
-------------------------------------------**7
being narrow in their views. It is espe­
cially disparaging in a colonial context,
when- restricted to so-called primitive
people, in which case it usually connotes
nonwhite. The British thought o f nearly
everyone in their former empire who was
not white as “natives” (the white people
were known as colonials), though wogs
was often used for Asians and Arabs. In
British writer Doris Lessing’s “The Old
Chief Mshlanga,” a white teenage girl
sees the “natives” not as individuals but
as undifferentiated: “as remote as the
trees and rocks” and “an amorphous,
black m ass”; their language was “un­
couth” and “ridiculous”— all that the
racist stereotype native can imply (in
Rochman 1993, 18). W hite Americans
have held sim ilar views o f nonw hite
people.
Indigenous people is commonly used
among anthropologists and other social
scientists and writers who wish to avoid
any possible derogatory connotation of
natives. T he appellation indigenous
people has for some time been applied
to Native Americans (today those Na­
tive Americans who accept this phrase
often prefer to capitalize it). Apparently
to avoid both using the word native and
being accused of Eurocentrism by cel­
ebrating Christopher Columbus, Berke­
ley, California, declared October 12 In­
digenous Peoples Day in recognition of
th e im portant place that indigenous
people have had in the history o f the
continent. Berkeley also declared 1992,
th e five h u n d re d th a n n iv e rsa ry o f
Columbus’s landing in America, “The
Year o f Indigenous People.”
“To go native” was originally U.S.
naval slang meaning to live in or adopt
the practices of another country, espe­
cially an indigenous sea island culture
(Wentworth and Flexner 1975). It has
often referred to a white person’s relaps­
ing into the “primitive” ways o f the non­
white, hence, meaning to decivilize or
de-Christianize. In recent years, it has
been used extensively in the intercultural
literature to describe someone who at­
tempts to adapt to another culture by
imitating its values and behaviors to the
point o f caricature.
Native is sometimes capitalized when
, vused to describe something that is N a­
tive American, as in “Native shaman.”
See also I n d i a n , N a t iv e A m e r i c a n ,
NATTVE-CENTRISM, NATIVISM.
Aborigine, possibly an ancient tribal
nam e altered by p o p u lar etym ology
(Barnhart 1988), was in early use to re­
fer to the first inhabitants o f Greece and
Italy. L ater it w as applied to N ative
Americans (also called aboriginal Indi­
ans or red aborigines) and the original
inhabitants o f New Zealand (the M aori).
Today it is almost exclusively found in
the Australian context, usually as A b ­
origine or Aboriginal, and it is here that
some would prefer to restrict its use.
‘T h e labyrinth o f invisible pathways are
known to ... the Aboriginals as the ‘Foot­
p rin ts o f th e A n c e s to r s ’” (B ru c e
Chatwin, The Songlines, 1987, 2). Abo
(also abo), the Australian slang shorten­
ing o f Aborigine, has com e increasingly
to be regarded as abusive and conde­
scending. Other usages in Australia have
included blackfella (pidgin that today
may be viewed as disparaging when used
by white speakers) and black or A ustra­
lian black, gaining in currency and cor­
rectness.
N ative A laskan. See E s k im o .
N ative A m erican , nativ e A m erican . A n
American Indian o f the U nited States
(Native Canadian or N ative People is
used in Canada), also often applied to
Alaska Natives, w hether Indian or not.
N ative A m erican enjoyed w idespread
use in the 1980s and 1990s, especially
among non-Indians and certain catego­
ries o f Indians. It has frequently been
regarded as “politically correct.”
In this sense, the term came into use
in the 1960s in the Bureau of Indian A f­

fairs. Before its use as a reference to In­
dians, however, especially in the nine­
teenth and early tw entieth centuries,
N ative A m erican referred to someone
who was hostile toward foreigners. It
was also heard in the nineteenth century
in reference to a Hispanic bom in the
A m ericas as opposed to Spain. Today
n a tive A m erican (low ercase n) may
mean anyone bom in the United States,
regardless o f ethnic background.
A xtell (1988) observes that urban
Indians, non-Indian urban dwellers, and
federal grant and college application
writers often prefer Native American to
Indian. D eloria (1974) notes that the
younger generation of Indians has tried
to popularize Native American.
To some Indians and multicultural-
ists, however, N ative Am erican, like
American Indian, is Eurocentric because
A m erican is a European-given name,
based on the first name o f the Italian
explorer Amerigo Vespucci. Use of N a­
tive A m erican, however, poses m ore
practical problems. First, some Ameri­
can Indians, such as many in the older
generation, accept the label American
Indian, regarding Native American as a
government and outsider’s usage. Sec­
ond, many Indians wish only to be iden­
tified by the name o f their particular na­
tion, o f which there are many. Third,
N ative A m erican does not distinguish
between Indians and other indigenous
peoples o f Alaska, such as Aleuts and
Inuits, or Eskimos. Fourth, further en­
larging this category, the U.S. govern­
ment (Department o f Health and Human
Services) uses the term to refer also to
Native Hawaiians and Native American
Pacific Islanders, a category that in­
cludes Sam oans o f A m erican Samoa,
C h a m o rro s (in d ig e n o u s p e o p le o f
Guam), and indigenous peoples o f the
C o m m o n w e a lth o f th e N o rth e rn
Marianas and the Republic of Palau. This
creates a “one size fits all” category that
many American Indians resist because
Native American 161
of differences in history, culture, and
government status between them and the
Islanders.
H istorians encounter still another
problem: historical docum ents, espe­
cially those before the late nineteenth
century, use Indians. The historian who,
to be linguistically current, chooses N a­
tive American faces the resulting incon­
sistency o f usage. In addition, the use of
N ative A m erica n sug g ests to w hite
Am ericans o f European background,
whose families may have been in the
United States for generations, that they
are not really natives.
First Americans (also original Ameri­
cans— first word in either phrase may
be capitalized or not) is another name
given to American Indians. Like Native
Americans, it emphasizes their presence
in this hemisphere before Columbus’s
landing. It may be thought of as a term
o f respect, as suggested in B arbara
Beasley M urphy’s story o f a Pueblo boy
introducing an Anglo girlfriend to his
world:
“What’s your name first?...”
“Paul. Eagle Cloud,” I said, sur­
prised at myself for telling her
that name.
“Eagle Cloud’s your Native Ameri­
can— I mean First American
name?”
—in Donald R. Gallo, ed.,
Join In, 1993, 25
Sometimes with this usage, however, the
idea o f First Americans untainted by
European civilization— the noble sav­
age— is just around the comer.
National Native American Day is a
renaming of Columbus Day proposed by
A m erican Indians who con sid er the
quincentenary o f the arrival of Christo­
pher Columbus (1992) in the Americas
a day of mourning, not celebration.
For names white people call Native
Americans, see I iid ia n , cross-references.
See also A m e r i n d , H a w a iia n , n a t iv e ,
NATIVISM, NOBLE SAVAGE.
162 n a tiv e - c e n tr is m
------------------------------------------ V
native-centrism. The perspective o f native
people or em phasis on their values and
heritage, seen, especially among Native
Americans, as a source of pride and soli­
darity. ■ attempts o f indigenous groups to slow
See a l s o A f r o c e n t r is m , A n g l o c e n -
TRISM, EUROCENTRISM, NATIVE.
Native Hawaiian, native Hawaiian. See
H a w a iia n .
nativism. The favoring o f natives over out­
siders or a sociopolitical movement de­
signed to protect U.S. shores, or bor­
ders— and thus the interests o f current
in h a b ita n ts — a g a in st im m ig ra n ts.
Nativism is used especially in the United
States, often from the left, with dispar­
aging overtones. Those who arrive at
times of economic or social stress, es­
pecially those marked by racial, cultural,
and linguistic differences, are most likely
to be in disfavor among nativists.
In the m id-nineteenth century (the
term nativism originated in the 1840s),
nativist prejudice focused especially on
Germans, Irish, and Catholics. After the
Civil War, sentiment flared against the
large influx o f new im m igrants from
central, eastern, and southeastern E u­
rope, including many Jews, and against
Asian Americans, especially Chinese.
These people were seen as foreigners
whose arrival threatened to alter the per­
ceived character o f the nation. The N a­
tional Origins Act o f 1924 established
quotas regulating immigration and re­
flecting the culmination o f nativism.
Since the late 1980s, many have rec­
ognized what they regard as the return
of nativism in American society: a reac­
tion in particular against the flow o f un­
authorized entry into the United States,
especially at the U.S.-Mexican border.
“In spite o f resurgent nativism, any pro­
posal to sharply curtail legal imm igra­
tion would meet massive resistance...
from liberals who see open immigration
as a basic ingredient of the universalist
American idea [and from] conservatives
attached to free markets and open inter­
national borders” (Peter D. Salins, New
Republic, 27 D ecem ber 1993, 13).
Nativism is also used to refer to the
acculturation and return to, or preserve
vwhat is left of, their native cultural char­
acteristics after contact with a dom inant
society. The Native American Church in
the United States is an exam ple o f this
kind o f nativism.
See also a l ie n , f o r e ig n e r , im m ig r a n t ,
NATIVE, PREJUDICE.
Nazi. See fa s c is m .
Neapolitan disease. See F r e n c h d is e a s e .
neck. See re d n e ck .
negative. Derogatory term for a black per­
son. It may allude to a num ber o f char­
acteristics, including color inversion, the
absence o f things, and unfavorableness.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences.
negritude, negritude, Negritude. The con­
cept of shared African heritage and psy­
chological makeup which was developed
by black artists, writers, and anticolo­
nialists in Africa and in exile. Negritude
comes from the French negre, meaning
“Negro.” Coined in the 1930s in French-
occupied Africa, it came into currency
in the United States in the late 1940s and
1950s. It is used in the sense o f African
identity or, more often, for the sense of
pride and even superiority the term is
meant to give to possessing both the cul­
tural and the physical characteristics of
being black. With the rise o f black na­
tionalism in the U nited States in the
1950s and 1960s, the term was used to
counter the devaluation o f these charac­
teristics by white people. Negritude can
also mean simply the state of being black
African.
One of the leading exponents o f the
idea o f negritude was the Algerian psy­
chiatrist and writer Frantz Fanon, whose

book Black Skin, White M asks (English
translation 1967) articulated his views
on the psychology o f racism and colo­
nial domination. The later Wretched o f
the E arth (English translation 1968)
called for revolutionary strategies to free
colonized people from the dehumaniz­
ing circumstances of their colonization.
“T hey [the au th o r’s father and ■
friend] had cool Atlanta University ac­
cents, and their language, while always
free o f profanity and solecism, could be
hard and serious. I think they had the
quality that is called negritude" (Wilson
J. M oses, in Early 1993, 276).
See a l s o A f r i c a n , A f r o c e n t r i s m ,
BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL, NEGRO/NEGRESS.
Negro/Negress, negro/negress. In the eigh­
teenth-century, a euphemism for slave.
Negro derives from Latin niger, “black,”
com ing into English through the Span­
ish and Portuguese negro. It referred to
black Africans and their descendants but
also, more generally, to virtually anyone
nonwhite. Its earliest recorded appear­
ance as a noun is 1555, in a translation
o f Peter M artyr’s Decades o f the New
World or West Indies. M oore (1992) dis­
cusses it as a designation by which Af­
rican slaves in A nglo A m erica were
branded as bestial savages.
Late in the nineteenth century, how­
ever, this term, in the lowercase, began
to encroach on the dominant usage, col­
ored, am ong black people and in the
press. Between the two world wars, the
preference for negro affiliated itself with
the rising hopes for first-class citizen­
ship among African Americans (who had
fought in World War I), a change in sta­
tus that would call for a change in name.
Meanwhile, in 1930, the New York Times
announced that it would capitalize N e­
gro “in recognition of racial self-respect
for those who have been for generations
in the ‘lowercase.’ ” (A few black people,
however, resisted capitalization for fear
that giving typographic prominence to
Negro/Negress______ 163
the name might harden the stereotype of
black people.)
Since about the late 1960s, Negro has
been used among black speakers to con­
note meekness, subservience, or concil­
iatory behavior (in the sense of an Uncle
Tom: Harriet Beecher Stowe described
the “Negro race” as largely docile and
forgiving) and self-hatred among black
people. “My Negro friends don’t carry
around rabbits’ feet [as opposed to guns]
no more” (Richard Roundtree, sardoni­
cally, as the title-role detective in the
1971 film Shaft). Stokely Carmichael
(now Kwame Tour6) highlighted the
derogatory element o f Negro by tracing
the term ’s use: “When we were in Af­
rica we were called Africans or black
people; when we were in Africa we were
free. When we were captured and stolen
and brought to the U nited States, we
became Negroes” (Stokely Speaks, 1971,
149-50). Lowercased or capitalized, use
today is restricted largely to the proper
names of organizations established in the
past or to words such as Negro spiritual.
In other contexts it is often placed in­
side quotation marks.
Historically, peoples other than Af­
rican blacks or African Americans have
been labeled negro, for example, Chi­
nese Americans in the South, who were
subjected to Jim Crow laws; N ative
Americans; Asian Indians; and Japanese.
Until the 1960s, Negro was also used to
refer to the English spoken by African
Americans.
Negress, for a black female, was a
traditional feminine form from the late
eighteenth century and became contro­
versial, then gratuitous by the early
twentieth century. Like Jewess, it is nor­
mally taboo today both for its sexist -ess
ending and for its ethnic derogation. The
connotations of the term are reflected in
Calvin H ernton’s reference to usage
among white supremacists in the ante­
bellum South: “The black woman was a
‘Negress,’ to whom one could do any-
164______Negroid
"V:
thing without fear o f reprisal from God
or conscience” (1988, 96). It may, how­
ever, have its neutral uses.
See a l s o A f r ic a n , A f r ic a n A m e r ic a n ,
BLACK, COLORED, GROID, NEGRITUDE, N e ­
For other names
g r o id , n i g g e r , n i g g r a .
w hite people call black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references.
Negroid, negroid. Pseudoscientific term for
people of black African descent. As a
racial category, it is not a valid tax­
onomy.
See a l s o b l a c k , C a u c a s o id , c o l o r e d ,
g r o id , M o n g o l o id , N e g r o / N e g r e s s ,
race.
N egro problem . See black pro blem .
N eorican, Neo R ican. See N u y o r ic a n .
Newfie. Colloquial for Newfoundlander (or
Newfoundland). Although residents of
this province o f Canada have objected
to this expression, it, and the even more
abbreviated Newf, remain in slang use
and informal travel writing. A “Newfie”
jo k e is a kind o f ethnic put-dow n o f
Newfoundlanders.
See a l s o h e r r in g c h o k e r .
New W orld. Mundus Novus, “New World,”
th e n am e used by Ita lia n e x p lo re r
A m erigo Vespucci a few years after
Christopher Colum bus’s 1492 landfall
on an island o f the Bahamas, for what
Vespucci was the first to describe as a
previously unknown continent in the
Western Hemisphere. In Mundus Novus,
first published in Latin in 1503, he gave
literary expression to the then emerging
European image o f South America. Ger­
man cartographer Martin Waldseemtiller
put the name America on a map in 1507
for V espucci’s New World. The New
World came to be used almost synony­
mously with the Americas.
M any today object to the nam e’s
Eurocentrism. Obviously, the Americas
were not new to the Native Americans
Columbus encountered. Moreover, his­
torically, in discussions o f European
emigration to America, the term has car­
ried with it a sense o f the “em ptiness”
or “virginness” o f the Americas— ready
to be conquered and exploited by white
people. This has been part o f the myth
o f America associated with the render­
ing o f Native A m ericans as invisible.
’ Still, the term is seen commonly in print,
though frequently in quotation marks to
signal its bias. Its use m ay be justifiable
in archaeology or when the point o f view
the speaker wishes to convey is that of
historical Europeans or enslaved A fri­
cans, to whom America was, indeed, the
“New World.” “Faith Unfurled tells how
the Pilgrims were taken advantage o f
when they negotiated for ships to take
them to the New W orld.. (Booklist, 15
November 1993, 616).
See also A m e r ic a n , d is c o v e r e d .
N IC . See HNIC.
N igerian. A citizen of the W est A frican
state, the Federal Republic o f Nigeria.
Disparagingly, any black person (euphe­
mistic for nigger).
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially A f r i c a n , b u s h
( B u s h m a n ), E t h io p ia n , H o t t e n t o t ,
K a f f ir , M a u M a u , P y g m y , Z u l u .
nigger, niggar. A pernicious slur that is
without doubt the most disparaging epi­
thet used for black people. Perhaps there
is no other epithet for any group as in­
sulting as this. It is especially abusive
when used by white people.
“We blowed out a cylinder-head.”
“Good gracious! anybody hurt?”
“No’m. Killed a nigger.”
“Well, it’s lucky; because some­
times people do get hurt.”
— Mark Twain, The Adventures
o f Huckleberry Finn, 1884
A n alteration o f the earlier neger,
nigger derives from the French negre,
from the Spanish or Portuguese negro,
from Latin niger (black). First recorded
in 1587 (as negar), the epithet probably

originated with the dialectal pronuncia­
tion o f negro in northern England and
Ireland (Flexner 1976).
In the U nited States, nigger was first
regarded as pejorative in the early nine­
teenth century. Although taking some­
w hat different forms and meanings, it
has usually been a reference to African
Americans. In the era o f enslavement,
the words nigger or black were inserted
in front o f a com m on A m erican first
nam e given to a slave to distinguish the
slave from any local white person with
the same nam e— for example, “Nigger
Jim,” the name o f the character in Mark
Twain’s The Adventures o f Huckleberry
Finn. Interestingly, however, mountain
men in the Old West used nigger simply
in the sense of “fellow,” applying it to
white people and Indians as well as to
black people. It has also, at one time or
another, been used by white people to
refer contemptuously to almost any non-
European people darker in skin color
than A nglo-Saxons (State Department
discussions in the Reagan Administra­
tion referred to Arabs as sand niggers
[Terrel H. Bell, in Rawson 1989, 268]).
Resistance to the use of nigger in­
creased in the 1930s and 1940s. Seldom
is it used by white people today except
to disparage, although it may be used
when a nonblack person is on familiar
or acculturated terms with a black per­
son. For example, H emton (1988, 52)
refers to the “white-Negro woman” who
“will call a black person a ‘nigger’ with
the same intimacy and warmth or self­
h o stility that any A frican-A m erican
would.” M ale ritualistic behavior may
also call for it, as when a black man and
a white man manifest and control their
mutual hostility by friendly taunting in­
volving name-calling (the black m an’s
teasing reply may be honky or whitey).
The slurs uttered in this kind of behav­
ior lack bite.
A m ong A frican A m ericans, usage
has taken a number of turns and has had
nigger 165
its landmarks. During the soul culture
of the 1960s, for example, niggers was
used by black revolutionaries to desig­
nate those black people considered to be
so numbed by pursuit o f personal inter­
ests that they had to be shamed into
wanting empowerment for black people.
On the other hand, in Nigger, political
activist Dick Gregory’s 1964 autobiog­
raphy, th e d e d ic a tio n rea d , “D ea r
Momma— Wherever you are, if ever you
hear the word ‘nigger’ again, remember
they are advertising my book.” In 1974,
com edian R ichard P ry o r’s LP, That
N igger’s Crazy, dropped the barrier on
the N-word, as it is politely called. It is
now heard more openly, sometimes in
an attempt to demystify it, the tone and
intention being understood among black
speakers. Young black people have used
the term since at least the 1990s in
nonderogatory, nonracial ways, such as
“friend,” “person,” “man,” or “woman”
(Major 1994). A recent nonderogatory
black usage is reggin (nigger spelled
backwards).
Among African Americans, however,
nig g er, tho u g h so m etim es ap p lied
nonpejoratively or even affectionately,
also has its sardonic and cruel uses. “You
know , i t ’s too b ad you d id n ’t g et
him ...be one less nigger in the streets
we’d have to worry about” (black po­
liceman responding to a report that a
black burglar had been shot at, in John
Singleton’s 1991 f\\m Boyz ’n the Hood).
A m ong o th e r u sa g e s, p a st and
present, nigger, a shortening of nigger
English, came into use in 1702 to iden­
tify the slave patois o f English and Afri­
can words. Nigger has also been incor­
porated into a number of expressions,
including nigger in the woodpile, mean­
ing a concealed motive or unexpected
factor that adversely affects a situation
or, by extension, an ancestor somewhere
in an otherw ise white family lineage
suspected of being black. More broadly,
as an epithet, nigger has been general-
166 nigger heaven
ized as a disparaging term referring to
any socially subordinated group and is
used t y members o f the group itself to
deliberately call attention to their sub­
ordination (e.g., “the woman as nigger”).
In their attempt to identify with black
people as a marginalized people, other
groups have adopted the name for them­
selves. Thus, according to Joe Salmons
and M onica Macaulay, the rock band
“Beat N igs” claims that nig is a positive
w ord for them , as for all oppressed
groups (M aledicta 10, ed. R ienhold
Aman, 1988-89, 90).
In m any circles today, especially
since the civil rights movement, it is no
longer acceptable to use terms based on
nigger. These include niggardly, mean­
ing “b eg ru d g in g ” or “stingy,” even
though it has no connection to nigger
except for sim ilarity in sound. Some
people, however, would say that this
view takes the concern for linguistic rac­
ism too far. O f course, the old counting
rhyme beginning “Eena, meena, mina,
mo [or “Eeney, meeney, miney, mo”],
Catch a nigger by his toe” is widely pro­
scribed. Now nigger is often replaced in
the rhyme with rabbit, piggie, or tiger.
Niggertoe, for a Brazil nut or a small
potato, is also objectionable. The Asso­
ciation o f American University Presses
(1995) reports that Niggerhead Cactus,
a name for a botanical species, is being
revised in the scientific community.
N ig is a shortened form.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially b u s h ( B u s h N e ­
g r o ) , HNIC, N e g r o / N e g r e s s , n i g g e r
HEAVEN, NIGGER LOVER, NIGGER TOWN,
NIGGER WORK, NIGGRA, N-W ORD.
PRAIRIE NIGGER, TIMBER NIGGER, WHITE
NIGGER, WIGGER.
n ig g er heaven. B efore the civil rights
movement, the name for the balcony in
a theater where black people were forced
to sit for a film or live performance. New
York novelist and critic Carl Van Vechten
sympathetically depicted black society
in H arlem in N igger H eaven (1926).
Also Ethiopian paradise. M ore gener­
ally, a poor black person’s stereotypical
idea o f happiness.
See also n i g g e r .
, N ig g er in C harge (N IC ). S ee H N IC ,
n ig g e r.
n igger in the w oodp ile. See A fric a n ,
n ig g e r.
nigger lover. A hateful term, often associ­
ated with southern white dialectal usage
(niggah lovah), first used for abolition­
ists, but later for any white people who
associate or sympathize with or assume
any o f the ways o f black people or any­
one darker in skin color than Europeans.
“Rednecks were a little less violent un­
less they had been out honky-tonking too
long and started a fight by accusing
som eone at the b ar o f being an N L
(n ig g e r lo v e r)” (M ark an d G ail
Mathabane, Love in Black and White,
1992, 29).
Psychologist Gordon Allport wrote
that “prejudiced people call to leran t
people ‘nigger-lovers.’ The very choice
o f the word suggests that they are fight­
ing the feeling o f attraction them selves”
(1958, 351).
S ee also n i g g e r , w h i t e n i g g e r ,
w ig g e r .
niggertoe, nigger toe, nigger-toe. See
NIGGER.
nigger town, niggertown. Offensive name
for a place or district o f a town where
black people live (also according to
Aman [1996, 74], a type o f cheap, gar­
ish furniture associated with poor black
people). The less common affrishy town
See also
is the historical southern equivalent (al­
ternatively, shanty town, which has also
been used to name a poor Irish settle­
ment). “In the Ellenton ‘niggertow n’
where he lived with his mother, W illie
was a problem” (William Bradford Huie,
The Klansman, 1967, 149). There are
many other versions, such as coon town.

The “desirable” part of town, exclusive
o f M exicans, Asians, or black people,
was historically known in some regions
as white town.
S ee a l s o b l a c k b e l t , d a r k t o w n ,
G HETTO , INNER CITY , NIGGER. For Words
designating the neighborhoods of other
ethnic groups, see b a r r io , C h in a t o w n ,
g o l d e n g h e t t o , M e x t o w n . See also e t h ­
n i c n e ig h b o r h o o d , s h a n t y I r is h .
n i g g e r w o o l. See w ooly h ea d . while buying black music, still looks
n ig g e r w o r k . A nam e for any kind of
m anual labor. In the South it referred
more specifically to work done in ser­
vile conditions, such as gang labor un­
der a boss; hence, work fit for a “nigger.”
See a l s o n i g g e r .
Dating from
n ig g r a , n ig r a , n ig r a h , n ig g a .
th e eig h teen th century, o riginally a
southern pronunciation of Negro. Tradi­
tionally, southern white people, espe­
cially in the G ulf states, have regarded
it as a polite or, at least, a neutral term
(Leas 1981). Today, as a remnant of en­
slavement, it is regarded by black people
as a slur, and, indeed, it may be intended
as such. Lipski (1976,114) suggests that
by using niggra, the speaker has the op­
portunity to phonetically suggest the
proscribed nigger without actually say­
ing it. It may be a compromise based on
w hite p eo p le’s reluctance to use the
(once) m ore respectful Negro while at
the same time recognizing the need to
avoid the taboo nigger.
T h e re are n u m ero u s v aria n ts o f
negro, nigger, and niggra, with differ­
ent spellings and pronunciations. Out­
side o f black use, or certain southern
contexts, these variants usually have
derogatory meanings. Some, however,
may be used self-descriptively or, as
M ajor (1994) points out, “in cynical
imitation of southern white use.” Vari­
ants in clude nigrah and nigro, both
southern, and niggaz, the spelling seen
on teen-fashion T-shirts sold in the 1990s
(and worn by black people). Smitherman
noble savage 167
(1994) points out that nigga can have
positive meanings (e.g., someone cultur­
ally rooted in blackness or a rebellious,
fearless, unconventional black man) and
neutral meanings (a generic term for
African American) as well as negative.
Niggas with Attitude (NWA), as the rap
group is called, represents the alienation
and rage o f much rap music and shows
their awareness of how white society,
down on urban black youth.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially A f r ic a n A m e r ic a n ,
N e g r o / N e g r e s s , n ig g e r .
ninny. See p ic k a n in n y .
Nip, nip, nipper. Demeaning slang for a
Japanese or Japanese American, from
the Japanese word Nippon (Japan). It
was used largely during World War II.
“So you knocked down a Nip?” (ques­
tion put to a pilot, in Nicholas Ray’s Fly­
ing Leathernecks, 1951). It is still used
today, sometimes for any East Asian.
See also A s ia n A m e r ic a n , B u d d h a -
head, C h in k , C h e r r y B l o s s o m , d in k , g e i ­
sh a , g o o k , goo- g o o , J a p , O r ie n t a l , r ic e -
EATER, SLANT, SLOPE, TOJO, YAP, ZIP.
noble savage. In perhaps its best-known
form, an eighteenth-century personifica­
tion of the beauty and simplicity of na­
ture, of humankind yet uncorrupted by
the vices of civilization. This fanciful
Western concept of “primitive man” has
its roots in the thinking of classical an­
tiquity. It is wrongly, though frequently,
attributed to the French philosopher Jean
Jacques Rousseau. The term itself appar­
ently com es from the works o f John
Dry den, specifically, the hero of his trag­
edy The Conquest o f Granada (1670-71):
I am as free as nature first made
man,
Ere the base laws of servitude be­
gan,
When wild in woods the noble sav­
age ran.
168______nonperson
The “softer” variety o f noble savage,
represented, for example, by the South
Seas Islanders o f Tahiti first encountered
by Europeans in the eighteenth century,
reflected the values o f hedonism and
luxury. The “harder” variety, which is
more often how the noble savage is con­
ceived, were spartan and heroic, as was
the case with those North American In­
dians appearing in the novels o f James
Fenimore Cooper. In the nineteenth cen­
tury, Vanishing Am erican, a m audlin
expression used for Native Americans to
emphasize the harsh impact and decline
in population that contact with white
culture brought, was used as a variant
o f the noble savage image (among those
with antipathy, however, it could be dis­
missive o f Indians, even an epithet).
See also p r im it iv e , sa v a g e .
nonperson. Someone who is deliberately
excluded from interaction because of
some stigma or because o f group norms
that define some characteristic o f the
person, such as race, as a criterion of
exclusion. The nonperson, even if physi­
cally present, goes unnoticed and is
treated as though he or she were not
there— like a piece o f furniture, as the
com m on sociological analogy goes.
“The language of the law was brought
to bear to designate the blacks as ‘non­
p e rs o n s ,’ as le ss th a n c iv iliz e d ”
(Bosmajian 1983, 37).
See also in v is ib l e .
nonw hite. A term that started as official sta­
tistical jargon o f the U.S. Bureau o f the
Census and referred to African Ameri­
ca n s, A sia n A m erican s, M ex ican s,
Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, and
other so-called people of color. It became
a eu p h em ism , esp ec ially fo r black
people.
Because it takes white as the norm,
it may imply a slur— what Irving Lewis
Allen (1990) calls a “sly slur”: however
neutral or innocent it may sound, it de­
fines a broad category o f people as not
being what is implied as the “racial stan­
dard,” and the negative may be offen­
sive. “W hen discussing interracial rela­
tions, we speak o f ‘white people’ and
‘non-white people.’ Notice that that par­
ticular choice of words gives precedence
\to ‘white people’ by making them a cen-
'ter— a standard— to which ‘non-w hite’
bears a negative rela tio n ” (E ld rid g e
Cleaver, in Bosmajian 1983, 46). This
sly slur is sometimes em ployed by big­
ots as a way o f avoiding confrontation
but not compromising their prejudice. In
Canada, visible m inority is preferred to
nonwhite for Canadians whose ancestry
is black, indigenous, or Asian.
Nonwhite can also be considered an
evasive catchall. It includes not only
black people (African Americans, other
peoples o f black A frican descent, and
dark-skinned people of Oceania) but also
Asians, Native Americans, and Latinos.
Although overgeneralized, it is consid­
ered useful when a broad categorization
is called for (e.g., when it would be in­
efficient to list all the nam es o f groups
each tim e they are referred to) and when
white (itself a broad usage encom pass­
ing many groups) is not being set up as
a standard. In the absence o f a m ore de­
scriptive category (people o f color is not
always suitable or nonbiased), nonwhite
may be used in books designed for a
multicultural market. One such example
is The M ulticultural Student’s Guide to
Colleges: What Every A frican-A m eri­
can, A sian-A m erican, H ispanic, and
N ative-A m erican A p p lica n t N eeds to
K now a b o u t A m e ric a ’s Top Sch o o ls
(R obert M itchell, 1993), w hich uses
nonwhite in a nonbiased way to refer to
all the groups in the subtitle collectively.
The term is also often heard with the
connotation o f oppression; in this sense,
it is similar to minority, though som e­
what less euphemistic.
See also m in o r it y , p e o p l e o f c o l o r .
N ordic. See A r y a n .

N orski, N orsky. Epithet for a Norwegian
or Swede, based on an alteration o f the
p ro p er nam e N orw egian, o r N orsk.
Norsker is old nautical slang for a Nor­
wegian.
See also F i n n s k y , S c a n d i h o o v i a n ,
SQUAREHEAD, SWEDE.
nose. See J e w is h n o s e .
n o sh rim ['na-shram ], A reference to Jew­
ish imm igrants who abandon their faith
and their com m itm ent to the Jewish
community. “Some of the emigrants, and
especially those from the Soviet Union,
are referred to pejoratively as noshrim,
or dropouts, in terms of faith and Jew­
ish organizations” (Schaefer 1993,403­
04).
See a l s o J e w .
N u yorican, N eorican, New Y orrican [nii-
'yor-i-.kan]. Blends o f New York and
P uerto Rican, used m ostly by island
Puerto Ricans for Puerto Ricans living
in the United States because they are
strongly identified with New York City.
Usually, it refers to a Puerto Rican, es­
pecially one of the second generation,
living in the city or its metropolitan area,
or one who has lived there and then re­
turned to the island. It is often used
among island Puerto Ricans pejoratively,
N-word 169
probably because Nuyoricans returning
to the island compete for jobs with is­
landers, who often lack the level of for­
mal education and other means of the
Neoricans. For more on Nuyoricans and
their literature, see Eugene M ohr’s The
Nuyorican Experience, 1982.
According to The Oxford Compan­
ion to the English Language (1992),
Nuyorican was coined by Puerto Rican
poet Miguel Algarfn in 1975 to name the
mix of Spanish and “New Yorkese” spo­
ken by New Yorkers o f Puerto Rican
background; New Yorrican (1980s) is
also used for a Puerto Rican who has
lived in New York City.
See also m a n c h a , P e d r o , P R , P u e r t o
R i c a n , s p il l , s p o o k .
N -w ord, n-w ord. Euphemistic reference to
the offensive nigger. “Could the mostly
black makeup of the jury explain why
Christopher Darden, a black prosecutor,
argued so long.. .to keep ‘the n-word’ out
o f testimony while black defense law­
yer Johnnie Cochran argued just as pas­
sionately to keep it in?” (Clarence Page,
on the O.J. Simpson trial, Chicago Tri­
bune, 1 M arch 1995, 19). The taboo
nigger has appeared in print as N ____
o rN ____ r.
See also n ig g e r .

o rican A m ericans m ight have viewed
o c to ro o n . The nam e for a person whose
ancestry is reckoned as one-eighth black
and, usually, seven-eighths white. Octo-,
from the G reek and Latin com bining
form meaning “eight,” is added to the
R om ance language suffix -oon, as in
quadroon (one fourth black). U sed from
the 1850s in the South (though it may
have been coined in the North), the term
has had troublesome connotations, es­
pecially when the context is that of the
racist notion of “impurity” of “blood.”
“O f the blood that feeds my heart, one
drop in eight is black...that one drop
poisons all the flo o d ...I’m an unclean
th in g ...an octoroon!” (Dion Boucicault,
The O ctoroon; or, Life in Louisiana,
1859). The term also carries racist im­
plications when the octoroon is consid­
ered to be superior to the m ulatto or
“pure” black person or when used to
devalue African Americans who do not
look “pure” black.
For other traditional southern words
for black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially m u l a t t o / a .
From at
o f a y , fa y , o -fa y , o ld - f a y , o le -fa y .
least the early twentieth century, a dis­
o ile r.Derogatory term for a M exican or
paraging term used most often by A fri­
can Americans for a white person (the
white person may not necessarily real­
ize that it is disparaging). African Ameri­
cans may also apply it to a black person
who acts like someone who is white (of­
o n e o f th o s e n a m e s t h a t e n d s i n a v o w e l.
ten as black fa y or black ofay, or o'fay).
Its origin is uncertain, and various
explanations, mostly improbable stories,
have been offered. It has been said to
derive from ole fa y (or old fay), fa y be­
ing a black dialect word for a white; this
explanation, however, does not tell us the
origin offa y (which Webster’s Word His­
tories [1989] says is probably simply a
shortening of ofay). An accidental re­
o p p re s s io n .
semblance to the French a u fa it, mean­
ing “in the know” or “in power” (as Af­
oppression______ 171
white people at one time), and also to
the French au lait, “milk” (i.e., white)
lacks any real significance. More com­
mon is the etymological story that claims
that ofay is Pig L atin for “foe,” but
Webster’s Word Histories (1989) rejects
this because of the lack of evidence that
A frican Am ericans referred to w hite
people as foes before 1927, the earliest
date for the written use of ofay, and be-
causefo e is restricted in modem English
largely to writing.
Sometimes taken more seriously is
the view that it comes from the Yoruba
word ofe, “a charm.” American Speech,
quoted in The Oxford English Dictionary
(1989), says that as a charm, “ofay may
be taken as a word said for self-protec­
tion in times of threat, which was then
transferred to the source of the threat,
and so came to mean ‘white man.’”
For other words black people use for
white people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. For other words black people use
for a black person who acts like or iden­
tifies w ith w hite people, see A f r o -
S a x o n , B a p, B lack A n g lo -S a x o n ,
b o o j ie , b u p p ie , c h a l k e r , o r e o , s t e p o u t ,
w a n n a - b e , w h it e p a d d y .
Mexican American or anyone of H is­
panic background. It probably follows
from greaser, a synonym.
See also g r e a s e r , M e x ic a n , M e x ic a n
A m e r ic a n .
A euphemistic reference to eastern or
southern European immigrants, alluding
to th e en d in g s o f n am es su ch as
Krasowski, Giosefft, or Pomponio. Of­
ten used by old immigrants for those just
off the boat, it may carry overtones that
are disparaging.
See also h y p h e n a t e d A m e r ic a n .
Subjugation, persecution, and
lacking freedom to move because o f the
application of unjust social, political, or
172 oreo
economic forces. The root word of op­
pression, press, suggests the meaning:
“weighing heavily on, applying pressure
to, and hence flattening and immobiliz­
ing.”
Oppression and oppressor are strong,
o ften inflam m atory, and som etim es
overused or misused terms. According
to M arilyn Frye, oppression is “danger­
ous and dangerously fashionable and
endangered” (Rothenberg 1988, 37).
Usage among white people often sug­
gests that although there is discrimina­
tion in the United States, oppression is
something that plagues other countries.
Many members of minorities disagree:
“Racial oppression o f black people in
A m erica has done w hat neither class
oppression or [sic] sexual oppression,
with all their pemiciousness, has ever
done: destroyed an entire people and
their culture” (Eleanor Holmes Norton,
in The New York Public Library Book o f
2 0 th -C entury A m erican Q uotations,
[1992,399]). Some opposed to what they
regard as the vogue of multiculturalist
complaint would argue that oppression
has become a status symbol for m inori­
ties.
See also m in o r it y , v i c t im .
oreo, oreo cookie. Derogatory term from
the 1960s, from the trade name for the
cookies consisting o f two chocolate bis­
cuits sandwiching a white creamy cen­
ter. Oreo is used for a black person—
black on the outside, white on the in­
side— who identifies with white people,
is upwardly mobile in the white world,
or tries to blend into an environment of
white people without raising issues of
race. “S he’s a sell-out, she’s an oreo
cookie” (Diahann Carroll, in a RO.V.
documentary, speaking of some black
critics’ view o f her role as a highly as­
similated African American in the tele­
vision sitcom .M /a). As Allen (1990,19)
points out, it is som etim es coded to
cookie. A related term is fudgsicle, after
the tradem ark name for an ice cream
treat that, while all chocolate, is like the
ice cream bar that has a chocolate coat­
ing over vanilla ice cream.
See also A f r o - S a x o n , B a p , B l a c k
A n g l o - S a x o n , b o o j ie , b u p p ie , c h a l k e r ,
OFAY, PASSING , U N C L E T O M , W A N N A -B E,
' w h i t e p a d d y . For sim ilar words for other
ethnic groups, see a p p l e , b a n a n a , c o c o ­
nut.
O rien tal, orien tal. An inhabitant o f A sia
or a descendant o f one. To the Romans,
the area east o f the Aegean was Oriens,
“Land o f the Sunrise.” As Christianity
spread into Europe, churches were con­
structed w ith longitudinal axes “o ri­
ented” (pointing east) toward Jerusalem.
In the West, Orient came to be applied
to the vast Asian continent and Oriental
to things in Asia, conflating the many
different peoples and cultures o f the area.
M erria m -W eb ster’s D ictio n a ry o f
English Usage adduced little evidence
of the noun Oriental being offensive in
1989, the dictionary’s year o f publica­
tion. Yet, since then (and probably be­
fore), the use of Oriental has been re­
garded as offensive. As a description of
such things as rugs and lacquer, how­
ever imprecise, it is likely to persist;
however, as a label for a person it has
been challenged on the grounds that it
prom otes the stereotype o f A sians as
mysterious, exotic, and foreign, people
with strange slit eyes and kowtowing
manners. Terms such as inscrutable Ori­
ental (the emotions o f many Asians were
not apparent or recognized by W estern­
ers) or wily Oriental (if their em otions
couldn’t be read, they must be sly) have
long been offensive to Asian people. So
is the gender stereotype known as “Pearl
of the Orient.” Oriental often suggests
racial more than ethnic identity, and its
connotations are Eurocentric, locating
A sians in a part o f the w orld that is
known only relative to the West.
Even used as an adjective, as in O ri­
ental culture, the term has raised pro­
tests for sounding colonialist. Orient—

suggesting an exotic area far from Eu­
ro p ean s’ w orld “center”— is also re­
garded as stereotypical. Asian “escort”
services in big cities are known to ad­
vertise their escorts as docile, ready-to-
please “ladies o f the Orient.” “... a young
woman stood, giving the place a final
touch o f magic, o f Oriental wonder that
transform ed it from a melange o f the
cheap and ordinary to a place o f mys­
tery and excitement” (Howard Fast, The
Immigrants, 1977, 145).
Asian— or East, South, and Southeast
A sian (if you know the area the person
com es from)— or Asian Am erican are
satisfactory, neutral substitutes. How­
ever, as often is the rule today, the more
specificity you can apply in naming a
group, the better.
For other words for Asians, see A s ia n
A m e r i c a n , cross-references. See also
A s ia t ic , J e w s o f t h e O r ie n t , O r ie n t a l is t .
O rientalist, orientalist. A scholar who
studies Eastern cultures or languages. In
the 1980s and 1990s, some scholars at­
tacked Orientalist studies for harboring
hostile political motives against Islamic
cultures, accusing the older generation
o f scholars, especially, of being agents
o f Western political and cultural impe­
rialism. “M uam m ar Kaddafi and his en­
to u ra g e are d e s c rib e d [in Je re
M audsley’s Hunter, 1985] in terms that
are reminiscent o f the early Orientalist
v isio n o f the M iddle E ast— a place
where the bizarre, the violent, and the
crazed dominate” (Sabbagh 1990, 33).
Those accused of such motives reply that
their assailants are placing political in­
terests above intellectual standards and
the objective pursuit o f knowledge.
Orientalist is also used for a mem­
ber o f the Eastern or Greek church.
See a l s o O r ie n t a l .
other 173
Original Man. [Black] M uslim (Nation of
Islam) concept that black people first
introduced civilization to earth and are
the choice of Allah to survive Armaged­
don, the final battle between the white
and black races.
See also B l a c k M u s l i m , C h o s e n
P eo ple.
other, exotic other. Another group, or an
essentialized m ember of another group;
often used critically among the advo­
cates of multiculturalism to expose bias
in perceptions of nonwhite or non-West­
ern peoples. “Otherness” is usually con­
structed out of an ethnocentric attitude
that attributes qualities of foreignness,
strangeness, exoticness and, with these,
inferiority. U.S. representations of Asian
and other non-Western peoples, for ex­
am ple, have often depicted them as
childlike and feminine.
A lthough the term does not apply
exclusively to m inority groups (one
group might apply it to any group), it
does connote a group that is excluded.
To the members of one group, “others”
may be “undesirables,” often disturbing
or menacing. Sometimes, however, if
perceived as exotic, they may also be
seductive and m ystifying. “W illiam
Holden [in the 1960 film The World o f
Suzie Wong, set in Hong Kong] plays an
earnest, rather prim, Nice Guy painter
seeking inspiration in The Other” (Jes­
sica Hagedom, Ms., January/February
1994, 74). Often they are scapegoats.
“The governor is trying to incite in us a
hostile outward gaze toward ‘others’”
(.M other Jones, N ovem ber/D ecem ber
1993, 3).
See also a l ie n , e t h n o c e n t r is m , f o r ­
e ig n e r , in g r o u p / o u t g r o u p , m e n a c e , x e n o ­
p h o b ia .

P Patrick, used as an epithet for the Irish,
pachuco [pa-'chu-ko]. A Spanish Ameri­
can word used in the Southwest in the
mid-twentieth century for a man from
El Paso, Texas. Pachuco now usually
connotes a M exican American club or
gang member; it was once used also for
the largely generational dialect, or bor­
der lingo (today known as chuco), spo­
ken by young Chicanos in the city and
heard especially in California and Texas.
“It was the cholo homeboy who first
walked the walk and talked the talk. It
w as the M exican A m erican pachuco
who initiated the emblematic tattoos, the
signing with hands, the writing of leg­
ends on walls” (Leon Bing, in Luis J.
Rodriguez, Always Running, 1993, 5).
The feminine form is also used.
Explanations of the origin of the term
have not been conclusive, varying from
the town o f Pachuca in M exico to bor­
der bandits by that name near El Paso,
Texas. In any case, the stereotype of the
pachuco “is linked to the movement of
Mexicans from rural to urban centers,
to a generational rebellion against both
M exican and American culture, to the
influx o f drugs, and to an enduring
legacy o f d iscrim ination” (M auricio
M azon, Zoot-Suit Riots, 1984).
In Mexican usage, pachuco means “a
snappy or flashy dresser.” The pachuco
in the 1930s and 1940s, especially in
southern California, who wore a “zoot
suit”— distinguished by a jacket with
fancy, wide lapels and padded shoulders,
and full-leg, tapering trousers— was
known as a “zoot-suiter” (largely a term
o f attribution, not preferred by Mexican
American youth).
Pachuquismo refers pejoratively to
the hip barrio lifestyle o f the pachuco.
See a l s o C h ic a n o / a , c h o l o / a , M e x i ­
can, M e x ic a n A m e r i c a n .
Pacific Islanders, Islanders. See c o c o n u t ,
g r a s s s k i r t , h a o l e , H a w a iia n , h u l a g i r l ,
PINEAPPLE, POI-EATER.
Paddy wagon______ 175
Paddy, paddy, Patty. An old diminutive for
especially males, since the mid- or late-
eighteenth century. It is derogatory only
as a generic word. “W hen the Irish
flooded American cities to escape the
famine in Ireland, the cartoonists cari­
catured the typical ‘Paddy’.. .as an ape­
like creature with jutting jaw and slop­
ing forehead” (Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
in G ioseffi 1993, 157). U rban areas
where the early Irish immigrants built
crude huts to live in were know n as
“paddy camps.” (For more on the Irish
experience in the tum-of-the-century era,
see Tim othy J. M eagher, ed., From
Paddy to Studs [1986].) By the mid-nine­
teenth century, paddy came to refer to a
bricklayer, since a number o f Irish im ­
m igrants filled that occupation. Like
Irish, it may also refer to anger.
See also h o o d l u m I r is h , I r is h , J a k e y ,
LACE CURTAIN IR IS H , M lC K , NARROWBACK,
P a d d y w a g o n , P a t , s h a n t y I r is h , s p u d ,
W HITE PADDY, T U R K .
Paddy, or Patty, shortened from rice
paddy, often lowercase, has been used
for a Chinese or other Asian. “Since I
come from an Asian background, people
often think that I am a kung-fu-theater-
watching, barefooted, Laundromat and
grocery store-owning, Bruce Lee-wor­
shiping, rice-w ringing, buck-toothed,
sushi-eating, straight A-getting, slanty-
eyed Peking Patty” (CityKids Speak on
Prejudice, 1994). Paddy or Patty has also
been used by black people for a white
person. Both usages are often deroga­
tory.
For other words for the Chinese, see
C h i n a m a n / C h i n a w o m a n , cro ss-refer­
ences. For other words black people use
for white people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See especially w h it e p a d d y .
Paddy wagon. Slang word for a police pa­
trol wagon based on Paddy, a nickname
and also a pejorative term for an Irish
person, especially a male. Ironically, at
least two opposite possibilities have been
176______pagan
suggested for the origins o f the term: the
association o f the Irish in the U nited
States with the police force and the as­
sociation o f the Irish with the criminals
transported in the patrol wagon. Though
seldom heard as an intentional slur, the
term may be offensive to people o f Irish
descent.
See a l s o h o o d l u m I r is h , I r is h , P a d d y .
pagan. An observer o f a polytheistic reli­
gion, sometimes mistaken as someone
who professes no religion. According to
The Oxford English Dictionary (1989),
pagan comes from the Latin paganus,
w hich originally m eant “villager” or
“rustic” but also “civilian” or “nonmili­
tant.” In Christian Latin, however, it
meant “heathen,” that is, neither Chris­
tian nor Jewish. Christians, who saw
themselves as “soldiers of Christ,” called
non-Christians “pagans.” It came to sig­
nify a worshiper of false gods. It may
also connote hedonism and primitive­
ness and can be offensive to those who
practice a religion other than Christian­
ity, Judaism, or Islam. At the same time,
worshipers who wish to stress the pre-
Christian practices o f their religion may
take pride in their paganness.
See a l s o h e a t h e n .
Paiute, Piute ['pT- yiit]. A Native Ameri­
can group o f the Great Basin or one of
the two Uto-Aztecan languages spoken
by these Native Americans. Tradition­
ally, the Paiute were divided into two
groups: the Northern Paiute, who lived
in portions o f Idaho, Oregon, Nevada,
and California; and the Southern Paiute,
who occupied areas in Utah, Nevada,
Arizona, and California. It may have
been adapted from Spanish Payuta or
from an indigenous name, payiutsi, “fish
people.”
The derogatory use of the term and
the expression “It’s not worth a Paiute”
derive from the low view white people
held o f these native people. Similarly,
because the Paiutes ate everything in
their environment that was o f nutritional
value, including seeds, roots, and larvae,
white people dism issed them as “dig­
gers.” The Association o f American Uni­
versity Presses (1995) reports that D ig­
ger Pine, the com mon nam e for Pinus
v sabiniana, w hose nuts w ere used by
California Paiute, is now undergoing re­
vision in the scientific community.
See also I n d i a n , N a t iv e A m e r i c a n .
paki, Paki, Pakki, Pakky, Packie. Slur by
abbreviation, mainly British (1960s), but
also used in C anada and the U nited
States, for a Pakistani o r im m igrants
from Bangladesh and other South Asian
nations as well.
The shortened Pak is not necessarily
derogatory.
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n .
paleface, pale face, p ale-face. Said by
some to be a bogus Native Am erican
word for a white person, used mostly by
white people thinking they are im itat­
ing an Indian usage. Some etymologists
suspect it is an invention o f author James
Fenimore Cooper: “ ‘This is the paleface
law,’ resum ed the c h ie f ’ (The D eer-
slayer, 1841). However, there were ref­
erences to the paleness o f white people
in Native Americans’ descriptions o f Eu­
ropeans, such as “spirit-white-and-thin.”
Weatherford (1991,206) also notes that
the Ojibwa represented Europeans with
the word wabinesiwin (paleface).
The term has also been in N ative
American use for an Indian o f part-white
descent and in black use for a white per­
son, usually derogatory in both cases.
Also pale.
Also used for white people has been
white eyes.
See also f a c e , w h i t e .
pancake. An epithet from the late nine­
teenth century used by black people for
a black person regarded as an U ncle
Tom, because of the association between
pancakes and stereotypical subservient
southern black people.

See also c o o n , c o t t o n p ic k e r , h o u s e
negro, m am m y, S am bo, U ncle T om .
p a p is t. D ero g ato ry term fo r a R om an
Catholic, long used by the English, es­
pecially during times of rivalry with the
Iberians; used also in the United States
to express anti-Catholic attitudes; and
still used today disparagingly for an
Irish-C atholic, especially in Northern
Ireland. Shortened to pape.
See also f is h - e a t e r , M i c k .
p ap o o se. See I n d ia n .
p a rle y v o o . See F rench.
p a s s a n t b l a n c [ p a s a n b l a n]. See C reole.
A denial of one’s ancestry in order
p a s s in g .
to be accepted as a member of a domi­
nant group, thus overcoming barriers of
discrimination. “We all ordered fish and
settled down comfortably to shocking
our white friends with tales about how
many Negroes there were passing for
w h ite all o ver A m erica” (L angston
Hughes, Laughing to Keep from Crying,
1952, 6). See also Nella Larsen’s novel,
Quicksand and Passing, 1989.
Passing has occurred throughout his­
tory. For example, in extremely anti-
semitic countries, Jews have passed as
members of other groups; and in racist
societies, light-skinned black people
have passed as white people. The expres­
sion to pass emerged in the United States
around the 1920s, after the rapid migra­
tion o f black people during World War I
from the rural South to the North, to cit­
ies where their racial ancestry was not
known. Because U.S. society defines a
person o f any degree o f known black
ancestry as black, passing becomes an
escape hatch for those seeking assimi­
lation into white society. Considered by
many African Americans as a betrayal
o f heritage, passing may be less com­
mon among black people today, though
it is difficult to know. “Passing: Who
Isn ’t?” writes Joan Steinau Lester. “We,
all o f us, have developed different ways
o f coping with the stereotyping of our
Pedro 177
group and of ourselves” (The Future o f
the White Man, 1994, 68).
Someone who passes for one of an­
other race is referred to as a passer. Ear­
lier in this century, a black person pass­
ing for white, or raised to think that he
or she was white, was known as a crypto
negro.
See also a s s im il a t io n , b l e a c h , C r e ­
o l e (passant blanc), w a n n a - b e .
Pat. A term used colloquially in English for
the Irish since the first half o f the nine­
teenth century, derived from Patrick, an
Irish first name. It is derogatory when
used as a generic term.
See also h o o d l u m I r is h , I r is h , J a k e y ,
l a c e c u r t a in I r is h , M ic k , n a r r o w b a c k ,
P a d d y , P a d d y w a g o n , s h a n t y I r is h , s p u d ,
T urk.
The same term has also been used for
a Chinese (from “rice paddy”).
See also A s ia n A m e r ic a n , C h in a m a n /
C h in a w o m a n , C h in e s e , P a d d y .
PC , P.C., pc. See p o l it ic a l correctness.
peckerw ood, peckaw ood. A derogatory
term used especially in the South to
mean a poor white person, particularly
a poor, w hite, so u th ern farm er, or
redneck. From early 1900s southern
white use and black dialect (peckah-
wood), this is a reversal o f woodpecker
(the earliest m eaning o f peckerw ood
was the bird). There may be a connec­
tion between the derogatory social us­
age and the slang word pecker (penis).
Sometimes shortened to pecker, peck,
or wood.
For other words black people use for
white people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See especially A p p a l a c h ia n , c l a y -
EATER, CORNCRACKER, CRACKER, HILLBILLY,
POOR WHITE TRASH, REDNECK, RIDGERUN-
NER, SOUTHERNER.
Pedro. A nickname, from a personal name
used for M exican males, used offen­
sively to stereotype a Mexican, Mexi­
can American, or Puerto Rican male. A
Pedro is a Latino regarded as easygoing
178______peon
and lethargic— someone who enjoys his
siestas.
See also C h i c o , L a t in o / a , M e x ic a n ,
M e x ic a n A m e r i c a n , P u e r t o R i c a n .
peon, peon. A poor Mexican who emigrates
to this country to find employment; it
may also suggest a mestizo, or racial
mix. Likely to be offensive, especially,
given the English pronunciation, when
the implication is that the person named
may be “peed on” with impunity (Aman
1996, 76). From the M edieval Latin
word for a foot soldier (see also p i o n e e r ) ,
the Spanish peon means “a serf, peas­
ant, or common laborer.” In M exico and
in Texas, this word was used for an In­
dian who was in debt or bondage to a
m aster and w ho follow ed him north
across the Rio Grande.
See also b r a c e r o , m e s t iz o / a , M e x i ­
can, M e x ic a n A m e r i c a n .
people o f color, People o f Color. An ex­
pression long in English usage for any
nonwhite category. It has been in vogue
since the 1980s and is regarded as accept­
able when groups or individuals use it to
name themselves. Social scientists and
educators often refer to African Ameri­
cans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian
Americans, and even people o f mixed
ancestry as people o f color. Other words
may be substituted for people, but the
pattern of the phrase remains the same:
“Faculty of color and white faculty... have
conducted research that influences the
evolution of knowledge in all disciplines”
(Change, January /February 1992, 39).
Rosalie Maggio (1991,216) discusses the
“people first” rule, which grew out of the
disability movement (e.g., a person with
diabetes rather than a diabetic). Accord­
ing to this rule, the person is named first,
followed by the qualifier.
T he use o f color im plies a bond
am ong disparate peoples by virtue of
their not being o f European descent.
However, it does retain a racial overtone.
W hat’s more, because it overgeneral­
izes— color is usually applied to any
dark-skinned people, whatever their eth­
nic or racial heritage— this term may be
regarded as unsuitable, especially if the
w riter is not a “person o f color” (al­
though among white speakers, it gener-
v ally is used respectfully). Some minori­
ties, including many Asian Americans
and Latinos, do not see themselves as
people o f color. “Some of the Hispanic
respondents in our studies and seminars
had serious objections to considering
themselves members o f a minority or as
people o f color” (John P. F ernandez
[with M ary Barr], The D iversity A dvan­
tage, 1993, 13).
Women o f color has been used as a
reference to women o f various oppressed
groups in the U nited States, although it,
too, has been criticized for m asking di­
versity. M en o f color is less frequently
used.
Maledicta M onitor (W inter 1991, 3)
notes that in 1991 “a wag changed the
label on the Harvard Divinity School’s
paper-recycling bin from CO LO RED
PAPER to PAPER OF COLOR.” '
See also A fric A N A m e r i c a n , b l e a c h ,
L a t in o / a , N a t iv e A m e r i c a n , A s ia n
A m e r ic a n . See especially b l a c k , b r o w n ,
COLOR, COLORED, NONWHITE, RAINBOW, RED,
YELLOW.
pickaninny, piccanniny, pickney. A de­
rogatory term today for a black child (or
older blacks, connoting childishness);
however, in seventeenth-century use
among West Indian slaves (A Dictionary
o f Americanisms [1951] notes that it may
have passed from Portuguese into A fri­
can use in Guinea), it was apparently an
affectionate designation for any child,
even a white one. It is thought to derive
from slaves’ pronunciation o f the Span­
ish pequeho nino, “little one,” or o f the
Portuguese pequenino, the diminutive of
pequeno, “small.”
“ S tag e T o p sy s an d th e o th e r
pickaninny ch aracters w ho em erged
were happy, mirthful characters who rev­

eled in their misfortune. Their awkward
speech, ragamuffin appearance, devilish
habits, and butchered English were the
sources o f hum or in the minstrel and
Tom show s...until well into the twenti­
eth century” (Turner 1994,14). In 1987,
then Arizona governor Evan Mecham
publicly called black people “pickanin­
nies” and defended his use of the slur
on the grounds that it was a “friendly
nickname.”
Pickaninny may be combined with
other words to form expressions such as
p ic k a n in n y b arbie doll, a slur used
am ong black speakers for a young black
wom an o f light skin. Pickaninny has
been shortened to ninny and modified
to pickney.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references. See especially
tar ba b y .
pig, P IG S . Anyone regarded as contempt­
ible, fat, gross, or greedy (probably dat­
ing back to the Middle Ages).
Not so old, but still dating at least to
the early nineteenth century (it appeared
first in underworld slang) is the use of
pig for a police officer. In the 1960s, it
was revived to name members of the
social or political establishment, includ­
ing police officers, but also anyone with
sexist or racist views, reducing them to
subhuman status (e.g., “male chauvinist
pig”). Some writers attribute its popu­
la rity to H uey N ew ton, one o f the
founders o f the Black Panthers. Newton
supposedly first tried dog, brute, beast,
and anim al to refer to the police who
were harassing black people. Then he
cam e across a postcard with the slogan
“Support Your Local Police” and a pic­
ture o f a pig on the sheriff’s star. From
that image, he decided on pig.
A m ong A frican A m ericans in the
Black Power movement, the use of the
te rm w as c o n s id e re d p a rt o f the
m ovem ent’s efforts to define its own
term s and free black people of white
society’s definitions: “ ...w e no longer
pinky 179
define the omnipotent administrator as
‘the M an’...w e define them as pigs! I
think that this is a revolutionary thing in
itse lf’ (in The Black Panthers Speak, ed.
Philip S. Foner, 1970,61).
The epithet has also been used by
righC-wing extremists, especially in ref­
erence to Jews, but following more the
older meaning o f someone gross and
greedy. Also swine eater.
The pejorative acronym PIGS stands
for “Poles, Italians, Greeks, Slaves.”
For other words black people use for
white people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See especially d e v il , h o n k y , m a n .
pigtail, pig-tail. Usually a derogatory ref­
erence to a Chinese or Chinese Ameri­
can. It alludes to the once-custom ary
tightly braided hair worn by the Chinese.
The term is found in many old children’s
rhymes or taunts of the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries about the Chi­
nese (see C h in k for an example).
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , C h in a
doll, C h in a m a n / C h in a w o m a n , C h in a ­
m a n ’s c h a n c e , C h in e e , C h in e s e , c h o p ­
s t i c k s , c h o w , c o o l ie , d r a g o n l a d y , f o r ­
t u n e c o o k ie , J o h n C h i n a m a n , l it t l e
b r o w n b r o t h e r s , m ic e - e a t e r , m o n k e y ,
P a d d y , P at.
pineapple. Food-related slang, recognized
today as sexist, alluding to the “luscious­
ness” and “sweetness” of a Pacific Is­
land woman. In another sense, the word
has been used by m ainland Japanese
Americans (and by non-Japanese Ameri­
cans) to refer to their Hawaiian counter­
parts, stereotyped as traditional and un­
sophisticated.
See also B u d d h a h e a d , g r a s s s k i r t ,
h u l a g i r l , J ap.
pinky, pinkie, pink. In black English, a
mildly derogatory slang reference to a
white person, especially a young one, or
to a light-skinned black woman (Par­
tridge [1984], however, notes black teen­
agers’ use in Britain mainly for a white
man). Elia Kazan’s controversial 1949
180______pioneer
film, Pinky, starring white actress Jeanne
Crain as a light-skinned black nurse who
passed for white (see p a s s in g ) , helped to
popularize the name. Pink toes is used
affectionately by a black male for a white
woman. Pink chaser refers derogatorily
to a black person who seeks friendship
with white people.
For other words black people use for
white people, see w h i t e . For other words
black people use for black people who
affiliate with white people, see A f r o -
S a x o n , B ap , B la c k A n g lo -S a x o n ,
B O O JIE , B U P P IE , O FA Y , O R E O , S T E P O U T ,
U ncle T o m .
For related color words describing
black people, see b a n a n a , h i g h y e l l o w ,
SCHOOL BUS, YELLOW, YELLOW SUBMARINE,
zebra. See also c o l o r , c o l o r is m , m u ­
latto/ a .
pioneer. From the M edieval Latin word
pedo, “foot soldier” (see also p e o n ) , pio­
neer means someone who probes the
unknown and settles a frontier. An ob­
jection to its use in the context of the
settlement of much of the United States,
however neutral the term may seem, has
been its standard equation with the ac­
tivities o f white people. In the United
States, pioneer has often been used ex­
clusive of Latinos or Hispanics, Asian
Americans, African Americans, Native
Americans, and others who also helped
to develop and settle the country. Some
argue that the term ’s romantic connota­
tions have rendered nonwhites invisible.
It is also potentially euphemistic in the
American context. Early white settlers
were pioneers and are known as such to
many; but seen from the perspective of
their dispossession of Native Americans
(the U.S. government encouraged white
pioneers’ settlem ent of Indian lands),
many might also be regarded as invad­
ers and exploiters. Pioneers “warding off
hostile Indians” or “homesteading” on
Indian lands are said to be depicted from
the Eurocentric point of view.
See a l s o d is c o v e r e d .
pizza man. A derogatory slang nicknam e
for an Italian, based on an allusion to
food.
See also d a g o , d i n o , e y e t a l ia n , g a r ­
l ic b r e a t h , g u id o / g u id e t t e , g u in e a , I t a l ­
ia n , m a c a r o n i, M a f ia , s p a g h e t t i, s p ic ,
' U ncle T om (Uncle Giovanni), w op.
p lan tation negro. S outhern term from
around the m id-eighteenth century for a
black slave who worked on a plantation.
M ore derogatorily, plantation darky or
plantation nigger.
The concept o f “plantation,” em brac­
ing the idea of servitude and oppression,
is still em ployed metaphorically to re­
fer to any institution, workplace, or other
situation in which black people or other
people of color are held in servitude or
subordination to white people. “Color­
ism and conflicts with other minority
groups distract us from the larger issues
o f social and economic ju stice.... W hich
is why so many am ong the country’s
W hite power elite smile indulgently at
the notion o f a ‘browner,’ ‘newly m ulti­
cultural’ America. They know what the
last plantation is, too” (Itabari Njeri, in
Early 1993, 40).
For other traditional southern words
for black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially c o t t o n p i c k e r ,
house n eg ro , m a m m y , N egro/N eg ress,
SLAVE.
pluralism . Generally, a reference to the
characteristic o f a society in w hich dif­
ferent groups participate in the society
yet maintain their cultural distinctness.
In political science, the term may also
be used to describe a political system,
such as that in Sw itzerland o r in the
Netherlands, in which different ethnic
groups share power by means o f a coali­
tion of their leaders. As a general doc­
trine today, social or cultural pluralism
espouses mutual respect am ong diverse
groups in a society. There is no dom i­
nant or subordinate group, and plural­
ism prizes the richness ethnicity brings

to A m erican life. W hile em phasizing
ethnic identity, however, it may also
claim to defend a common culture, or at
least a minimal required national unity,
and to encourage cooperation across eth­
nic lines in many spheres of social and
political life.
The concept, if not the term, harks
b a c k to e a rlie r id e a s in A m eric an
thought. These include Thomas Paine’s
“c o m p o site n atio n ,” Jo h n A d a m s’s
“wonderful mixture of nations,” Herman
M elv ille’s “ethnographic panoram a,”
and Walt W hitm an’s “nation of nations.”
Pluralism was first coined as a term,
however, by Horace Kallen in “Democ­
racy versus the M elting Pot” (1915).
Kallen conceived of U.S. society as a
cultural “democracy o f nationalities” ; in
it, English would be a common denomi­
nator, but “each nationality would have
for its em otional and involuntary life its
own peculiar dialect or speech, its own
individual and inevitable esthetic and
intellectual forms” (Kallen 1924, 124).
The cultural pluralism of the early twen­
tieth century, espoused also by such so­
cial workers as Jane Addams, was a pre­
cursor o f the m ulticulturalism o f the
1980s and 1990s.
Pluralism began to take hold as a
doctrine after World War n . It first took
the form o f “ soft” pluralism , which
sought to stress the contributions of U.S.
ethnic minorities in building the coun­
try, to help eliminate prejudice against
them, and to make immigration laws less
restrictive. Later, in the 1960s, the “hard”
pluralism o f black nationalism sought
p erm an en t segregation betw een the
races. (Some white people may also de­
fend pluralism, not for the ethnic rich­
ness that it preserves, but for the segre­
gation it enables.) In the early 1970s,
ethnic pluralists celebrated the “ethnic
revival” of the 1960s, an upsurge of in­
terest in ethnicity on the part of ethnic
groups descended from the waves of
European immigration of the nineteenth
pocho/a 181
and early twentieth centuries.
Some have associated pluralism with
social instability and disharmony— even
pluralists admit to the existence of com­
petition between groups, which they ac­
cept only in a context o f equal opportu-
nity^and mutual respect. But multicul-
turalists continue to affirm the notion of
pluralism and to value ethnic differences.
Unlike the melting pot theorists, who
have predicted a fusing of ethnic ele­
ments in U.S. society, ethnic pluralists
see ethnic groups as holding their own
against assimilation. A basic tenet of
pluralism, however, is not just the main­
tenance of separate ethnic elements in
society but the dynamic interaction be­
tween them, a multicultural reality of
mixing that challenges notions of “us”
versus “them.”
Sociologists have noted the danger of
pluralism in increasing the visibility of
m inorities and thus encouraging dis­
crimination against them. In addition,
they have argued that pluralism may
keep minorities who feel satisfied with
their distinctive ethnicity from challeng­
ing their subordinate position in society
(Rose 1981, 65). Still other critics have
noted that what is democratic for the
group may not be for the individual.
See also a s s i m il a t io n , d i v e r s i t y , m e l t ­
in g POT, MULTICULTURALISM, NATIONALISM,
SEGREGATION.
pocho/a ['po-cho/a]. Usually disparaging
Spanish American term meaning “pale,
discolored, or malnourished.” It is used
as a noun by Mexicans for Mexicans liv­
ing in the southwestern United States.
The term is also used by Mexicans or
recent Mexican immigrants to the United
States for those Mexican Americans who
do not speak Spanish, who have become
Americanized, and who, in general, are
accused of ignoring their origins. It is
less disparaging when used by a M exi­
can A m erican (i.e., an Am ericanized
person of Mexican descent).
182______pogrom
“I would try to speak, but everything
I said seem ed to me horribly angli­
cized .... Pocho then they called m e”
(Richard Rodriguez, in Brown and Ling
1993,230). O f Jose Antonio Villarreal’s
novel Pocho, about an A m ericanized
Mexican forced to seek his own way on
th e eve o f W orld W ar II, M arc
Zimmerman (1992, 93) says that it was
“criticized in its time for assimilationist
em phases.... Pocho still stands as a clas­
sic Chicano Bildungsrom an: an early
effort to syncretize Mexican and U.S.
values and norm s....”
F o r o th e r w o rd s M e x ic a n A m e ric a n s
u s e f o r o th e r M e x ic a n A m e ric a n s , se e
M e x ic a n A m e r ic a n , c r o s s - r e f e r e n c e s .
See e s p e c i a l l y a g r in g a d o ,
M e x ic a n o f a l s o , T io T a c o , v e n d id o / a .
pogrom. Persecution of a minority group,
often involving an officially organized
or supported massacre. Yiddish, from
Russian pogrom (destruction, devasta­
tion). Although it was originally used to
refer to attacks on Jews, and often still
is, other minority groups may also be
said to suffer pogroms.
The denotation o f the term lacks the
ambiguity of race riot, which can refer
to a violent episode regardless of who is
attacking whom and whose rights are at
stake. Yet pogrom has been used loosely
and, according to some, misused in an
inflammatory way. The riots in Crown
H eights, New York, in 1991, w hich
erupted when a black child was acciden­
tally hit and killed by a car in the entou­
rage o f a rabbi, leading to an attack by
black people on Jews, were called po­
groms by some political figures. The ri­
ots, however, were neither organized nor
officially sanctioned.
In response to the Crown Heights ri­
ots, Joyce Pumick, a Jew, writing in the
New York Times, spoke of the pogroms
experienced by Jews in Europe in the
first half o f the century and concluded:
“L et us rem em ber pogroms, real po­
groms, and mourn their victims. Let us
not cheapen their mem ory with crass
politics” (3 June 1993, A 14).
See also m a s s a c r e , r a c e r i o t .
poi-eater. Derogatory nicknam e for a N a­
tive Hawaiian based on food. Poi ['poi]
.v is a Hawaiian word for a native dish pre­
pared from th e taro ro o t, w h ich is
cooked, pounded to a pasty consistency,
and often fermented (also a dish made
from bananas and the pandanus fruit).
See also g e is h a , g r a s s s k ir t , H a w a i ­
ia n , h u l a g ir l , K anaka.
Polack, Polock, Polak, polack. An ethnic
slur for an inhabitant o f Poland or some­
one of Polish descent, from Polish Polak,
“a Pole.” William Shakespeare spoke of
L a M a l in c h e ,
the “polack” as early as the seventeenth
century. According to The Oxford E n­
glish Dictionary (1989), however, the
disparaging usage is North American,
dating to the late nineteenth century.
R ecently, new spaper co lu m n ist A nn
Landers stuck her foot in her m outh
when she said o f Pope John Paul II:
“Looks like an angel. He has the face of
an angel.... O f course, h e’s a Polack.”
(C hristopher Buckley, N ew Yorker, 4
December, 1995, 84). Polack has also
been used as a derogatory nickname for
any person d eficien t in in tellig en ce
(“dumb” in common parlance), regard­
less o f national background.
“Polak” jokes have enjoyed som e
popularity since the 1960s, focusing on
the lower-class backgrounds o f some
Polish immigrants. A lan D undes sug­
gests that the popularity o f the Polack
joke (similarly, the Italian joke) cycle “is
that it takes the heat o ff the N egro”
(Dundes 1971, 202).
Partridge (1984) says that “pola(c)k”
has referred also to a Polish, Russian, or
Czech w hite slaver dealing in Polish
Jewesses.
See also b o h u n k , P o l e , p o s k i , y a k .
Pole. A term (German, o f Slavic origin)
commonly used as a polite form for a

Polish person or someone o f Polish de­
scent. In addition, however, as Sharon
Taylor (1974) writes, it has been used
as a generic term that connotes any stu­
pid person, Polish or otherwise. Around
the end o f the nineteenth century, most
Polish immigrants could not speak En­
glish, thus appearing “dum b” in both
senses of the word— hence, dumb Poles
or simply Pole (“Even without the de­
rogatory adjectives, the sensitive ear is
conditioned to com plete the phrase”
[Allen 1990, 75]). The slur was gener­
alized to other eastern Europeans and
then becam e a generic term for any stu­
pid person.
See also b o h u n k , P o l a c k , p o s k i ,
S w ed e, yak.
political correctness. A term that became
popular on Am erican university cam ­
puses around 1990, used for a set of
ideas, concerns, principles, and direc­
tives that stresses social nonoppressive­
ness, inclusiveness, and sensitivity to
diverse groups of people. Politically cor­
rect describes the efforts of those seek­
ing to deal politically with such social
and political issues as (1) bias related to
race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orienta­
tion, gender, and age; (2) prejudice
against the physically or mentally im­
paired or those o f a stature outside per­
ceived norm s; and (3) neglect o f the
natural environment. It also refers to ef­
forts to open the literary canon to works
o f minorities and, in general, to consider
their accom plishm ents and voices in
American life.
A main goal of those involved with
such issues has been to advance the prin­
ciple o f equality. This is done through
attem pting to proscribe not only words
but also forms o f behavior that seem to
victim ize or stigmatize individuals on
the basis of their race, ethnicity, religion,
g ender, o r sexual o rien tatio n . H ate
speech, it is argued, communicates ex­
clusion o f those groups targeted, violat­
political correctness 183
ing the constitutional promise o f equal­
ity. W hat advocates see as advancing
equality, however, critics have inter­
preted as repression o f ideas, communi­
cation, and b eh av io r th at m ig h t be
deemed racist, sexist, homophobic, or
exclusionary.
In general, the emphasis in political
correctness has been on the group over
the individual— specifically, the margin­
alized or minority group. This brings the
precepts into conflict with such common
U.S. values as freedom o f individual
opportunity, freedom of speech, integra­
tion into mainstream society, and certain
other traditional ideals.
The terms political correctness and
politically correct have been surrounded
by a great deal of critical rhetoric and
attempts to explain, mock, and discredit
them. Safire (1993b) derives the term
from the Maoist “correct thinking.” Oth­
ers say it is a Leninist phrase for “toeing
the party line.” Ruth Perry (1992), how­
ever, who claims that the mainstream
press is partly responsible for construct­
ing the phrase on a Stalinist “party line”
model, finds its first main currency in
the United States in the 1960s within the
Black Power movement and the New
Left (the rejection of the “old” liberal
philosophy). She also argues that within
the New Left the term has always been
used with an awareness of ideological
rigidity and with parody. “Indeed, the
fact that the phrase has survived with
these self-mocking, ironized meanings
is testimony to a kind o f self-critical di­
mension to New Left politics, a flexibil­
ity, a suspiciousness of orthodoxy of any
sort” (1992, 77). In addition, many of
the values of political correctness have
little in common with liberal pluralism;
according to Dickstein (1993, 542), the
cultural nationalism it espouses finds its
roots in the right.
Advocates and critics in the 1990s
became embroiled in charges and coun­
tercharges. The critics often scored
184 political correctness
------------------------------------------^ ------r
points for packaging the term in such a
way that it connoted— some would say
accurately— orthodoxy and trivializa-
tion. A ccusing opponents of political
correctness has been regarded as a way
o f trying to silence them. Ironically, si­
lencing others is ju st what advocates of
political correctness are accused o f do­
ing. Others have pointed out that oppo­
nents o f political correctness are only
promoting their own agendas and es­
pousing their own form of political cor­
rectness.
Those seeking more on the intellec­
tual inspirations behind political correct­
ness can look at the work of Michel Fou­
cault, who analyzes intellectual and ar­
tistic productions in terms of power rela­
tions, and Jacques Derrida, whose method
of deconstruction finds in language a bias
believed to perpetuate racism and sexism.
See, for example, P. Rabinow, ed., The
Foucault Reader (1984) and Jacques
Derrida, The Other Heading (1992).
In the early 1990s, the term political
correctness evolved into the abbrevia­
tion PC (also P. C., pc). With it came such
phrases as PC Police (thought police) in
reference to the alleged repression of
ideas and behavior not viewed as “cor­
rect.”
The term political correctnik for an
ad h erent o f p o litical co rrectn ess is
clearly p ejo rativ e, as is p o litic a lly
correctnoid, as reported in the Maledicta
M onitor (Summer 1992, 4).
Note this variation: “The boatloads
of Haitians now routinely turned away
by the Bush Administration are remind­
ers o f other boatloads of inconvenient—
and eth n ica lly in c o rrec t— refu g ees
turned away by other administrations”
(“Coming North,” Report on the Am eri­
cas, XXVI: 1, July 1992).
See also c a n o n , d i v e r s i t y , DWEM,
HATE SPEECH, MULTICULTURALISM, NATION­
ALISM, PLURALISM.
poor. Widely used term for those lacking
in material possessions and the means
to procure them. The use of po o r avoids
euphemisms such as disadvantaged or,
in most contexts, stereotypes such as lazy
and shiftless. However, the word p o o r
derives from the Latin pauper, from
paucum and pario, “one who produces
v little,” which gives us a negative conno-
tation— “inferior” or “not worth much.”
Jargon such as eco n o m ica lly e x ­
ploited would be regarded as more suit­
able for suggesting the role o f the dom i­
nant group in the causation or m ainte­
nance o f poverty, as in leftist discourse
(see Moore, in Rothenberg 1988, 274).
Urban po o r tends to link the poverty o f
cities with black people or Latinos. Eco­
nom ically marginalized, said to have
been used first by Christianity Today, is
still another synonym heard (see m a r ­
g i n a l ) , as is the popular have-nots.
Often in southern black usage refer­
ring to indigent white people, but also
among better-off southern white people,
the term p o o r means not simply pecuni­
ary poverty but ignorance and absence
of social virtue. T hese m eanings are
fo u n d in such e x p e ssio n s as p o o r
buckra(h), poor white folksy, po o r white
trash, poor white, or trashy poor white.
My name is Sam,
I don’t give a damn.
I’d ruther be black
Than a poor white man.
— (old black southern rhyme,
in Hendrickson 1993, 184)
See also c u l t u r a l l y d e p r iv e d , d is a d ­
vantaged, POOR WHITE TRASH, UNDERCLASS,
URBAN.
po o r w hite trash . Phrase used for white
people o f the very lowest social status—
those viewed as ignorant and shiftless
as well as economically backward— in­
cluding, in slave days, southern white
people who were ranked in social status
beneath slaves. Although coined in the
nineteenth century by African A m eri­
cans, poor white trash is used by both
white and black people, largely as a term

o f contempt, though sometimes also ex­
pressing pity for poor white people, es­
pecially southern farmers or laborers.
The term may connote not only squalor
but also moral turpitude. In the North,
especially, the phrase often implies that
those so labeled are racist.
This term, along with such words as
cracker, clay-eater, poor white folksy,
p o o r white, m ean and shiftless white
people, hillbillies, clodhoppers, back­
woods farm ers, redneck, and pecker-
wood (many used in the South since be­
fore the Civil War), suggest the strong
distinction that has been made in the
South between successful white people
and poor white people. The latter is usu­
ally a dem eaned group.
For other words for white people, see
w h i t e , cross-references. See especially
A p p a l a c h ia n , c l a y - e a t e r , c o r n c r a c k e r ,
c r a c k e r , h il l b il l y , p e c k e r w o o d , p o o r ,
r e d n e c k , r i d g e r u n n e r , s h if t l e s s , s o u t h ­
erner.
popsicle. Highly offensive stereotype of a
Native American whose drinking causes
him to fall asleep on the snow and die.
Heard in some western states, this epi­
thet, supposedly an attempt at humor,
stigmatizes and dehumanizes.
For other words white people use for
Native Americans, see I n d ia n , cross-ref­
erences. See especially h o o c h .
porker. Derogatory slang for a Jew. It is a
sarcastic reference to the Jewish, espe­
cially orthodox, prohibition on eating
pork.
For other words for Jews, see Jew,
cross-references. See also p ig .
Portugoose. Jocular nickname for a Portu­
guese or someone of Portuguese descent,
often taken as offensive.
Portuguese. See H a o le , P o rtu g o o s e .
poski. Twentieth-century epithet for a Pol­
ish person or someone of Polish descent.
See also b o h u n k , P o l a c k , P o l e , y a k .
potato eater, potato head. See sp u d .
prejudice 185
powwow. See In d ia n .
PR, P.R. Often derogatory initials used for
a Puerto Rican, more common in black
English.
See also b r o w n , H is p a n ic , L a t in o / a ,
M a n c h a , N u y o r ic a n , P e d r o , P u e r t o
R i c a n , s p il l , s p o o k .
prairie nigger. Slur on a Native American
living on the U.S. prairies or plains.
For other words for Native Ameri­
cans, see I n d ia n , cross-references. See
especially t im b e r n ig g e r .
prehistoric. Pertaining to times before writ­
ten records. Native Americans, among
other groups, have protested the use of
this term on the grounds that it connotes
the racial and cultural inferiority o f
“ n o n lite ra te ” p eople, w ho tran sm it
knowledge orally rather than by written
records. A rchaeologist B rian Fagan
(1997) assures us that prehistory and
prehistoric are purely convenient, long-
established scientific usages among ar­
chaeologists, without pejorative impli­
cations.
See also p r im it iv e .
prejudice. An attitude toward a category or
group of people or toward individuals
by virtue o f their m em bership in the
group. Although this attitude may be fa­
vorable or positive, common usage con­
notes (and sociological usage denotes)
an unfavorable or disparaging attitude,
including bigotry and hatred.
D iscrim ination— behavior that de­
nies equal treatment to people because
of their membership in some group—
parallels the beliefs, feelings, fantasies,
and motivations of prejudice. Stereo­
types, or generalizing beliefs about oth­
ers; ethnocentrism, which judges others
on the basis of one’s own group stan­
dards; and racism, rooted in the notion
o f the biological inferiority o f other
groups, are all related to prejudice and
often entwined with it. Ethnic slurs, such
as wetback, whitey, Polack, and many of
186______primitive
the other words listed in this book, are
usually expressions o f prejudice.
Sdcial and behavioral scientists have
offered numerous explanations o f preju­
dice. These can be categorized as psy­
ch o lo g ica l (e.g., sc ap e g o atin g [see
s c a p e g o a t ] and personality needs), cul­
tural (e.g., historical traditions and up­
bringing, or socialization), and situ­
ational (e.g., com petition). E lisabeth
Young-Bruehl (1996), who finds tradi­
tional thinking about prejudice as an
undifferentiated phenomenon unaccept­
able, distinguishes betw een different
types, the personality needs they fulfill,
the people who hold them, and the so­
cial situations that help bring them into
play. In her scheme, racism and anti­
semitism are different types of prejudice.
The idea o f prejudice may carry dif­
ferent meanings or interpretations in dif­
ferent contexts and for different people.
For example, although there are signs that
traditional, blatant forms o f prejudice
against others have declined in recent
decades, there is talk today of “modem
prejudice,” seen as more subtle, coded,
and indirect. M odem prejudice is preju­
dice believed to be channeled into more
socially acceptable forms (e.g., using
welfare cheat instead of nigger). Many
social scientists and minorities see this
prejudice as a continuing and pervasive
source o f inequality. On the other hand,
some critics of the modem prejudice con­
cept regard prejudice as having declined
to the point of insignificance, inequali­
ties instead being the result of the cul­
tures o f groups that have failed at assimi­
lating into the social and economic main­
stream (see Part 2 in Pincus and Ehrlich
[1994] for a discussion of these points of
view). “No, I don’t believe it’s prejudice.
I truly believe that they (Black baseball
players) may not have some of the ne­
cessities to be, let’s say, a field manager,
o r perhaps a g eneral m anager” (A1
Campanis, of the Los Angeles Dodgers,
on Nightline, 1987, in Fikes 1992,15).
In addition, there are differences in
views about w hether prejudice against,
for example, black people is still preju­
dice when directed at white people. A f­
rican Americans, whose historical inju­
ries are well documented, find the idea
. \o f comparability incomprehensible.
See also e t h n o c e n t r i s m , r a c i s m ,
scapegoat, stereo ty pe.
prim itive. A term applied to early society,
often defined as lacking in social orga­
nization or cultural development. O rigi­
nally from th e L atin p rim u s (first),
prim itive appeared in the fifteenth cen­
tury in reference to som ething in an
early o r first stag e— thus, ro u g h or
crude. The w ord also took on racist
meanings. As G oldberg (1993) points
out, the use o f prim itive in European
thought became synonymous with the
racial “other,” signifying that primitive
people (“them”) are all alike (but differ­
ent from “us”). “Primitive” cultures were
confined to a distant past that lacked
“progress” or the rationality identified
with modem W estern culture. "
W hen used to denote a group or
people whose society is seen as simple,
this term usually has ethnocentric con­
notations and may also be misleading.
So-called early, nonliterate (note: a cul­
ture based on the oral tradition is som e­
times unintentionally m aligned by the
use of preliterate or even nonliterate),
traditional, or indigenous peoples may
m anifest certain com plex, developed
cultural system s (kinship, etiq u ette,
myth, or ritual) that are hardly primitive,
in the sense o f simple or crude. A lso
culturally and historically misleading are
efforts to lump all early or nonindustrial
societies into a single undifferentiated
category, w hether called “prim itive,”
“tribal,” or “traditional.”
The notion of primitivism has also
long connoted the beauty, natural quali­
ties, or romance of a sim pler way o f life.
As a concept, prim itive may be used to

confer a certain nobility on the poor or
oppressed, as expressed in Tom W olfe’s
related concept o f Radical Chic (from
the essay o f that nam e published in
1970), which identifies the urban primi­
tive (i.e., inner-city black people) as ro­
mantic and declares white mainstream
society passe.
See also b a r b a r i a n , c a n n i b a l , d a r k ­
est A f r ic a , JUNGLE, NATIVE/NATIVE PEOPLE,
OTHER, PREHISTORIC, RACE, SAVAGE, TRIBE,
VOODOO.
prom ajority. In favor or support of the
majority, or dominant society. In U.S.
political talk, this can be a euphemistic
avoidance of the more racist-sounding
prow hite o r white supremacist. “Airlink
[a white-supremacist-supported program
on a cable public-access channel], which
em anates from M ississippi, propagates
its ‘pro-m ajority’ views in somewhat
m ore sedate fashion” (Time, 21 June
1993, 63).
See also m a i n s t r e a m , m a j o r i t y , w h i t e
SUPREMACY.
protected groups. Groups such as ethnic
minorities, women, the elderly, and the
handicapped specified in affirmative ac­
tion programs as segments of the popu­
lation to be protected against discrimi­
nation in em ploym ent. The term has
been used also as an attack on minori­
ties, stereotyped as dependent on gov­
ernm ent benevolence. Minorities, many
o f whom have been subjected to various
forms o f abuse and disadvantage, object
to the term protected because of its irony.
See also a f f i r m a t i v e a c t i o n , m i n o r ­
it y , q u o t a s , r e v e r s e d is c r im in a t io n , t o ­
k e n / t o k e n is m .
P uerto R ican. A resident or citizen of
Puerto Rico or a descendent thereof.
Officially known as the Commonwealth
o f P uerto R ico, a possession o f the
U nited States, the island got its name
(meaning “rich port,” originally the har­
bor o f San Juan) from the explorer Juan
Ponce de Leon. The island was originally
Puerto Rican 187
named Borinquen (or Boriquen) by the
Taino, the first inhabitants of the island.
This name, or variants of it, is still in
popular use to designate the island or its
people, as in the name of the national
anthem of Puerto Rico, La Borinqueha.
Boficuas may be described as Puerto
R icans w ho id e n tify w ith th e p re ­
Columbian indigenous roots of their is­
land. It is what Puerto Ricans call one
an o th er resp ectfu lly and affec tio n ­
ately— an affirm ation o f culture that
transcends color and gender (see R.
Santiago, ed., Boricuas, 1995).
Stateside Puerto Ricans are some­
times considered a national minority of
the United States with a culture distinct
from that of the island Boricuas. At least
in New York City, where there are large
second- and third-generation commmu-
nities, the Puerto Ricans are more likely
to see themselves as different from is­
land Puerto Ricans and more a part of
U.S. minority life (Falcon 1993). As
Falc6n has shown, however, the relation­
ship between stateside Puerto Ricans and
those in Puerto Rico is complex. Life in
the United States, including being pulled
by assimilation and pushed by discrimi­
nation, has not diminished the sense of
belonging many Puerto Ricans still feel
with the island. Yet, Puerto Ricans who
have lived in the United States and then
returned to the island may be met with
d is tru s t and m o ck ed fo r sp e ak in g
“Spanglish,” a blend of Spanish and
English.
Although puertorriqueho/a [pwer-to-
re-'ka-nyo/a] is a Spanish word for a
Puerto Rican man or woman, it is some­
times seen in English-language publica­
tions. In fact, as Allen (1990, 27) notes,
in the 1970s, ab o u t the sam e tim e
Chicano was being adopted by English-
language publications, puertorriqueno
appeared in American English as a sym­
pathetic term for Puerto Ricans. The
derogatory variant is puertorriqueneo.
Porto Rican was an earlier spelling (un-
188 puertorriqueneo/a
til 1932, the island was known as Porto
Rico).
W hether they live on the island or on
the mainland, Puerto Ricans are Ameri­
cans and citizens o f the United States.
They are not immigrants. Puerto Rican
Americans is redundant.
Although Puerto Ricans have tradi­
Pygmy, Pigmy. A term referring to a short-
tionally emphasized socioeconomic sta­
tus over color, they use a num ber o f
terms to identify racial mixture. These
in clu d e grifo (kinky-haired), pardo
(brown), moreno (brown, brunet, a ref­
erence to African Americans), pelo malo
(bad hair), and trigueho (light brown).
Increasingly, Puerto Ricans living on the
mainland are less likely to identify them­
selves as black. Negro/a, though Span­
ish for “black,” is not used to define skin
color, but as a friendly form of address
for anyone, regardless o f skin color.
People o f Puerto Rican descent in
Hawaii, whose ancestors were originally
recruited to work on sugar plantations
startin g in 1901, becam e know n as
Pokoliko or Poto Riko (both terms being
tran sm u tatio n s o f P u erto R ico), or
Borinki.
See a l s o b r o w n , H is p a n ic , L a t in o / a ,
m a n c h a , N u y o r ic a n , P e d r o , PR, s p il l ,
spo o k .
puertorriqueneo/a. See P u e r t o R ic a n .
punk. Often used for a young person who
belongs to a rebellious counterculture
group; also a young, inexperienced per­
son, a hoodlum, or a homosexual. This
term may also be used in the black ghetto
as a “warrior” word to verbally attack a
male believed to lack “manly” courage.
“Punk is w hat Huey [Newton] calls
Eldridge [Cleaver] as he expels him from
the party— a charge so threatening that
the usually glib and politically garrulous
Cleaver is struck dum b” (Alice Walker,
New York Times, 5 M ay 1993, A 15).
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref-
xerences.
statured people o f equatorial Africa (e.g.,
the M buti or Twa) who live in sm all
groups and have many o f the physical
features o f other black Africans, though
differing in height. The term has also
been applied to some people o f South­
east Asia.
Pygm y has a long history o f bias.
From a Greek word referring to a m ea­
sure of length, Pygm y was once used for
a fabled race o f dwarfs described by an­
cient Greeks and later for the apes pre­
sumed to be the originals o f the fabled
Pygmies. In the M iddle Ages, Pygmies
were viewed as representing a step be­
low humanity in the great chain o f be­
ing. N ineteenth-century anthropology
coined the synonym Negrillos, “little N e­
groes,” im plying th at Pygm ies w ere
dwarfish, degenerate Negroes. In addi­
tion, today the image may appear as a
racist subtext, as A frican A m ericans
charged was the case in Roald D ahl’s
C harlie an d the C h o co la te F actory
(1964), a children’s book in which the
fa c to ry la b o re rs w ere “ O o m p a-
Loompas,” pygmies imported from their
jungle homes in the trees. In its lower­
case form, pygm y means “an insignifi­
cant person.”
See also A f r i c a n , b u s h ( B u s h m a n ),
E t h io p i a n , H o t t e n t o t , M a u M a u , N e ­
gro/N eg ress, N ig e r ia n , Z u l u .

Q they are not designed to benefit. Many
quadroon. See o c to ro o n .
quarter-breed. See h a lf-b re e d .
quiet American. See m o d e l m in o rity .
Q-word. See q u o ta s .
quotas. A quota is a share or proportional
part o f a total am ount or quantity. In
im m igration law, it has referred to re­
strictive imm igration policies. For ex­
ample, the immigration law of 1924 es­
tablished national-origin quotas intended
to reduce immigration from southern and
eastern Europe. Similarly, it has found
use earlier in this century in regard to
discriminatory practices against Catho­
lics and Jews; quotas were set regulat­
ing the num ber o f both groups allowed,
for example, into corporations, country
clubs, or prestigious universities. More
com m only today, however, the word
appears in reference to a numerically
based remedy (a form o f affirmative ac­
tion) considered to be a type o f “prefer­
ential treatm ent” for groups whose ad­
m ission or em ploym ent opportunities
have been limited historically and arbi­
trarily by discrim ination. Q uotas are
governm ent-established numbers used
for admitting or employing minorities
based on population percentages.
In the affirm ative action context,
quota, also known as the Q-word, ac­
quired negative connotations because of
beliefs about what quotas represent or
quotas 189
how they affect people, especially those
Americans are concerned about making
decisions based on race, sex, or national
origin in a system that espouses goals
of eliminating such bases for decision
making. Others see quotas as infringing
on the prerogatives and career opportu­
nities o f the dominant group (i.e., white
men). The term is frequently heard as a
form of political attack on liberal civil
rights policies, and it comes in various
word com binations. “Rem em ber how
co n serv ativ es d en o u n ced h er [Lani
Guinier] as a ‘quota queen’ after Presi­
dent Clinton nominated her to be his
assista n t attorney g en eral fo r civil
rights?” (Clarence Page, Chicago Tri­
bune, 30 March 1994, 23).
Usage suggests that the people be­
ing “preferred” are outside the m ain­
stream. The related terms reverse dis­
crim ination or unfair preferences are
also often used when “outsiders” or mi­
norities are favored by quota programs.
Liberals and many African Americans
would argue that these words may serve
to deflect attention away from the privi­
leges and special treatment long received
by mainstream white people, and away
from their discrimination against those
groups the “quotas” have attempted to
serve in redress.
A euphem ism for quotas is m ath­
ematical ratios.
See also a f f i r m a t i v e a c t i o n , p r o ­
t e c t e d g r o u p s , r e v e r s e d is c r im in a t io n ,
t o k e n /t o k e n is m .

R Many people of India, for example, have
race. In its biological sense, a category of
people distinguished by such inherited
physical characteristics as skin color,
certain facial features, and quality or
form o f hair. Race may also signify the
prejudices, beliefs, and policies called
racial or racist. Behind the term is an
extremely vague, misleading, and intrac­
table folk concept about how people are
to be categorized.
M erriam-W ebster’s Collegiate D ic­
tionary (1993) derives race from the
M iddle French word meaning “genera­
tion,” from Old Italian razza (1580). It
has also been said to stem from the A ra­
bic word ras (chief, head, origin). An
etymological discussion can be found in
Smedley 1993, 36-40.
European seafaring voyages of explo­
ra tio n o f the late fiftee n th century
brought an increasing awareness o f the
“racial otherness” o f the peoples of the
world newly encountered by Western­
ers. By the eighteenth century, certain
classes o f human beings, believed to be
related by more than common ancestors,
were referred to as races, a term that had
earlier been used for plant and animal
p o p u la tio n s. T he m any schem as o f
“race” that eventually em erged often
consisted o f extremely broad, arbitrary,
b io lo g ically defined groups such as
negroid, m ongoloid, and caucasoid.
These were once referred to by largely
inaccurate color terms— black, yellow,
and white— and viewed by many scien­
tists as subspecies o f the human popula­
tion. For years, scientists and laypeople
alike tended to rank such groups behav­
iorally, culturally, and intellectually.
The biological concept o f race has
fallen from grace in anthropology be­
cause it forces human populations into
a few discrete categories o f only ex­
trem ely crude scientific validity. One
problem is that the characteristics be­
race 191
lieved to define a race do not adhere.
the straight hair of Caucasians but dark
skin. For thousands of years, groups have
intermingled their genes, making it im ­
possible to speak o f genetically isolated
“racfes.” The biological similarities be­
tween groups are more obvious to the
scientist than the differences: genetic
research has shown that less than 2 per­
cent of our genes differ from one indi­
vidual to another. Because there are no
innate, unchangeable features that define
groups, anthropologists now favor alter­
native terms. Among these are breeding,
population, gene frequencies, and vari­
ability.
The pertinent question about race is
not what it is but how the concept is used
and the significance it carries in a soci­
ety. In general, race has provided U.S.
society with an important way o f think­
ing about (and d o m inating) certain
groups and a way groups have for iden­
tifying themselves. In other societies,
such as Brazil’s, where, although racial
discrimination exists, social class is be­
lieved to be more important in distin­
guishing people than skin color, the term
has a different significance and may even
be irrelevant.
Race most accurately refers to a cat­
egory of people perceived by society as
being biologically different from others.
But despite the perception, it tends to be
social status or economic interest, not
physical differences, that defines these
people. As a scientific category, “race”
is a fiction or m yth (M ontagu 1972,
118); in social usage, it is a metaphor
(see Gates 1986, 4-13). Since the m id­
twentieth century, the term “proliferated
to the point o f being m eaningless in
some contemporary critical thought and
one that seems frequently to lock read­
ers into rigid, unimaginative structures
o f analy sis...” (Eric J. Sundquist, To
Wake the Nations, 1993, 9). Its usage is
now often taken to imply prejudice.
192 race problem
---------------------------------XT----------
The Association of American Univer­
sity Presses (1995) recommends avoid­
ing the word race itself or, at least, us­
ing it with caution. Much earlier, appeals
were made by noted naturalists and an­
thropologists to replace the em otion­
laden race with ethnic group (see Julian
Huxley and A. C. Haddon, We Europe­
ans, 1936; and Ashley Montagu, M a n ’s
M ost Dangerous Myth, 1942). Although
many would argue that the idea o f “race”
has provided certain minorities with an
identity and solidarity, the concept—
which has also contributed to the cre­
ation and victimization o f the minorities
in the first place— is far more problem­
atic than useful.
In news stories today, individuals are
preferably not identified by race unless
that background is pertinent to under­
standing a psychological involvement in
a political demonstration or similar event
or an issue that crosses racial lines, or
unless the story is biographical or makes
an announcement, for example, regard­
ing an accom plishm ent not routinely
associated with people of that race (The
Associated Press Stylebook and Libel
M anual 1994).
Mixing concepts o f race and ethnic­
ity, the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, for purposes o f reporting,
uses the following categories: “white,
not of Hispanic origin” (people o f Eu­
ropean, North African, or Middle East­
ern background); “black, not of Hispanic
origin” (people o f black African back­
ground); “Hispanic” (people of Mexi­
can, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or
S outh A m erican, or o th e r S p an ish ­
sp e a k in g A m e ric a n b ac k g ro u n d );
“Am erican Indian or Alaskan native”
(people o f native North American back­
ground); “A sian or Pacific Islander”
(people o f East Asian, Southeast Asian,
subcontinental Indian, or Pacific Island
background).
Am ong its still-heard earlier uses,
race refers to a person’s direct descen­
dants by “blood” (“the race o f Ruth”)
and people o f com mon identity and af­
filiation (“the Jewish race”). Usage has
varied from references to groups o f na­
tional, ethnic, religious, or linguistic
identity; to humankind as a whole (“the
v human race”); and to such mystical and
pernicious concepts as the N azis’ “m as­
ter race.” In the U nited States, race of­
ten implies black or white (or, more ac­
curately, a politicized “black vs. white”).
Contemporary expressions o f race may
be coded in terms that serve to avoid
accusations o f racism.
See also A r y a n , b l a c k , b l o o d , b r o w n ,
C a u c a s ia n , c o l o r , e t h n i c g r o u p , M o n ­
g o l o id , N e g r o id , r a c e p r o b l e m , r a c e
r io t , r a c e t r a i t o r , r a c is m , r a c is t , r e d
M AN , STEREOTYPE, W H ITE, YELLOW .
race problem. Usually a phrase reserved
for the plight o f African Americans, spe­
cifically poor inner-city black people.
The term may suggest that these people
are to blame for the social and economic
problems they face. By im plying “poor
black people,” usage also glosses over
the problem s o f m iddle-class A frican
Americans, including lack o f respect and
pigeonholing in “black jobs.”
See also b l a c k p r o b l e m , r a c e .
race riot. An em otion-tinged phrase often
used to label outbreaks o f civil disorder
in black neighborhoods. R ace riot is
applied regardless o f w hether white and
black citizens or members o f other ra­
cial groups directly target each other, as
happened in Los A ngeles in 1992, or
w hether the direct targets becom e the
police and National Guard, as happened
in Los Angeles and Newark in the 1960s.
Those who wish to convey what they see
as the political significance o f such
events— black people’s alienation from
government, exclusion from society, and
d isc rim in a tio n a g a in st th e m — have
called these events, for example, rebel­
lions or revolutionary uprisings, and the
neighborhoods in which they take place,

rebel neighborhoods. “In the African
American community, xenophobia to­
ward Hispanics and Asians, alienation
from a city government run by a proto­
typical Negro pol, and a genocidal yet
fertile youth culture primed black L. A.’s
ev e ry d ay p e o p le fo r the u p risin g ”
(George 1992, 157).
Among those who use the term race
riot, many see these events and the as­
sociated looting as signs of aberrant, an­
tisocial actions or social pathologies ste­
reotypical o f ghetto life and ignore their
political character. “These are no longer
riots connected with civil rights in any
way. These are riots of the lawbreakers
and the mad dogs against the people”
(Ronald Reagan, referring to riots of the
1960s, in Fikes 1992, 83).
The expression race riot appeared in
1864, when hundreds o f people were
killed in rioting over black people’s right
to vote. It was used during the riot in St.
Louis in 1917 and became even more
w id esp read w hen, a y ear follow ing
W orld W ar I— after num erous black
people had migrated to large industrial
cities— there was rioting in twenty-three
U.S. cities (Flexner 1976, 40). In gen­
eral, in the nineteenth and early twenti­
eth centuries, race riot was applied to
white mob action against African Ameri­
can groups, usually efforts to maintain
racial segregation (Franklin 1970, 92).
But the way the expression was used
changed after World War II, particularly
since the civil rights movement. Now it
does not explicitly define who is attack­
ing whom (though in the media black
people are usually depicted as the riot­
ers) or what the cause is.
See also in n e r c i t y , p o g r o m , r a c e ,
RACISM, SOCIAL PATHOLOGY.
race traitor. One who betrays his or her
race. This is used by people of any ra­
cial group who reify the notion of race
and make it a primary political cause. It
is intended as a strong censure o f an
racism 193
ingroup member. “The successful upris­
ing included assassinations, bombings,
and the hanging of Jews, blacks, liberal
judges, and ‘race traitors’ from the lamp­
posts” (in Dees and Fiffer 1993, 14, re­
ferring to a fictional U.S. revolution led
by <vhite supremacists depicted in the
novel The Turner D iaries, 1978, by
white supremacist William Pierce).
“Treason to whiteness is loyalty to
humanity,” reads the subtitle to a leftist
journal called Race Traitor.
See also r a c e , r a c i s t , w h i t e s u ­
prem a cy .
Rachel. The mother o f Joseph and Ben­
jam in of the Bible (Gen. 29-35). When
used generically for a Jewish female, the
name is derogatory.
For other words for Jews, see J e w ,
cross-references. See especially H e -
brew /H ebrew ess, J e w e s s , J e w is h A m e r i ­
can P r in c e s s .
racism . A system o f beliefs, held con­
sciously or otherwise, alleging the infe­
riority of members of one supposedly
biologically different group to those of
one’s own group. Racism focuses on
perceived innate or “natural” differences
between groups. It is grounded in the
assumption that the differences are as­
sociated with (or even determine) behav­
ior, culture, intellect, or social achieve­
ment.
The w ord racism d ates from the
1860s (derived from the French racisme,
according to Random House Webster’s
College Dictionary [1991]), although it
was not commonly used until the 1960s.
Gunnar Myrdal made no mention of it
in his well-known 1944 study, American
Race Relations: An American Dilemma.
This term, which has been, like race,
virtually “all things to all men” (Barzun
1937, 3), has lost much of its signifi­
cance as a concept. Different elements
have been emphasized at different times
in defining the term. First was racism as
dogma or belief. Since the 1960s, there
194 racism
was an emphasis on discrimination as
well as prejudice. Later views empha­
sized group and institutional processes
that create and maintain (even without
the overt expression of racism by indi­
viduals) a racially stratified society. This
form is referred to frequently as institu­
tional racism. The concept continues to
be reformulated.
Racist ideology came to rationalize
slavery and colonialism. It reached its
height in the nineteenth century in the
context of “scientific” notions (specifi­
cally, social Darwinism) about the sur­
vival o f superior groups (assumed by
Europeans to be Europeans). Explicit is
the belief that a decline in that superior­
ity supposedly results from “race mix­
ing.”
The meaning or significance of rac­
ism varies with the group using it and
the political context. Black people and
m any o th er m arginalized or liberal
groups tend to view racism as central to
the formation and existence of U.S. so­
ciety. M any w h ite o r co n serv ativ e
people, on the other hand, see it today
as peripheral. W hite people may also
find racism expressed in color or group
consciousness— and thus accuse people
o f color of a kind of racism for under­
sc o rin g , fo r exam ple, th e ir N ative
Am erican roots, their Chicanismo, or
their Afrocentricity.
By the 1970s attention was focused
on so-called reverse racism, defined as
the hostility and prejudice of minorities,
especially A frican Americans, toward
white people (see Bob Blauner, in Pincus
and Ehrlich 1994,18-28). In fact, some
black people may accept the theory that
black people and white people are dif­
ferent “racially” and may even assert
their superiority over whites, making at
least the content of their beliefs racist.
The difference, many argue, is that white
racism stems from the use and abuse of
power, w hereas black racism results
from having for centuries been the tar­
get of that abuse. “This qualitative dif­
ference is disguised by the term ‘reverse
racism,’ which implies too simply a com­
parison w ith its w hite co u n terp arts”
(Cashmore 1994). The 1990s saw a re­
surgence o f charges o f “reverse racism ”
v and efforts to end affirmative action pro­
grams.
The existence o f racist beliefs and
practices, in mainstream America as well
as among extremist groups, can be docu­
mented. The term racism itself, how­
ever, is problematic. As a harsh accusa­
tion, for example, racism may be used
to put an end to dialogue. Reference to
the “racism” o f an opponent’s position
may constitute a nonnegotiable “I dis­
agree with you” (Leo 1991b, 14). The
charge o f racism against one’s critics has
been a device not only for avoiding deal­
ing with their point o f view but also for
escaping one’s own responsibility. It can
also serve to consolidate the accuser’s
political support.
Excessive, inflated use o f the term
has counterproductive effects, including
contributing to backlash from w hite
peo p le. M o re co n serv ativ e A fric an
Americans have charged that racism and
its attendant notion o f victim ization,
whatever the sense o f unity they may
provide for A frican A m ericans, have
been burdens on black people’s devel­
opm ent as responsible individuals: “I
think we should see the enemy for the
mad bee that he is rather than the raging
lion he used to be,” writes Shelby Steele
o f racism (in Cashmore 1994, xiv). In
addition, used irresponsibly, the term is
said to contribute to a feeling o f hope­
lessness among those who suffer from
racism. Alvin E Poussaint and James P.
Comer (1992) say that children who hear
the word feel that they are drowning in
a sea o f bad feeling directed tow ard
them.
Racism has been studied and typed.
Some of its forms include the follow­
ing:

Aversive racism is a subconscious
prejudice or subtle act of discrimination.
It is seen in elusive or inconsistent ex­
pressions o f discomfort or fear of mem­
bers o f another race.
Environmental racism is a volatile
phrase coined in 1982 by B enjam in
Chavis Jr. that refers to discrimination
against people o f color (probably also
poor white people) in the selection of
sites for industries and waste disposal
agencies or companies that pose health
h az ard s or o th er problem s to these
people. It involves discrimination in the
m aking o f environm ental policy and
enforcem ent o f environmental regula­
tions. It also entails the exclusion of
people o f color from the political pro­
cesses that influence environm ental
policy and restrict environmental justice.
Laissez-faire racism is UCLA soci­
ologist Lawrence B obo’s term identify­
ing the view o f many white people who,
while maybe acknowledging that racism
exists in A m erican society, insist that
“the core problem is that blacks aren’t
working hard enough, or aren’t suffi­
ciently motivated.... ‘It’s [black people’s]
fault, it’s what the free market produced,
it’s what they chose to be’” (from Rich­
ard Morin and Lynn Duke, World o f Psy­
chology, 1993, 23).
S cien tific racism — considered an
oxymoron today— proposes that genes,
that is, innate “biological inferiority,”
account for the low social status of many
black people. Such research before the
1950s looked at the cephalic index (the
ratio o f the breadth of the head to its
length, front to back, x 100) or intelli­
gence tests for evidence of the presup­
posed biological inferiority o f black
people. M ore recent work using intelli­
gence tests (e.g., H ermstein and Murray
1994), whatever their value in the eyes
o f some people, is generally dismissed
in the scientific literature as “pseudosci­
entific” at best.
raghead 195
Critical race theory, or CRT, a term
from about 1993 (A m erican Speech,
Summer 1994, 178), refers to a legal
theory suggesting that racism in the
United States is pervasive and solvable
only in terms of discrimination in favor
o f black people.
Racialism , a variant of racism, is
largely British. But its adjective form,
racialist, may also be used in the United
States when racist might sound exces­
sively harsh or imply overt oppression.
See also A r y a n , e t h n o c e n t r is m , f a s ­
c is m , INSTITUTIONAL RACISM, PREJUDICE,
RACE, STEREOTYPE, ZIONISM.
racist. A person whose views fit the mold
o f racism. As an epithet (and adjective),
dated to at least the 1930s, it can be used
to condemn anyone who disagrees with
the user’s beliefs about race and ethnic­
ity, who engages in behavior antagonis­
tic to another racial group or is discrimi­
natory in regard to it, or who opposes
multiculturalism or interracial behavior.
Use is not restricted to a person of any
particular group. Some, especially black
people, however, have argued that be­
cause of the asymmetiy o f power, the
term is more applicable to white people.
Hughes (1991,134) describes racist, like
fascist, as having acquired the status of
a swear word.
See also b ig o t , f a s c is m , r a c e , r a c is m .
raghead, rag-head. Derogatory name for
an A rab o r an A sian In d ia n , used
throughout the twentieth century. The
allusion is to the practice among Gulf
Arab men o f wearing a headdress, or
turban— U.S. troops in Saudi A rabia
during the G ulf War spoke of the locals
as “ragheads”— or to that of Sikh men,
who also wear turbans. Sometimes also
towelhead. In black English, it refers to
a black m an w ho w raps a k erc h ief
around his head (see also h a n d k e r c h ie f
h e a d ).
See also A r a b , A s ia n I n d ia n , B u d d h a -
head, d othead.
196 rainbow
-------------------------------------'— ~ — ;
rainbow. A figurative reference to a diverse
assortment of people o f color; consid­
ered a loftier ideal today than the melt­
in g p o t. “E s p e c ia lly o ffe n siv e to
[Ronald] F ujiyoshi is the A m erican
‘ideal’ o f the melting pot. W hat would
he like to see replace it? ‘The rainbow,’
he says, as all true sons of Hawaii would
be expected to answer” (David Flack,
T ra n sp a cific, N o v em b er/D ecem b er
1992, 93).
Rainbow is used in combination with
coalition for an alliance o f people of
color, poor and w orking class w hite
people, and white liberal activists seek­
ing a common cause. The term, connot­
ing the beauty o f all races working to­
gether and, as such, an invitation to white
people to participate, was popular in the
1980s. It is associated especially with the
Reverend Jesse Jackson, founder o f the
rainbow political coalition, which sup­
ported him during his presidential can­
didacies of 1984 and 1988. It may ac­
quire mocking tones among critics or
conservatives. “Beyond New York, the
Rainbow habit o f crying racism has
found itself discounted by voters o f all
colors who want better governance and
less rhetoric” (Jim Sleeper, New Repub­
lic, 1 November 1993, 20).
Rainbow can also mean an interra­
cial couple or, in street slang, such a
couple having sexual intercourse.
See a l s o c o l o r , in t e r r a c ia l , m ix e d ,
m u l t ir a c ia l .
Rastus, rastus. A derogatory traditional
nickname for a black man stereotyped
as subservient; probably a shortened
form o f the personal nam e E rastus.
Since the early years o f this century,
Rastus served as a popular advertising
image o f black people, long appearing
on boxes o f Cream of Wheat. “Despite
his notoriety, Rastus was only a servant.
His authority did not extend beyond
knowing how to cater to the tastes of
other (usually white) people” (William
M. O ’Bair, Culture and the Ad, 1994,
109). The name once had a jo cu lar use.
For other traditional white words for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See esp ecially A u n t J e m i m a ,
h a n d k e r c h ie f h e a d , N eg ro /N e g r e ss,
pa n ca k e, S am bo, U ncle T o m .
’ red aborigine. See n a t i v e / n a t i v e p e o p le .
Red Bone. See t r i r a c i a l m ix e s .
red devil. Term that dem onizes the A m eri­
can Indian. It was com mon in the nine­
teenth century when white people were
dealing with “Indian uprisings.” “B or­
der towns were fortified and cowboys
and militia gathered in readiness to pro­
te ct them ag a in st th e ‘red d e v ils ’”
(Charles A lexander Eastman, in Brown
and Ling 1993,4).
See also d e v i l , I n d i a n , N a t i v e A m e r i ­
c a n , RED M AN, REDSKJN.
Red Indian. See re d m an.
red leg. See t r i r a c i a l m ix e s .
red man, Red Man. An allusion to the skin
colorof Native Americans, who actually
range in skin hue from brown to, the
“white” o f many Caucasians. R ed m an
appeared in print around 1725 and was
a well-known phrase by the 1880s, as
was vanishing red man. Besides being
dated, red man is usually offensive to
American Indians. R ed Indian was also
once used widely in the U nited States
but is rarely heard anymore, though it is
still used outside o f North America.
The use o f red man did not originate
with Columbus, as is often believed. As
Vaughn (1982) has discussed, during the
fifteenth through seventeenth centuries,
Europeans tended to use cultural labels,
for example, Indians or natives; m ore
ethnocentric descriptions, such as bar­
barians, savages, and heathens', or neu­
tral references, including country people,
naturals, and inhabitants. Color refer­
ences, such as tawny, olive, copper, or
brown— even white— were also applied,
but color terms were seldom used m uch

before the late eighteenth century, and
red was rarely associated with Indians.
N ot until the mid-eighteenth century
did Anglo-Am ericans begin to view In­
dians as significantly different in color
from themselves. Anglo-Americans had
begun to fuse black and Indian popula­
tions in legislation early in the eighteenth
century. By the mid-nineteenth century,
when red had becom e a common de­
scriptor for Native Americans, Indian
culture had become, in the eyes o f white
people, a reflection of the racial deficien­
cies of Indian people (Vaughn 1982).
There were two main reasons for the
adoption in the late 1700s of the com ­
mon description, or epithet, red man or
redskin. First, in the mid-eighteenth cen­
tury, the well-known naturalist Charles
Linnaeus, in classifying American Indi­
ans as one o f his four human groups,
used the term Am ericanus rubescens,
“red American.” Second, there were fre­
q u en t conflicts betw een Indians and
colonists at the time. These resulted in
both Europeans’ association of Indians
with what was called red “war paint” and
a sense o f racial enmity.
A ccording to Leitch (1979, 64-65),
the B eothuk Indians o f w hat is now
Newfoundland painted their bodies with
a mixture made o f powdered red ocher
and grease, used for adornment and as
an insect repellent. Early Europeans,
upon making contact with the Indians
so adorned, thus coined the term red In­
dians.
See a l s o I n d i a n , N a t i v e A m e r i c a n ,
r e d d e v il , r e d p o w e r , r e d s k in .
redneck. D erogatory term for a poor or
working-class white person, especially
male, of the rural South or for a work­
ing-class w hite bigot. Supposedly the
term derives from the sunburned necks
o f field workers and other outdoor la­
borers, although it also has been said to
come from the anger o f these people.
It is often used as an attack term di­
rected against unsophisticated people,
redskin 197
racists (especially in black usage), reli­
gious fundam entalists, or, during the
1960s, anyone opposed to the counter­
culture. In the 1969 film Easy Rider, for
example, hippie bikers are gunned down
by intolerant southern “rednecks.” In the
1960s, the term also became a populist
honorific w ithin the white, working-
class South. A cco rd in g to D ickson
(1990,116), redneck dates at least to the
1890s (The Oxford Dictionary o f M od­
ern Slang [1992] says 1830) and was
also once used by trade unionists in a
sense com parable to the slang w ord
roughneck.
Shortened to neck.
See also A p p a l a c h i a n , b i g o t , B u b b a ,
CLAY-EATER, CORNCRACKER, CRACKER, GOOD
OLD BOY, HILLBILLY, PECKERW OOD, POOR
W H IT E T R A S H , R A C IS T , R ID G E R U N N E R ,
SOUTHERNER.
red niggers. See t r i r a c i a l m ix e s .
Red Power. The slogan put forth by AIM,
the American Indian Movement, in the
1960s. M odeled on the Black Power
movement, the Indian effort sought the
self-determination of Native Americans
and the security of their land and rights
as major goals. “They ridiculed their
own elders, the ‘U ncle T om ahaw ks’
among the tribal leaders, who for de­
cades had sold out the Indians by letting
the do-gooders decide what was best for
their people; and they demanded Red
Power—power of the Indian people over
all their own affairs” (Alvin M. Josephy
Jr., Red Power, 1970, 13). The term has
never sym bolized N ative A m erican
dom ination as the term black p o w er
symbolized black domination to white
people in the 1960s.
S ee also b l a c k p o w e r , b r o w n ,
C h i c a n o (Chicano Power), r e d m a n .
redskin. Slang epithet for a Native Ameri­
can, dating back to the eighteenth cen­
tury (Spears [1991] traces it to the late
se v en te en th c e n tu ry ). E n g lish and
French explorers spoke o f “redskins”
198 reggin
(peau-rouge). We know the term also
from the w ritings o f such authors as
James Fenimore Cooper: “Well, for my
part, I account game, a red skin, and a
French man, as pretty much the same
thing” (Hurry Harry, a character in The
Deerslayer, 1841). Spears (1990) sug­
gests the term was popularized largely
through Western movies.
Redskin is regarded as highly offen­
sive. “There is no more derogatory name
in English for Indian people than the
name Redskins” (Suzan Shown Haijo,
Rethinking Columbus, 1993, 5).
See also I n d i a n , N a t iv e A m e r i c a n ,
RED D EVIL, RED M AN, R E D PO W ER .
reggin. see n ig g e r .
relocation. In an interethnic context, a eu­
phemism used to attempt to cover up the
coercion involved in moving a group of
people, often indigenous or “fourth
world” people (the world’s materially
poorest people), away from their home­
lands. The purpose— or at least the re­
sult— o f “relocation” is often to make
native lands available for use by the
dominant group.
The Indian Rem oval A ct o f 1830
forced the “relocation” (in the early nine­
teenth century, colonization was the
p o p u lar term ) o f N ative A m ericans
known as the Five Civilized Tribes. Liv­
ing on vast fertile lands east o f the M is­
sissippi, these people were forced to
move to Indian Territory in Arkansas and
Oklahoma, areas that white people re­
garded as uninhabitable. Despite an in­
tervention o f the U.S. Supreme Court in
favor of the Cherokees, this process re­
sulted in the loss of some four thousand
Cherokee lives during the roundup (at
bayonet point) and forced march on what
the Cherokee called the “Trail of Tears.”
A related euphemism is “exchange of
lands,” which was used by the U.S. gov­
ernment in reference to the removal of
Indians from their lands under political
and military pressure. In the middle of
the twentieth century the federal govern­
ment developed a policy that pressured
Native Americans living on reservations
to relocate to cities.
W hen Ja p an e se A m eric an s w ere
rounded up during World War n , as hys-
v teria over a possible Japanese invasion
o f the West Coast reached fever pitch,
they were sent to “relocation” cam ps
supervised by a new federal agency
called the W ar R elocation A uthority.
Although these camps have also been
known as internment camps (a term still
used in some history books), many to­
day would regard concentration camps
as a more appropriate term. The evacua­
tion o f people of Japanese ancestry from
the W est C oast in 1942 w as unprec­
edented in the United States as a single
action against a large group o f people
(the enslavement o f black people and
confinement o f Native Americans to res­
ervations were accom plished over the
course of many actions). When President
Reagan signed into law the Civil Liber­
ties Act of 1988, the U.S. government
began to redress the wrong, issuing in­
dividual apologies and making $20,000
tax-free paym ents to each internm ent
survivor.
See also I n d ia n , J a p , N a t iv e A m e r i ­
can.
rev erse d isc rim in a tio n . A form o f dis­
crimination against members o f a dom i­
nant group (also called “reverse rac­
ism ”). N orm ally the em phasis in the
term, as used mainly by white people, is
on the irony in a policy o f discrim inat­
ing against one group in order to rectify
discrimination against members o f an­
other. Affirmative action is often inter­
preted as reverse discrimination.
T he term has been a co d e w ord
among those who criticize advances in
civil rights that offer the same advan­
tages to other groups that mainstream
white people have long enjoyed. Thus,
the user o f the term is likely to blame

m inorities for anything that seems to
hold back the user’s economic advance­
ment, at the same time blaming m inori­
ties for not pulling ahead by their own
efforts. “W hat surprised me was how
many of the students had internalized the
notion that if people of color don’t get
ahead they have no one but themselves
to blame, and how many seemed famil­
iar with the term ‘reverse discrimina­
tio n ’” (N an cy M urray, R e th in k in g
Schools, January/February 1991, 7).
See also a f f ir m a t i v e a c t i o n , p r o ­
tected GROUPS, QUOTAS, RACISM.
reverse racism. See ra c is m , r e v e r s e d is ­
c rim in a tio n .
rice-eater. A derogatory stereotype of Asian
people, especially Chinese, whose diet
is based on rice. Variations include rice-
belly, ricer, and riceman (Major [1994]
notes riceman and ricer as black varia­
tions). “Push those rice-eaters back to
the Great Wall o f China” (zealous, right-
wing history teacher in the 1986 movie
Back to School). R ice-bum er has been
used in the twentieth century by motor­
cyclists to express contempt for Japanese
motorcycles. A “rice queen” is a white
m ale hom osexual w ho prefers Asian
men (see also s n o w q u e e n ) .
For other words for Asians, see A s ia n
A m e r i c a n , cross-references. See espe­
cially C h i n a d o l l , C h i n a m a n / C h i n a ­
w oman, C h in a m a n ’ s c h a n c e , C h in e e ,
C h i n e s e , C h in k , c h o p s t ic k s , c h o w , c o o ­
l ie , DINK, DRAGON LADY, FORTUNE COOKIE,
GINK, GOO-GOO, GOOK, JOHN CHINAMAN,
LITTLE BROWN BROTHERS, MICE-EATER, MON­
KEY, P a t , PIGTAIL, SLANT, SLOPE, ZIP.
ridgerunner, ridge-runner. Slur meaning
a “hillbilly” or southern Appalachian
m ountain person. “For the upwardly
mobile o f either sex, it was possible to
leave the ‘ridgerunner’ taunts behind
forever by losing their accents, adopt­
ing Northern dress fashions, switching
the radio dial from Hank Williams to
Frank Sinatra, and grabbing the first
Russian 199
chance to move to a modest house in a
w orking-class suburb” (Jones 1992,
240). In black usage it may mean a white
person.
See also A p p a l a c h ia n , c l a y - e a t e r ,
CORNCRACKER, CRACKER, HILLBILLY, PECKER-
W O 0D , POOR W HITE TRA SH , REDNECK,
SOUTHERNER.
Rok, ROK. See GOOK.
Romany. See G y p s y .
roundeye. See s la n t.
run-round man. Teasing name given by
black people to a black man whose light
skin makes him popular with the women.
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences.
Rusky, Russki, Russkie, Russky, Roosky.
Ethnic slur applied to a Russian soldier
in 1914; later, especially during the Cold
War, it was used for any Russian or Com­
munist. The term has also been used af­
fectionately.
See also I v a n , R u s s ia n .
Russian. M ember o f a Slavic group that
constitutes about 82 percent of the cur­
rent Russian Federation. In addition, the
term is used for the language o f Russian
people and for a member of the Russian
Orthodox Church.
Sometimes, as when the user is al­
luding to the “Russian bear” of the czar-
ist regime or to the Communist iron rule
o f the former Soviet Union, the word
may connote fierceness or brutality. Note
the stereotypes in the following expres­
sions: Russian boots (leg chains) and
Russian socks (rags covering the feet of
Russian soldiers prior to the Soviet out­
fitting of the army) (Roback 1979). In
Germany, Russian has long meant “bar­
barous.” Russian roulette is a “game” in
which one chamber of a gun is loaded,
the cylinder spun, and the barrel pointed
at a person’s head (or other valuable
object), the trigger then pulled. “Sarah
suspects he did it [murder], basing her
200 Russian
\ ' ,

opinion on Morgan’s behavior as a child,

when he forced her to play Russian rou­
lettes and killed her 26 cats” (Booklist,
15 October 1994, 403).
See also I v a n , R u s k y . .
From the first half o f this century,
Russian was also an epithet for a south-
em black person living or moving up . -
North. It possibly derived as a play on
the word rushin as in the stereotypical
“ru s h in ’ aw ay from h ard w ork” or
“rushin’ up N orth” (Allen 1983, 48).
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references.

s age, however early its signs of demise,
S am bo. Largely historical reference to a
black person, especially a male, carry­
ing associations of servility. The image
conveyed is one of exaggerated lips, gar­
ish clo th es, o r a c a refre e “dancing
dandy.” The word also connotes igno­
rance.
The term was in use long before the
publication o f Helen Bannerman’s popu­
lar children’s folk tale, The Story o f Little
Black Sambo (1900), which is actually
about a Hindu child in India who clev­
erly avoids being eaten by tigers. It was
also in use before Sambo appeared on
the A m erican stage in M urdock’s Tri­
umph o f Love (1795). D ating from at
least the early eighteenth century, the
term was a pet name African Americans
used for each other during the time of
enslavement. It was also used generically
by white people— often, but not always,
derogatorily— for a black man and, at
one time, more specifically for the male
offspring of a black person and a mu­
latto. It is still heard pejoratively today
for a very dark-skinned black person
and, especially among black speakers,
for a black male who accepts the stereo­
typical role o f being a “boy.” Boskin
(1986) argues that making black men
entertain as Sambos and appear foolish
doing so was white people’s way o f de­
nying black men their manhood.
A s a ra c ia l ste re o ty p e o f b la ck
people, the image began to fade in the
1930s and was criticized after World War
II. By midcentury, the Sambo image was
under heavy attack. Birtha (1972) calls
attention to what were being recognized
as the sources of the derogatory conno­
tations o f Sambo, noting, for example,
that the m an in a minstrel show who
serv ed as the butt o f the jo k e s was
S am b o , an d , sim ila rly , th a t the
ventriloquist’s black, red-lipped dummy
also carried the name. The Sambo im­
savage 201
was used at least until the 1960s in
printed material and appeared pictorially
on games, posters, playing cards, sheet
music covers, and food packages, among
other items.
T he S p an ish za m b o /a , m ean in g
“knock-kneed” and “half-breed” (it has
many variant ethnic meanings in Latin
American countries, but usually having
to do with mixed race), may have influ­
enced the generic English usage among
white people. Forbes (1993, 235), who
deals with the mixed-race concept, sug­
gests a Latin American place name as a
possible origin: “In 1501 Rodrigo de
Bastidas reached the puerto de Zamba
along the Caribbean coast of Colombia.”
As a nicknam e am ong black people,
however, Sambo suggests an A frican
origin, including the Congolese nzambu,
a type o f monkey; the Foulah sambo,
“uncle” ; the H ausa sam bo, “second
son”; or Bantu samba, “to give comfort.”
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially A m o s ’ n ’ A n d y ,
boy, co o n , A u n t J e m im a , b l a c k ie , h a n d ­
k e r c h ie f HEAD, PANCAKE, R a STUS, SHINE,
SPADE, STEPIN F e TCHIT, TAR BABY, UNCLE
T om.
s a n d n ig g e r. See n ig g e r .
S apphire, sapphire. An epithet for a dis­
liked black woman in black and white
use. Sapphire was the nagging wife of
the character called “The Kingfish” in
theA m o s ’n ’Andy radio (1928-60) and
TV (1951-53) programs.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k . See especially
A m o s ’ n ’ A n d y . For other words black
people use for other black people, see
BLACK.
s a u e rk ra u t. See kraut.
sausage. See kraut.
savage. Someone living in a state of little
or no civilization or thought o f as living
202 Scandahoovian
close to nature; a primitive, brutal, or
fierce person. The term derives originally
from-the Latin silvaticus, “of the woods,
wild,” from silva, “wood” or “forest.”
Savage has been applied by Europe­
ans to other Europeans (the Irish, inhab­
iting the earliest English frontier, were
known as “savages” by the English) or
to anyone behaving in a manner Euro­
peans have defined as “savage.” M ost
often, however, it is reserved for non-
E u ro p ean peoples. S im ilarly, m any
A sians, using their own words (e.g.,
Japanese Keto, “hairy barbarian”) and
concepts, have depicted Europeans as
inferior beings deficient in manners and
morals. Traditional, indigenous peoples
around the world, especially upon first
encountering Europeans, have held simi­
lar unflattering views o f their w hite
guests (see Julius E. Lips’s The Savage
Hits Back, 1966, for an account of the
native perspective on Europeans).
There are different European fictions
o f savagery, stereotypical but not neces­
sarily negative. Western civilization has
created at least three kinds o f savage: (1)
The noble savage— blessed, at one with
nature, and innocent until the arrival of
Europeans. The noble savage, such as
the Tahitian of the eighteenth century—
also known as a “soft primitive,” a ste­
reotype o f abundance and luxury o f
lifestyle— was held up as a mirror for
the European, whose own culture came
off looking bad by comparison. (2) The
“ignoble savage” was said to be cultur­
ally degraded, vicious, and idolatrous;
overall, barely human. This convention
w as p o p u la r am o n g E u ro p e a n
colonialists engaged in acts of dispos­
session and subjugation o f those per­
ceived as inferior, exploitable, or intrac­
table— for example, the “red devils” of
w hite A m erican fiction, depicted as
given to massacre, scalping, and drunk­
enness. Also there was (3) the “roman­
tic savage,” a devotee o f freedom and of
his or her race— courageous, emotional,
and childlike (e.g., Herman M elville’s
Queequeg, in M oby Dick).
Savagery has been, for the reading
public of the last three centuries, a
reservoir of unexpected possibilities
in human nature; and the savage has
had to adorn this or that hypothesis
by becoming cruel or noble, licen­
tious or chaste, cannibalistic or hu­
mane, according to what suited the
observer of the theory.
—Bronislaw Malinowski,
The Sexual Life o f Savages,
1929, 537
See also b a r b a r ia n , c a n n ib a l , n o b l e
SAVAGE, PREHISTORIC, PRIMITIVE, RED DEVIL,
T urk.
Scandahoovian, Scandihoovian, Scand-
ino(o)vian, Scoovian. Epithets, often
regarded as jocular names, for a Scandi­
navian, that is, someone from Denmark,
Finland, Norway, or Sweden. Partridge
(1984) notes that Scandihoovian is a
nautical usage. A n old Am erican folk
rhyme goes:
The Irish and the Dutch,
They don’t amount to much, -
But hooroo for the Scandinoovian!
See also F in n s k y , N o r s k i, s q u a r e ­
head, S w ede.
scapegoat. A person or group m ade to bear
the blame for others or to suffer instead
o f them. The scapegoat is usually a vis­
ible foreign, ethnic, or racial group with
relatively little power. Scapegoating in­
volves the displacement o f aggression
and other passions onto a group that is
disliked and cannot easily defend itself.
On the Jewish Day o f Atonement, as dis­
cussed in the Old Testament Book o f
Leviticus, a priest confessed the sins o f
the Israelites over a goat’s head; the goat
was then driven into the w ilderness,
symbolically carrying away the people’s
sins.
See a l s o p r e j u d i c e .
schmoehawk. A non-Indian who poses as
an In d ia n fo r p ro fit, a c c o rd in g to

Waldman (1994). It is a term used mostly
by Native Americans and refers espe­
cially to people who appear in movies
and advertising. Apparently a blend of
schmoe (a boob) and Mohawk, the name
o f an Iroquoian-speaking Native Ameri­
can nation. The use of the Yiddish-de­
rived schmoe in the context of making
money may imply a stereotype o f Jews
as well.
See a l s o I n d ia n , N a t iv e A m e r ic a n .
schnozzola Slang word for the nose (as used
jocularly by perform er Jimmy Durante)
and for Jews, stereotyped as having large
or hook-shaped noses. It is related to
German Schnauze, “snout” or “muzzle,”
and Yiddish schnubbl, “beak.”
For other words for Jews, see J e w ,
cross-references. See especially e a g l e -
beak, J e w is h n o s e .
school bus. Derogatory reference used by
black people for a light-skinned black
person (most school buses are yellow, a
color associated with light-skinned A f­
rican Americans).
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially b a n a n a , c o l o r ,
HIGH Y ELLOW , m ulatto/a , PINKY, WANNA­
B E, YELLOW , YELLOW SUBM ARINE, ZEBRA.
s c ie n tific r a c is m . See r a c is m .
Scotch, Scot. Scotch is a plural reference
to the Scots; a contraction o f Scottish.
However, there may be bias associated
with Scotch and its use may be offen­
sive.
Scotch and Scotchman/-woman were
fashionable in the eighteenth century. It
appeared, for example, in the smug com­
ment by Samuel Johnson, “ .. .the noblest
prospect which a Scotch man ever sees,
is the high road that leads him to En­
glan d !” (Jam es Bosw ell, The Life o f
Samuel Johnson, 1791). Some working-
class people o f S cotland still prefer
Scotch, though other Scots are likely to
disapprove. In the United States, in part
Scotch 203
because the early Scottish immigrants
arrived here before Scotch lost its repu­
table status in Scotland, the adjective form
is still common. However, this name is
now largely reserved for such things as
the whiskey, the terrier, or the dialect.
'As an adjective, scotch has been used
to mean “stingy” or “mean,” and the of­
ten lowercase Scotchman occurs as a slur
for any miserly person. Scotchman is
also objectionable on the grounds that
we don’t use its equivalent for many
sim ilar epith ets (e.g., we d o n ’t say
“Mexican-man”). The opprobrium that
the term may carry is reflected also in
the m ore than thirty-tw o com pound
words with the element Scotch that have
been used as ethnic slurs at one time or
another. These include Scotch blessing
(vehement scolding), Scotch ordinary
(latrine), and Scotch verdict (inconclu­
sive).
From Late Latin Scotti, a native of
Scotland or person of Scottish descent,
Scot is now largely in favor. Its virtues
include the avoidance o f the gender dis­
tin c tio n s fo u n d in S co tch m a n and
S c o tch w o m a n , o r S co tsm a n and
Scotswoman, and conciseness. However,
since the early nineteenth century, the
term has also been used to mean an iras­
cible person; and scot (lowercase) has
referred to a temper, as in the exclama­
tion, “W hat a scot he was in!”
Scotch-Irish has been used for a de­
scendant of the Ulster Scots in America.
Usage, restricted to the United States,
increased in the 1830s and 1840s, dur­
ing a period of Irish Catholic immigra­
tion, as a way o f distinguishing the Irish
Protestants from the Irish Catholics.
However, Scots-lrish is now preferred by
these people. See Carlton Jackson (A
Social History o f the Scotch-Irish, 1993,
xv) for more on this usage.
For sim ilar slurs directed against
o ther E uropean groups, see D u t c h ,
F r e n c h , G r e e k , I r is h , I t a l ia n , J e w , P o l e ,
S p a n is h , w e l s h . See also S cotty.
204______ Scotty
Scotty, scotty. An alteration o f the proper
name Scot. It may be offensive to Scots;
at best, informal. As an adjective, it has
been used to mean irritable.
See also S c o t c h .
s e c o n d -c la s s c itiz e n s . See m i n o r it y .
The separation o f races, espe­
s e g re g a tio n .
cially as practiced in schools, businesses,
housing, and public places; most often
ag ain st A frican A m ericans but also
against other minority groups. The term
came into use in the United States in
1883 when the Supreme Court was rul­
ing on civil rights cases, supporting the
cause o f those favoring “separate but
equal” treatment and social discrimina­
tion against black people. Federal legis­
lation and Supreme Court decisions have
now rendered all laws calling for racial
segregation invalid.
Although segregation is also often
used negatively to describe, for example,
the voluntary establishment of schools
or other institutions exclusively for black
people, it is more appropriately reserved
for the kind o f segregation that was
forced on black people.
The illegalization offorced segrega­
tion, under which black people had
no choice but to be separate, does not
mean that those same black people
must be forced to be integrated and
forsake the right of deciding that
present difficulties might be amelio­
rated by a pattern of segregation they
themselves have chosen.
— Fish 1994, 77-78
Segregation is regarded as sharper-
edged than separation o f the races, or
simply separation. Separation is used by
such groups as [Black] Muslims on the
left and white supremacists on the right,
both o f whom have opposed integration,
the bringing o f people of different ra­
cial or ethnic backgrounds into unre­
stricted association. Safire (1993b, 695)
says both integration and segregation
were adopted by opponents of separa­
tion “as abrasive confrontation terms”
used in mid-twentieth century politics.
Pei (1969, 166) notes that integration,
compared with desegregation, im plies a
sense o f activity behind bringing the
races together. D ated slang form s in­
clude segged (segregated), de-segged
v (desegregated), and outsegged (referring
' to a separatist who stands by a doctrine
o f segregation less firmly than another
does).
De jure segregation refers to segre­
gation sanctioned by law. De fa c to seg­
regation is that resulting from custom.
See also J im C r o w , l il y - w h i t e , p l u ­
r a l is m , SEPARATE BUT EQUAL.
self-hate, self-hating. In ethnic discourse,
a reference to the attribute of a m em ber
o f an ethnic group who has internalized
the dominant society’s hatred for his or
her group. The term has also been used
in attack politics within a minority group
to refer to the “problem ” o f a group
member who threatens to leave the group
or who deviates from the group’s prin­
ciples. “You’re either an anti-Semite or
a self-hating Jew if you don’t follow the
party line strictly” (N oam Chom sky,
speaking o f how the deviant is labeled,
in Chronicles o f Dissent, 1992, 38).
See also p r e j u d i c e .
Semite. See a n tis e m itis m , A r a b , Je w .
separate but equal. A phrase that acquired
its civil rights meaning in 1896 when the
U .S . S u p re m e C o u rt, in P le s s y v.
Ferguson, ruled that a Louisiana statute
providing for “equal but separate accom­
m odation for the w hite and colored
races” on railroad coaches was not in
violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
U sed in the D eclaration o f In d ep en ­
dence, the “separate but equal” phrase
becam e a euphemism for, and a justifi­
cation of, segregation up to 1954, when
the doctrine was struck down by the
“Warren Court.” The Warren Court ruled
that “Separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal.”
See also J im C r o w , s e g r e g a t io n .

separatist, separation. See B l a c k M u s lim ,
NATIONALIST, SEGREGATION, WHITE SU­
PREMACY.
settler. Someone who settles in a new coun­
try or founds a town; a colonist. The ear­
liest arrivals in North America from Eu­
rope are often known as settlers. They
w ere m ostly free w hite people, who
settled on the land and left a strong stamp
on American culture. However, a couple
of problems may arise with its use in this
way. First, in the context of the Euro­
pean settlem ent o f this country, the
speaker may invite trouble if the inten­
tion is to set up a frame of reference that
ignores the Native Am ericans’ relation­
ship to that land said to be “settled.” In
addition, Daniels (1990, 29) notes as
fallacious the long-standing notion in the
U nited States that the early arrivals here
from Europe are to be called colonists
or settlers, while those arriving later
should be designated as immigrants.
See also d is c o v e r e d , im m ig r a n t , p io ­
neer.
shade, shadow. Shade, from the mid-nine­
teenth century, alluding to color, a slur
on a black person. Also shadow, from at
least the beginning o f this century.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially s h a d y .
shady. Disreputable or dishonest, as in a
“shady deal,” often linked with the nega­
tive stereotype of a Jew as a crafty ma­
nipulator (much as shiftless suggests a
stereotype of black people). In the ex­
pression shady lady, however, for a black
woman or black prostitute, shady is a
play on the color epithet shade, for a
black person.
For other words for Jews, see J e w ,
cross-references. For other words white
people use for black people, see b l a c k .
See especially s h a d e .
shanty Irish, Shanty Irish. Usually de­
rogatory nickname for poor Irish imm i­
grants, although sometimes used by the
sheeny 205
Irish them selv es self-d escrip tiv ely .
“They were always calling him names,
pigpen Irish, shanty Irish, Padney, ain’t
you the kind o f Irishman that slept with
the pigs back in the old country?” (James
Farrell, Young Lonigan, 1932). It has also
been used for the Irish in general. Cheap
shanty M ick is an even harsher epithet.
The Americanism shanty, said alter­
natively to derive from the Irish sean tig
(old house) and the Canadian French
chantier (log hut), originated around
1820. Shanty village and shanty town
were heard later in that century in refer­
ence to the cluster of shacks where many
poor Irish imm igrants settled. Shanty
Irish, however, was not heard until the
1920s.
The lower-class Irish people were
distinguished from the lace curtain Irish,
who rose to a higher social status in U.S.
society.
See also h o o d l u m I r is h , I r is h , J a k e y ,
l a c e c u r t a in I r is h , M ic k , n a r r o w b a c k ,
P a d d y , P a d d y w a g o n , P at, s p u d , T u r k .
shanty town. See s h a n t y I r i s h . For words
for other poor ethnic neighborhoods, see
H a iti, M e x to w n , n ig g e r to w n .
shaygets. See s h ik s e .
sheeny, sheenie, sheeney, sheen. Highly
derisive term, though perhaps not origi­
nally intended to be, for a Jewish man
or woman. It appeared first in nine­
teenth-century Britain and increased in
opprobrium after the 1870s, taking on
the meaning of “untrustworthiness” or
“selfishness.”
Sheeny is sometimes said to derive
from the German word schon, “beauti­
ful,” used by Jewish merchants to de­
scribe the wares they peddled (Rosten
1989) or their children. It is also associ­
ated with the gloss, or sheen, of the dark
hair of many Jewish people in contrast to
the typically lighter hair of Anglo-Sax­
ons (Partridge 1984). Other related or re­
inforcing meanings of sheeny include a
“tailor,” a “pawnbroker,” and a “tramp.”
206 sheik
In 1902, Irish workers, feeling over­
whelmed by foreigners settling in their
Low er East Side New York neighbor­
hood, began throwing debris and pieces
o f metal at a Jewish funeral procession.
W hen the police arrived, the inspector
in charge encouraged his men to charge
the procession o f mourners, shouting
“Kill those Sheenies!” (in Dinnerstein
1994, 71).
For other words for Jews, see Jew,
cross-references.
s h e ik . See A rab.
A frequently used pejorative word
s h iftle s s .
for black people, as in the expression
shiftless darkies. The association may
have been reinforced by the economic
circumstances of the poor in the post-
Civil War rural South, where there was
a great deal o f labor turnover and tenant
households, both black and white, fre­
quently moved, or “shifted” (also known
as “h ittin g the g rit” or “littin g the
shuck”), from one employer to another
at the end o f a year of contracted farm
labor. Southern agricultural employers
associated this practice with the “shift­
lessness” of sharecroppers, an unfair ref­
erence to their (wrongly) alleged lazi­
ness and moral laxity (for m ore on this,
see Jones [1992]).
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences.
Shikse
s h ik s e , s h ik s a , s c h ic k s a h ; s h a y g e ts .
[’shik-sa] is a som etim es derogatory
Jewish usage (the Hebrew root word
means “abomination”) for a young fe­
male gentile or for a Jewish woman who
resembles or imitates a gentile. Rosten
(1968) notes occasional use among Or­
thodox Jews for a Jewish woman who is
not Orthodox and not observant o f Or­
thodox customs.
“I f you w ait long enough, y o u ’ll
marry a shikse...m ixed marriages— the
plague of the Jews” (a Jew to a young
Jew ish m an in Paul M azursky’s E n ­
emies, a Love Story, an adaptation o f a
story by Isaac Bashevis Singer).
The masculine form is shaygets or
shagits.
See a l s o g o y , J e w .
From the early tw entieth cen-
s h in e , s h in y .
• Hury, a dark-skinned black person, per­
haps suggested by the gloss o f black skin
(or shine o f white teeth against black
skin) and reinforced by the once-stereo­
typed association o f black people with
shoe shine (“shoeshine boys”). W riting
o f the “monicas” or “nom -de-rails” o f
hoboes, Jack London recorded the use
o f shine for black hoboes (London did
not say w hether the label was readily
accepted or th ru st on them ). “Texas
Shine or Toledo Shine convey both race
and nativity” (London, The Road, 1907).
The stereotypical image o f black glis­
tening skin is also behind the old deroga­
tory comparison, “shines like a nigger’s
heel.”
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See esp ecially A u n t J e m i m a ,
b l a c k a s t h e a c e o f s p a d e s , b l a c k ie ,
S a m b o , spa d e, tar b a b y .
An antisemitic epithet meaning a
s h y lo c k .
“loan shark” or “extortionist.” As a verb,
it means to “lend money at exorbitant
interest rates.”
Shylock was the nam e o f a character
in Shakespeare’s play The M erchant o f
Venice. He was a Jewish man portrayed
as a bloodsucking usurer. The image o f
a practitioner o f commercial deception,
however, was a part o f the stereotype of
the Jew long before Shakespeare.
“Almost as prominent are images o f
Shylock and Fagin: the Jew as a figure
of surreptitious accumulation, gothic or
medieval in style, perform ing m ysteri­
ous rites in the dives o f the m odem city”
(Howe 1976, 395).
For other words for Jews, see Jew,
cross-references. See especially H e b e ,
shady.

silk. Black English from the mid-twentieth
century for a white person, often a white
woman (also silk broad), from the tex­
ture o f a white person’s hair. Although
this slang is likely to be used disparag­
ingly, the white person may not neces­
sarily take it as such.
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences.
single parent. Single parenthood to many
is an issue of family and morality; oth­
ers see it in terms of social class or sim­
ply view it as relatively insignificant in
the larger scheme of social issues. It may
have nothing to do with race. Yet as a
social issue it has gained strength in part
because o f its frequent association in
som e contexts with the idea o f race.
Zellah Eisenstein has argued that single
parent is encoded “racially” in political
talk: it often refers to a black teenage
girl or black woman on welfare. “Be­
cause the imagery o f black single and
often teenage mothers was already in
place for [Vice President Dan] Quayle,
he d id n o t have to sp e ak o f ra c e ”
(Eisenstein, The Color o f Gender, 1993,
78).
See also w e l f a r e m o t h e r .
skinhead. A person whose head is close
shaven. This name is commonly associ­
ated with and used in pride self-descrip­
tively by young people who have been
know n for their violence and racism
since at least the 1970s, first in the
U nited Kingdom and shortly after in the
U nited States. They also call themselves
“skins.” Besides the cropped heads, they
are characterized by the dress and be­
havior o f street toughs; are anti-immi­
grant and deeply scornful of minorities
and people of color; and may prefer hard
rock “white power” music, such as songs
that employ racial epithets and a ballad
th at glo rifies the N azi w ar crim inal
Rudolf Hess. Also bootboy, from the Dr.
M artens boots worn by skinheads.
slave 207
H ow ever, n o t all sk in h e a d s are
w hite— and not all are racist. M any
nonracist skinheads, including those
who are Hispanic, Native American, and
black, oppose the racist views of other
skinheads and have engaged in violent
clashes with them.
See also b ig o t , b o n e h e a d , r a c e , r a c ­
i s m , r a c is t , w h it e s u p r e m a c y .
slant, slanteye, slant-eye. A derogatory
reference to Asians, based on the epi-
canthic fold, or flap, over the eyes of
some Asian peoples, giving the eyes a
slanted look. Slant comes from the mid­
twentieth century (slant-eye or slant-eyes
was earlier) but was especially common
w hen A m erican s w ere at w ar w ith
Asians (World War n , the Korean War,
and the Vietnam War). In 1990 Jimmy
Breslin, a columnist for Newsday, pub­
licly called a female Korean American
reporter who had criticized one of his
columns a yellow cur and slant-eyed
(Constance Hays, New York Times, 1
May 1990). Slanteye is also used spe­
cifically for a Korean woman.
Some Asian Americans counter with
the jocular— or disparaging— roundeye,
a reference to the round eyes character­
istic of white people.
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , C h i n k ,
DINK, DINGE, DOG-EATER, FLAT FACE, GINK,
G OO -G O O , GOOK, SLOPE, ZIP.
slave. One who is held in servitude as the
chattel of another, by capture, purchase,
or birth, and, by extension, a person who
is totally subservient to another person.
The term comes from Medieval Latin
Sclavus, meaning a Slav, since Slavs
were enslaved by Germans in central
Europe during the Middle Ages.
In the United States, this term car­
ries a heavy freight of social and politi­
cal connotations. Historically, the words,
imagery, and institution o f slavery itself
have been euphemized, sentimentalized,
and even romanticized. Besides servant,
there were, especially before the rise of
208 slob
abolitionism in the 1830s, as Flexner
(1982) has pointed out, a num ber of
terms used that were more innocuous
than slave. These included Negro, black,
dower negro, house negro, fie ld negro,
hoe negro, negro overseer, negro trader,
and plantation negro. A fter the Civil
War, slave was abandoned altogether,
and people instead spoke o f the black
race or the Negro race. When black came
into favor in the 1960s it was in large
measure a reaction against the slave im­
agery and Uncle Tom associations of the
former slave euphemism, negro. Today,
some African Americans argue that slave
does not accurately convey the oppres­
sion o f that status. The enslaved is pre­
ferred.
Because o f the emotional freight of
the term slave, as the A ssociation of
American University Presses (1995,49)
cautions, certain historical allusions or
figures o f speech may be offensive or
accidentally trivializing. The example
given is “He worked like a slave to be­
com e the first A frican A m erican to
graduate at the top of his class.”
Euphemisms have also been used to
d escrib e the enslavem ent o f N ative
Americans by white colonists. Ameri­
can Indians exploited as slaves by white
men were recently described as “labor­
ers” in a scene in a natural history mu­
seum in a U.S. city.
See also b l a c k , b u c k , c o t t o n p ic k e r ,
house n egro, N egro/N eg r ess, plan ta­
t io n n e g r o .
slob. An alteration o f Slavic used disparag­
ingly for someone of Slavic descent. The
sense o f someone who dresses sloppily
reinforces the negative connotations.
slope, slope-eyed, slope head, slopie. De­
rogatory names, alluding to the slanting
appearance of the eyes of some Asians.
Slope-eyed and its variants, used espe­
cially for a Chinese, were part o f the
soldier’s slang vocabulary in the Pacific
during World War n . Slopie gal applied
especially to a Chinese woman. Slope
was a favorite slur for the Vietnamese
used by the U.S. armed forces during the
Vietnam War and has been used for "Viet­
namese who imm igrated to the U nited
States. “T hat’s what happens to slopes
vw hen they eat too m uch dog m e at”
(Maureen Crane Wartski, in D onald R.
Gallo, Join In, 1993, 87).
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , C h i n k ,
DINK, DINGE, D OG-EATER, FLAT FACE, GINK,
G O O -G O O , GOO K , SLANT, ZIP.
slu m . See culturally d e p r iv e d , e t h n ic
NEIGHBORHOOD, GHETTO, INNER CITY .
sn a k e h e a d . A term used for a C hinese
gangster who smuggles human contra­
band into the U nited States and extracts
high fees from the undocum ented im ­
migrants, who are often left in servitude.
The term becam e w ell know n in the
United States in June o f 1993, when the
G o ld en V enture ran a g ro u n d o ff
Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, New
York, casting adrift illegal Chinese m i­
g ra n ts tra n s p o rte d th e re by th e
“snakehead” traffickers. _
The term is a translation from C hi­
nese but is otherwise of doubtful etymol­
ogy. It is said to have been used first in
the narrative literature o f the Tang D y­
nasty in the seventh through tenth cen­
turies. It may be traced to a five-charac­
ter Chinese inscription, “A snake with­
out a head is no good” (U.S. News &
World Report, 21 June 1993, 28).
Whatever the etymology, U.S. jo u r­
nalists have not missed the images the
term evokes: “The hiss o f the snakehead
is soft and sed u ctiv e and p erfec tly
pitched to the ear o f young Chinese who
dream o f ■ better life”; and “W hen the
snakeheads...slithered into a village in
Fujian Province last year, they found a
p e rfe c t ta rg e t in th e C h e n s ” (Jill
Smolowe, Time, 21 June 1993, 29).
See also c o y o t e .
snow ball. Derogatory slang from at least
the nineteenth century for a light-skinned

black person or one with white hair, as
an albino.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences.
snow boy. See w h it e b o y .
snow queen. Late twentieth-century slang
reference to a black or Asian gay man
who prefers dating a white man.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references. See also A f r i ­
c a n G o d d e s s , r ic e - e a t e r (rice queen).
Application o f a medical
s o c ia l p a th o lo g y .
m etaphor to social conditions, whereby
social deviance or aberration is viewed
as analogous to biological disease. This
concept originated in the nineteenth cen­
tury but is still very much current. A fri­
can American psychologist Kenneth B.
Clark helped to popularize the concept
in D ark Ghetto (1965, 81), in which he
wrote o f the black inner city:
The dark ghetto is institutionalized
pathology; it is chronic, self-per­
petuating pathology; and it is the
futile attempt by those with power
to confine that pathology so as to
prevent the spread of its contagion
to the ‘larger community.’
Because it draws from the language
o f science, it may sound objective; yet
for many this concept represents little
more than a cultural substitution for the
m ore crude and today unacceptable
charge o f biological inferiority.
Although the statistics regarding such
social problems as unemployment and
underemployment, school failure, crime,
and addiction in this area of society in­
dicate that a number of U. S. standards
are seriously askew here, many object
to the stereotypical association of these
conditions with African Americans. The
label o f “pathology” can serve to dis­
tance the normal, virtuous “us” from a
“sick” racial “other.” It can also contrib­
ute to the argum ent for crim inalizing
impoverished people in the inner city.
southerner 209
The implications of a maladapted cul­
ture can also distract from consideration
o f such factors as discrim ination and
historical oppression in understanding
the conditions of poor African Ameri­
cans. “W hile the numbers [of educated
white women and women with profes­
sional or managerial jobs who are un­
wed mothers] are sm all.. .they show that
single motherhood cannot be explained
by words like ‘inner-city,’ ‘welfare de­
pendency,’ and ‘path o lo g y ’” (K atha
Pollitt, New York Times, 22 July 1993,
A13).
One approach to the problems o f the
poor in the inner city has been to replace
the view that ghetto life is characterized
by social pathologies with one that em ­
phasizes the strengths and adaptiveness
of the black community (Wilson 1987,
8-9).
See also i n n e r c i t y , u n d e r c l a s s .
“ Some o f my best friends a re ....” A strat­
egy that white people, whether racist or
not, often use to defend them selves
against any charge o f racism by demon­
strating their solidarity with other racial
or ethnic groups. If some of their best
friends are black, for instance, how can
these white people be racist? It is much
easier, however, to embrace individual
friends across ethnic boundaries than to
respect the whole group; hence, this ar­
gument will appear as a transparent ges­
ture that is offensive and that may even
lend credence to the charge of racism.
so utherner. A native or inhabitant of the
southern United States. Often capital­
ized, especially in a Civil War context,
this term first appeared in 1828 in West­
ern M onthly Magazine.
Although the term denotes regional
origin, it can also suggest ethnicity. To
those who identity with it, as with the
regional designation Dixie, which is par­
ticularly laden with cultural connota­
tions, the meanings are positive. How­
ever, southerner may also suggest a ste­
210 spade
reo ty p e o f on e w ho m oves slow ly,
speaks with a drawl, dislikes northerners
(Yankees), and holds racist beliefs. In the
1930s journalist H. L. M encken tried to
brand the South as a region inhabited by
the worst kind of yokels, and the 1960s
counterculture stereotyped nearly any­
one with a southern accent as intellectu­
ally backward and racially bigoted. In
Bubbas & Beaus (1995), Gail Gilchrist
argues that southern men represent one
o f the last bastions of socially accept­
able prejudice.
Southern has been used in a context
that evokes white supremacy. “In the
sm aller com m unities o f the north [of
Lousiana], ‘law and order’ is nothing
more than local white custom, i.e., the
S o u th e rn W ay o f L ife ” (P e te r R.
Teachout, in Leon Friedman, ed., South­
ern Justice, 1965, 57).
See a l s o A p p a l a c h ia n , B u b b a , c l a y -
eater, C onch, corncracker, cracker,
C r e o l e , g o o d o l d b o y , h il l b il l y , p e c k e r -
W O O D , P O O R W H IT E T R A S H , R E D N E C K ,
r id g e r u n n e r , W h it e m a n .
spade. U.S. and British derogatory slang
for a black person, especially a very
d ark-skinned m ale, as alluded to in
“black as the ace of spades.” Partridge
(1984) notes that use since around 1954
was primarily for a West Indian. Thome
(1990) says the term was not used with
racist connotations by white devotees of
West Indian culture and music in Brit­
ain in the middle o f the century, as is
evident in the title o f Colin W ilson’s
novel, City o f Spades (1959). However,
in the United States the term, dating to
the early twentieth century, is usually
taken as offensive.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially A u n t J e m i m a ,
BLACK AS TH E ACE OF SPADES, BLACKIE,
p ic k a n i n n y , S a m b o , tar b a b y . See also
color.
sp agh etti, sp a g h etti-ea ter, sp a g h etti-
bender. Food-based, derogatory nick­
n am e fo r Ita lia n s . W e n tw o rth an d
Flexner (1975) note that other Latins and
Latin Americans— no m atter that spa­
ghetti is not a part o f their traditional
vdiet— have been targets for the epithet,
' too.
See also d a g o , d in o , e y e t a l ia n , g a r ­
l ic b r e a t h , g u id o / g u id e t t e , g u in e a , Ital­
ia n , m a c a r o n i, M a f i a , p iz z a m a n , s p ic ,
U ncle T om (Uncle Giovanni), w o p.
Spanish. A term usually restricted to the
language, people, or things o f Spain. In
some expressions, however, for example,
Spanish disease, “syphilis,” it may be
inaccurately and maliciously ascribed.
Spears (1991) suggests ignorance or jest
as the source o f Spanisher, a nickname
fo r a S paniard. Som e n o n -H isp an ic
people may identify M exicans or other
Latin Americans as “Spanish,” confus­
ing language with nationality.
P a rtrid g e (1 9 3 3 , 5) c la im s th a t
E ng lan d ’s rivalry w ith Spain during
Queen Elizabeth’s reign led to the unfa­
vorable use o f the word Spanish in the
phrase Spanish practice, m eaning de­
ceitful or treacherous action. The biased
tradition has carried over to U.S. usage.
Roback (1979) lists some thirty-two eth­
nic slurs with Spanish as an element,
including Spanish athlete, “a braggart,”
or “someone who ‘throws the b u ll’” ;
Spanish boot, “an instrument o f torture”;
Spanish castles, “daydream ing” ; and
Spanish windlass, “a straitjacket.”
F or sim ilar slurs directed against
o th er E uropean g ro u p s, see D u t c h ,
F r e n c h , G r e e k , I r is h , I t a l ia n , J e w , P o l e ,
S cotch, w elsh. See also H is p a n ic , s p ic .
Spanish pox. See F r e n c h d is e a s e .
spearchucker. From the mid 1900s, “a sav­
age”; usually an allusion to the stereo­
typical prim itive conditions o f black
Africans, hence, a slur on any black per­

son. Also rhyming slang For basketball
dunker, another term that stereotypes
African Americans.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references. See especially
JUNGLE BUNNY.
s p e c ia l tr e a tm e n t. See a f f ir m a t iv e a c t io n .
Until 1915, an epi­
s p ic , s p ik , s p ic k , s p ig .
thet for an Italian, possibly deriving from
spaghetti (Flexner 1976). It is also often
said to derive from the expression that
parodies the speech of Spanish or Ital­
ian people, “no spica da English.” Later,
spig and spic were applied especially to
M exicans, M exican A m ericans, and
Puerto Ricans, but also to anyone from
L atin A m erica, to Spaniards and the
Spanish language, and to Portuguese. In
fact, it was used for any im m igrants
whose foreignness was visible, includ­
ing even Pacific Islanders.
See also I t a l ia n , s p a g h e t t i . For other
slurs for Hispanic people, see H is p a n ic .
s p ic a n d s p a n . Pejorative reference from
the second half o f the twentieth century
for an A frican A m erican and Puerto
R ican co u p le; used in H arlem and
Brooklyn (M ajor 1994).
See a l s o in t e r r a c ia l .
s p ic to w n , s p ik to w n . See b a r r io , s p ic .
s p ig . See s p ic .
s p ill.Derogatory name for a black person,
a Puerto Rican, or an interracial mix of
the two (Spears 1991).
See a l s o b l a c k , P u e r t o R i c a n .
spook. Twentieth-century derogatory name
for a black person in white use, and for
a white person in black use. Partridge
(1984) notes the use of spook also for a
W est Indian. W entworth and Flexner
(1975) give spookerican— spook plus
R ican— as an epithet for a person of
mixed black and Puerto Rican descent
(New York City usage around the 1950s).
Various origins for the white use for
black people have been suggested, in­
clu d in g w hite p e o p le ’s— esp ecially
squarehead______ 211
young children who have never seen a
black person before— supposed fear of
black people (compare Partridge 1984);
an ironic reference to the skin color of
black people, that is, as opposed to that
of ghosts (Thome 1990); and also black
people’s “haunting” of certain locations
(Thome 1990). Possibly reinforcing the
term is the notion of the invisibility of
black people (see i n v is ib l e ) in the con­
text of the dominant white society. Gor­
don Allport (1958, 144) says of black
people who call themselves “spooks” as
“protective clowning”: “A spook can’t
be hurt.... He will come right through
doors and walls whatever you do; he has
a sassy if silent invulnerability.”
Black use for white people is likely
to derive from the pale, deathlike skin
quality o f white people as seen by black
people. A more or less jocular variant
for a white person is Casper, from the
name o f the cartoon ghost.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially b o o g ie , s p il l . For
other words black people use for white
people, see w h it e , cross-references. See
also P u e r t o R ic a n .
spud . An epithet for an Irish person or
someone of Irish descent, based on the
use o f potatoes in the traditional Irish
diet. Variants are potato eater and p o ­
tato head. Partridge (1984) suggests a
possible derivation from Spuddy, nick­
name for a seller of bad potatoes, but
says spud may have been earlier.
See also h o o d l u m I r is h , I r is h , J a k e y ,
l a c e c u r t a in I r is h , M ic k , n a r r o w b a c k ,
P a d d y , P a d d y w a g o n , P a t , s h a n t y I r is h ,
T urk.
sq u areh ead .Derogatory nickname from
the nineteenth century for a Scandina­
vian or someone of Scandinavian de­
scent; also for a German. The other slang
meaning o f squarehead (slow-thinking)
and the slang meaning of square (dull
or old-fashioned) may account for or
212______ squaw
reinforce the ethnic connotations. See
also F i n n s k y , N o r s k i , S c a n d a h o o v i a n ,
S w ede.
squaw . From various A lgonquian words
meaning “woman,” an epithet for an In­
dian or Inuit woman or wife. It has been
used since the seventeenth century. “I
don’t tip my hat to a squaw woman”
(from Western film Cahill, United States
Marshal, 1973).
Use of the term has perpetuated a ste­
reotype o f the Native American woman
as docile and subservient. Actually, how­
ever, before Native Americans became
wards o f the government in the United
States, most Indian women made sub­
stantial contributions to the economies
o f their peoples, and some held exten­
sive powers in their families and served
in im portant religious roles in their
tribes.
Squaw man is a derisive term for a
white man who marries a Native Ameri­
can woman or who does woman’s work.
See a l s o I n d ia n , N a t iv e A m e r i c a n .
S tepin F etchit, S tep-n-Fetchit. Film char­
acter played in the 1920s and 1930s by
A fric a n A m e ric a n a c to r L in c o ln
Theodore M onroe Andrew Perry. Be­
cause Perry portrayed shuffling charac­
ters, his film nam e (often low ercase
when used generically) came to repre­
sent the stereotype of the black person
as a Tom or coon. Offscreen, however,
Perry was involved in eliminating seg­
regation in the film industry. The term
is also used among black people to cen­
sure a black person whose behavior is
subservient.
“The obsequious behavior o f such
c in e m a tic c h a ra c te rs as S tep in
Fetchit...typifies the normative expec­
tations o f many white Americans dur­
ing this period regarding relations be­
tw een blacks and w h ites” (M ichael
Howard, Contem porary Cultural A n ­
thropology, 1993, 284).
For other words for black people, see
black, cross-references. See especially
A m o s ’n ’ A n d y , c o o n , S a m b o , U n c l e
T om.
step o u t. Label used in black E nglish to
scold African Americans who befriend
white people. It most likely derives from
Hhe expression “step out,” also in black
use, m eaning to leave home, as for a
party or to die.
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially A f r o - S a x o n ,
B a p , b o o j ie , b u p p ie , c h a l k e r , o f a y , o r e o ,
U n c l e T o m , w a n n a - b e , w h it e p a d d y .
stereotype. A generalization about w hat
people are like; an exaggerated image
of their characteristics, w ithout regard
to individual attributes. N ew spaper col­
um nist W alter L ippm ann co ined the
term, calling a stereotype a “picture in
our heads” (Public Opinion, 1922, 95­
156). Stereotypes o f groups are based on
salience— whatever usually stands out
about that group. In the U nited States,
so-called racial characteristics, in par­
ticular, skin color, hair texture, and, fa­
cial features, are a com mon basis o f ste­
reotyping.
All people hold certain stereotypes
o f members o f other groups, including
groups based on “race,” ethnic back­
ground, age, gender, sexual orientation,
physical han d icap , and o ccu p atio n .
Many stereotypes are m erely cultural
expectations about our world, shorthand
ways of dealing with its complex real­
ity. But prejudiced people in particular
think in terms of these images, and do
so in ways that are potentially abusive.
The stereotype in effect says that to know
one m em ber o f the group is to know
them all. Regarding ethnic stereotypes,
for example, all Jews, according to the
traditional prejudice, are “shrewd” and
“money hungry.” All black people are
“ignorant” and “welfare dependent.” All
white people are “cold” and “smug.”
Seeing individuals who resem ble our

stereotypes, however unrepresentative
they may be, sustains the stereotype by
a process o f selective perception.
A lthough images of other people to­
day are toned down compared with what
they were in earlier centuries or even a
few decades ago, stereotypes persist,
in clu d in g cruel ones. They are now
rooted, however, m ore in cultural or
lifestyle differences than in crude no­
tions of biological inferiority (Pincus and
Ehrlich 1994, 4), though the latter are
still current in some circles today.
Stereotypes are more often negative
than positive. Even when they seem to
be positive, however, they may convey
negative or offensive judgm ents about
the group in question. For instance, when
black people are viewed as being good
dancers, the stereotype conveys an of­
fensive image o f carefree entertainers
(see S a m b o ). Positive stereotypes are
also often inaccurate. Many people think
o f some Asian American groups as in­
swine eater 213
clined to be academic superachievers,
which is untrue o f the group as a whole.
See also e t h n o c e n t r is m , p r e j u d ic e ,
r a c is m .
street Arab. See A r a b .
stu d io g a n g sta . In su ltin g term fo r a
“gangsta” rapper accused of posing; a
middle-class black musician who imi­
tates the ghetto style.
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences.
superhonkie. See honky.
Swede. A native or inhabitant of Sweden.
The term may carry a derogatory con­
notation because o f its onetime use as a
generic name for a blundering or “dumb”
person (Taylor 1974).
See also F i n n s k y , P o l e , N o r s k i ,
S c a n d a h o o v ia n , s q u a r e h e a d .
swine eater. See p ig .

T Tartar is regarded as a corruption, the
taco, taco eater, taco head, taco bender.
A food-based epithet used since the mid­
tw en tieth century for a M exican or
M exican A merican or any Latino.
See also b e a n - e a t e r , c h i l i - e a t e r ,
M e x ic a n , M e x ic a n A m e r ic a n , t a m a l e ,
T io T a c o .
tamale. A food-based epithet for a Mexi­
can or M exican American, often a fe­
m ale. A h o t ta m a le (a play on the
spiciness of the food) refers to a Mexi­
can woman who is especially sexy. See
a lso B E A N -E A T E R , M E X IC A N , M E X IC A N
A m e r i c a n , t a c o , T io T a c o .
tar baby. From the name of a doll in an
U ncle Rem us story, by Joel Chandler
Harris (1848-1908), meaning a sticky
situation, som ething from which it is
difficult to extricate oneself. However,
because o f the color, black, implicit in
tar and probably also because H arris’s
stories were about black plantation cul­
ture, this term carries the derogatory
sense o f a black baby or child. The term
has also been used, especially among
black people, to refer pejoratively to any
very dark-skinned black person. A simi­
lar term once in use is tar-pot.
For other words for black people, see
b l a c k , cross-references. See especially
A u n t J e m im a , b l a c k a s t h e a c e o f s p a d e s ,
BLACKIE, PICKANINNY, S A M B O , SPADE. See
also COLOR.
Tatar, Tartar (pi. Tatar). From a Persian
word and, according to The Oxford En­
glish Dictionary (1989), apparently as­
s o c ia te d in W e stern E u ro p e w ith
Tartarus (hell), references to the legend­
ary ruthlessness of the Mongol. Tatar is
the name for a m ember of one of the his­
toric M ongolian or Turkish peoples de­
scended from Volga Bulgars and is also
used for some current Turkic-speaking
people. For the historical and ethnologi­
cal senses, the term Tatar is preferred.
termite 215
form used most often in derogatory ex­
pressions to describe a violent, savage,
or intractable person; or a shrew. The
idiom catch a Tartar has been used to
mean “dealing with an unexpectedly for­
midable opponent.”
See also T u r k .
tee-jay. Scornful reference used by some
California Mexican Americans for un­
documented Mexicans who enter Cali­
fornia through Tijuana.
See also M e x ic a n A m e r i c a n , w e t ­
back.
T ejan o/a, teja n o /a [ 'ta - 'h a - n o /a ] . In
Mexico or the Southwest, especially in
the nineteenth century, a person of Span­
ish descent from Texas. This Spanish
designation is used proudly by Mexican
Americans in Texas, especially those
who trace their ancestry in the state for
several generations. ‘“ We never crossed
a border,’ these Tejanos are fond o f say­
ing, ‘the border crossed us’” (Shorris
1992a, 37).
The term has also been used deroga­
torily in New M exico or Colorado to
mean a white American, or gringo, new
to the area. In addition, it was another
name for the Coahuiltecan tribes that
once lived in the M exican S tate o f
Coahuila and parts of Texas. A variant
is Texano.
See also g r in g o / a , M e x ic a n , M e x i ­
can A m e r ic a n .
terminally Caucasian. See C a u c a sia n .
termite. An insect metaphor for trouble­
makers who swarm where they are un­
wanted or for enemies who, like ter­
mites, bore through and destroy the foun­
dation. It also frequently takes on an eth­
nic color. Enemies in wartime and im ­
migrants have been among the targets:
“There’s no such thing as a Japanese
American. If we ever permit those ter­
mites to stick their filthy fingers into the
sacred soil of our state again, we don’t
216 third world
deserve to live here ourselves” (Leo
Carrillo, who played Pancho in the TV
series Cisco Kid, while a member of a
race relations committee in the 1940s,
in Fikes 1992, 16). The word has also
been used for members o f gangs. “[The
flyer] also called the people responsible
for the killings termites, a term angry
residents [of Venice, CA] say is ju st an­
other slight against the neighborhood’s
minority teens” (Chicago Tribune, 27
July 1994, 18).
th ird w orld, T h ird W orld. From a French
phrase, tiers monde, referring originally
to the tw enty-nine A frican and Asian
nations who attended the Bandung Con­
ference in 1955. The earliest meaning
o f the term was political, focusing on
nonalignment with either the Western or
the Communist blocs. This term came
to be applied to new countries and to
those that had been independent of co­
lonial domination for some time, to dis­
tinguish them from the socialist coun­
tries and from the postindustrial democ­
racies. In its economic sense, the third-
world countries are those still in an early
state o f industrial development.
F irst-w orld nations (the predom i­
nantly capitalist nations of Western Eu­
rope, the United States, Canada, Japan,
Australia, New Zealand, and the for­
merly white-controlled South Africa) are
those to which the Industrial Revolution
came first (the exception here is Japan).
First-world status does not denote supe­
riority or greater importance, yet the
term is sometimes loaded with just those
connotations. Goldberg (1993, 163-64)
notes that social and political theorists
have depicted the first world as techno­
logically developed and democratic. The
second world (industrialized nations of
predom inantly and form erly socialist
economies), now largely failed (another
reason for abandoning the tier scheme),
has been seen as burdened by socialist
ideology. Finally, the third world is de­
picted as outside the rational, productive
traditions o f the West— non-European
and nonwhite. (Fourth world is som e­
times used for those materially poor na­
tions who have shown little if any in­
dustrialization or economic growth', fifth
v world is a more recent term for the very
poorest countries.)
Third world is a catchall for those
nations that do not fit into the definitions
o f first or second world, an aggregate o f
many forms o f economic “underdevel­
opment” seen in about 175 different na­
tions. It can even include groups resid­
ing within a first-world nation. In the
U nited States, som e Latinos, A frican
Americans, and Native Americans have
been categorized— and sometim es stig­
matized— as third world.
Still, the term is not always pejora­
tive. Black people in the Black Power
movement saw themselves as part o f the
emerging force of the third world. Third
world has also designated a category of
people o f m ixed descent w ho do not
identify with the culture of a white, de­
veloped country. Thus, P aula A bdul,
with a French-Canadian m other and a
Brazilian-Syrian father, identifies herself
as “third world.”
Developing world (optimistic, since
many of these countries are not devel­
oping) and North-South split (referring
to the great gap in living standards be­
tween countries in the Northern H em i­
sphere and those in the Southern) have
been used as synonyms in the economic
context. Underdeveloped, another syn­
onym, glossing over the massive pov­
erty of many countries, is also sometimes
applied to poor regions o f the United
States. However, underdeveloped often
carries the implication that it is the for­
eign world that suffers this econom ic
condition, not the United States. Third
worlder has been used as a noun.
Third world may be placed in quota­
tion marks to indicate its lack o f preci­
sion and its potential bias. This is espe-

d a ily useful now that hate groups have
latched onto such expressions as third-
world types to express contempt for the
allegedly “inferior” dark-skinned races
they see as characteristic of the third
world.
those people/you people. See in g ro u p /
OUTGROUP.
timber nigger. Derisive designation applied
to Native Americans who are contend­
ing their treaty rights over natural re­
sources such as fish, timber, and wild­
life. Regarding the issue o f the disparity
in spearfishing bag lim its for Indians
versus non-Indian rights in Wisconsin:
“The intense racial hatred [for Indians]
reflected in newspaper photos of cam­
ouflage-clad protesters holding signs
that read ‘Tim ber N igger’.. .challenged
protesters’ insistence that their actions
w e re n ’t rac ially m o tiv ate d ” (Susan
Solterman, Rethinking Schools, January/
February 1991, 19).
See also I n d i a n , n i g g e r , p r a i r i e
n ig g e r , N a t iv e A m e r i c a n .
Tio Taco. An Uncle Tom Mexican Ameri­
can, that is, one who is docile in respect
to Anglos; also known as a brown Anglo
or Tio Tomas. The term derives from tio,
Spanish for “uncle,” and taco, deroga­
tory slang for a Mexican. The term is
likely to be used by Chicanos, who claim
a special pride in their Mexican heritage
and who may deride others of Mexican
descent who accept the traditional label
M exican American, which connotes as­
similation. “ ...in their day [that of the
Chicano periodicals] they voiced a col­
lective protest against Anglo domination
and its Tio Taco (Uncle Tom Hispanic)
su b se rv ien c e...” (Lester D. Langley,
M exAmerica, 1988, 168).
F o r o th e r w o rd s M e x ic a n A m e ric a n s
u s e f o r o th e r M e x ic a n A m e ric a n s , se e
M e x ic a n A m e r ic a n , c r o s s - r e f e r e n c e s .
See e s p e c i a l l y a g r in g a d o , L a M a l in c h e ,
M e x i c a n o f a l s o , p o c h o / a , v e n d id o / a .
tonto 217
See also A n g l o , C h ic a n o / a , U n c l e T o m .
tojo ['to-jo]. Pejorative term for a Japanese
from the name of the Japanese general
and prime minister, Hideki Tojo, who
approved the attack against Pearl Har­
bor in 1941.
See also A s ia n A m e r ic a n , B u d d h a -
head, C h in k , C h e r r y B l o s s o m , d in k , g e i ­
sha, goo-goo, gook, J a p , N ip , r ic e - e a t e r ,
s l a n t , s l o p e , y a p , z ip .
token/tokenism. From the early 1960s, a
reference (tokenism) to the use of a mi­
nority group member by a government,
business, or other organization as a rep­
resentative o f its group. This person, or
token (early 1970s), serves a largely cos­
metic or symbolic purpose— a visible
sign that the employer is not discrimi­
natory. The use of a token, however, usu­
ally suggests a lack of parity between
the minority member’s group and white
society. Among many African Am eri­
cans, especially, token is used in the
same way that Uncle Tom is. Malcolm
X and Martin Luther King Jr. both saw
tokenism as a way o f keeping black
people under control, those black people
who benefit from it being more the rep­
resentatives of the white power structure
than of other black people. Also, instant
Negro, an African A m erican hired to
comply with the law.
See also i n v is ib l e , U n c l e T o m .
Tom. See U n c le Tom .
tonto, Tonto. A Spanish word meaning
“foolish” or “crazy,” used in Mexico and
the southwestern United States for an
Apache. A Dictionary o f Americanisms
(1951) lists Tonto Indians as well as
Tonto A paches as usages (the nam e
seems to have been applied to Native
Americans broadly, at least sometimes
pejoratively).
Whether it was also a source of the
name Tonto, used for the faithful Indian
companion of the Lone Ranger, created
by Francis Striker for his radio and TV
series, is unknown. The capitalized term
218 top banana
based on that character has been used
for a Native American Uncle Tom, or
U ncle Tomahawk (in fact, Tonto may
also be used among black people for a
black Uncle Tom).
See also A p a c h e , a p p l e , I n d i a n , N a ­
t i v e A m e r i c a n , U n c l e T o m (U ncle
Tomahawk).
to p b an a n a. See banana.
touch of the ta r b ru sh . Also known as the
“one-drop rule,” an allusion to the “pol­
luting” nature of black blood. It takes
only one drop o f it, or one touch o f that
which paints with black, to “taint” any
w hite ancestry and make one black.
Thus, in the United States, someone with
any known black ancestry is regarded as
black.
See also b l a c k , b l o o d , r a c e .
tow elhead. See rag head.
trag ic m ulatto. See m u latto/ a .
trib e . A group com prising a num ber of
families and dependents tied together by
such bonds as recognition o f a common
ancestor and sharing a country and cul­
ture. From the Latin tribus, referring
originally to the early political divisions
of ancient Rome and Israel. In the sense
o f an ethnic group, especially one under
a headman, the term was first recorded
in Shakespeare’s The Merchant o f Venice
(1596).
The term is often used today to con­
note the group identities, ethnocentrism,
and factionalism that tear countries apart
(tribalism in this sense is synonymous
with balkanization). Usage, especially in
certain contexts, is now also considered
by many to be racist. A nthropologist
Morton Fried (1975) explains that the
rise o f Marxism (which viewed tribal­
ism as barbarous) and the use of the term
among European colonials to refer to
those nonwhite peoples they ruled ac­
count for the more derogatory connota­
tions. As Basil D avidson (The Black
M a n ’s Burden, 1992) has argued, it is
problem atic to designate a E uropean
people, with their xenophobia, group
ambition, and sense o f exclusive pride,
as a nation, reserving the w ord tribe
(“primitive” or “barbarous” being im ­
plied) for people like the Yoruba o f West
vAfrica. Jenkins (1986, 173) argues that
the tribal notion distinguishes between
the modem and the “primitive,” between
“the West and the rest,” and in so doing
lumps together all otherwise distinguish­
able groups into a single category.
In the U nited States, there have been
special problematic uses. Among some
Native Americans, use o f the word as a
name for a sports team (e.g., the Cleve­
land Indians are nicknamed “The Tribe”)
is offensive. Similarly, in A frocentric
studies the term is hardly heard. Yet in
spite o f these problems, tribe is in com ­
mon use in the social sciences, in jo u r­
nalism, and even am ong many so-called
trib a l p e o p le s, su c h as m an y o f
Am erica’s Plains Indians. Many Native
Americans, however, favor nation be­
cause it suggests sovereignty. “I...lik e
that you say, ‘N ations’ instead o f ‘tribes’
and that you are moving away from the
w hite m an ’s nam es fo r o u r nations,
and...using the traditional names, such
as ‘Lakota’ and ‘D ine’” (Letter to the
Editor, American Indian Review, no. 9,
1995, 5).
In the United States, the government
found an early need to determine politi­
cal boundaries of Native A m erican so­
cieties in order to conduct formal rela­
tions and establish treaties. The federal
government thus came to recognize In­
dian tribal entities, although actual tribal
boundaries have been in flux. The po­
litic a l id e n titie s fo rm ed by N ativ e
Americans have been in part a result of
governmental measures and Indian re­
sponses. There has been no universal
delineation o f the concept of tribe in the
U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, or
regulations, although the term is found
in all of them. Today, “the term ‘tribe’

m ight apply to a distinct group within
an Indian village or community, the en­
tire community, or a large number of
com m unities...also to several different
groups or villages speaking different lan­
guages but sharing a common govern­
ment, or a widely scattered number of
villages with a common language but no
com m on governm ent” (T. W. Taylor,
Bureau o f Indian Affairs, in Utter 1993,
30).
In anthropology, tribe has a more or
less definite meaning, though not uni­
versally acceptable. A tribe is a group
marked by a common language and ter­
ritory, the practice of nonintensive food
production, village and kin descent or­
ganization, the absence o f social classes
and central government, and reliance on
officials such as village heads, descent-
group leaders, and leaders of pan-tribal
associations.
S e e a l s o e t h n ic g r o u p , I n d ia n , N a t iv e
A m e r ic a n , p r im it iv e .
trira c ia l mixes. A p h ra s e , a lo n g w ith th e
m o re a c a d e m ic -s o u n d in g triracial iso­
lates, r e f e r r in g to th o u s a n d s o f p e o p le
in th e e a s te r n U n ite d S ta te s (e s p e c ia lly
in th e S o u th a n d M id - A tla n tic re g io n s )
o f m ix e d N a tiv e A m e ric a n , b la c k , a n d
w h i t e d e s c e n t . T h e s e p e o p l e l iv e l a r g e l y
in s m a ll ru r a l c o m m u n itie s , b u t th e y v a ry
in e c o n o m ic s ta tu s , r e lig io u s a ffilia tio n ,
a n d in te g r a tio n in to th e lif e o f th e s u r­
r o u n d in g c o m m u n ity .
In the past, academics, officials, and
o th er observers have used num erous
other nam es as well, including quasi-
Indians, pseudo-Indians, WIN (White-
In d ian -N egro), Indians by courtesy,
m ixed bloods, mestizos, raceless people,
racial orphans, and mystery people—
terms that reflect these people’s anoma­
lous ethnic identity and most of which
may be regarded as objectionable. These
people vary in their identification or as­
sociation with other groups. Some see
themselves as Indian or mixed; others
associate m ore with white people and
triracial mixes 219
may be accepted by them; and still oth­
ers affiliate with the black community
and may be accepted there.
Names that in one way or another
lump these people with African A meri­
cans— and w hich, for m ost o f these
mixed-descent people, are the most de­
spised— include red niggers, blue-eyed
negroes, Cane R iver m ulattoes, h a lf
niggers, and Issues (the last of which was
applied to free black people before the
Civil War). Linking them with the Na­
tive American component of their back­
ground, and also derogatory, are names
such as half-breed and breed. Some
groups, however, though they may have
little actual Indian ancestry or culture,
b ear w illingly the nam es o f N ative
A m erican tribal groups, such as the
N a n tic o k e s, th e C ree k s, and th e
Chickahominy.
Other designations tend to describe
some physical feature that the local sur­
rounding community believes a group of
triracial people possesses, such as skin
color: yellow hammers or yellow people.
Practices that have existed or were be­
lieved to exist account for other names,
for example, clay-eater. Geography pro­
vides still another source of names— Pea
Ridge Group, Sand Hill Indians, for ex­
ample— as does belief in relationship to
certain national or ethnic groups—A r­
abs, Moors, Cubans, Turks, Greeks, and
Portuguese. These ethnic or national
names derive from white people’s per­
ception of foreignness or swarthy skin
rather than from any real historical rela­
tionship. Some groups bear names, also
imposed by neighbors, with no sure ex­
planation of origin, for example, Brass
Ankle, Guinea, Red Bone, and Red Leg,
though attempts have been made to ex­
plain these names in terms of color ref­
erences (e.g., Brass Ankles referring to
brass-colored skin [Major 1994]) or in
terms of older references to other groups
(e.g., black p eo p le called g u i n e a s )
(D unlap and W eslager 1947). Com-
220 1\irk
monly, whole communities have been
known by the name o f the family most
prevalent among them.
P o ssib ly som e o f the p ejo rativ e
nam es have been created or at least used
by some of these people for others of
tr ir a c ia l b a c k g ro u n d . D u n la p and
Weslager (1947), however, explain most
of the slurs as impositions by the socially
and econom ically dom inant group o f
white people.
The M elungeons, originating in the
mountains o f eastern Tennessee but since
spread out into Virginia, Kentucky, and
Ohio, are a triracial people who do not
call themselves by that name. Tennes­
see mountain folklore used the name as
a means of social control, admonishing
young children that “the M elungeons
will get you if you don’t behave.” Ex­
planations for the origin o f the name
have been diverse, including the French
melange, “mixture” or “mingling” ; the
Afro-Portuguese melungo, “shipmate”;
or a variation o f malingerer.
See also b i r a c i a l , b l a c k I n d i a n ,
BREED, C R O , H ALF-BREED , HALF-CA STE, IN ­
TERRACIAL, M ESTIZO/A, M ETIS/M ETISSE, MIS­
twinkie. See
CEGENATION, M IXED, M ONGREL, MULTIRA­
twofer. Recent term used mockingly, usu­
CIAL.
Turk. The name for a broad group of people
o f Central Asia, related to the Mongols,
and for a member o f the Ottoman Em­
pire, ■ native or citizen of Turkey, or a
member o f any Turkic-speaking people.
Turk can be traced to Medieval Latin
Turcus, from Turkish Turk.
The term has had alternative mean­
ings, many of them derogatory, includ­
ing a Muslim; a cruel, barbaric, tyranni­
cal, or stubborn and unm anageable man
(often lowercase)— a negative usage that
appeared in the sixteenth century when
parts o f E urope w ere th reaten ed by
domination by Turks; an Irish Catholic
(in the stereotypical sense o f someone
v quick to anger, unmanageable) and by
extension, other Catholics; or a pederast,
whose sexual orientation was once m is­
takenly thought com mon am ong Turks.
Partridge (1933, 4) tells us that around
1566, the word came to serve for a hu­
man figure used as a target for shooting
practice.
Young Turk has been used for som e­
one, often a young person, known as a
rebel or anyone out to reform the sys­
tem. This usage was based on the name
for the group of twentieth-century Otto­
m ans who, in o p position to the O ld
Turks, sought to reform th e T urkish
Empire. Turk, as in terrible turk, has also
been used to connote brutality and tyr­
anny, stereotypical characteristics o f
Turkish people.
See also b a r b a r i a n , s a v a g e , T a t a r .
banana.
ally by those opposed to affirmative ac­
tion, for a person who is a m em ber o f
two minority groups, often a woman of
color, and thus supposedly benefiting
doubly from government program s for
minorities. “A white woman will likely
view as her im m ediate rival a black
woman, surely advantaged because she
is a ‘tw ofer’ ” (Midge Wilson, Chicago
Tribune, 26 M arch 1996, sec. 1, 15).
See also m i n o r i t y .

U Before West, James Baldwin argued that
unbleached American. See b le a c h .
Uncle, uncle. A name for an elderly black
man, dating at least to the early nine­
teenth century. Although it is offensive
to black people, once it was considered
by white people to be an affectionate
form o f address for an old black man or
servant. In its day, it passed as a respect­
ful appellation for male slaves, since
white society forbade giving slaves a title
o f respect. W hite people called black
people by their first nam es until late
middle age, at which time uncle or aunt
was applied. W hite people, on the other
hand, were called M ister or M iss from
about the age of ten. Uncle conveys an
image o f a kindly, white-haired African
American male, docile and interested in
placating white people. We see him in
the congenial “U ncle Rem us” stereo­
type. Also unkey.
See also A u n t , b o y . See especially
U ncle T om .
Uncle Tom, Tom, Black Tom, Mister Tom.
An African American ingroup slur for a
subservient black man, especially one
overly accepting of white values; from
the 1852 novel U ncle T om ’s C abin,
Uncle Tom was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
hero, depicted by abolitionists as a faith­
ful, patient, suffering slave.
“I’ve agreed to sell Tom.”
“What! our Tom?— that good, faith­
ful creature!— been your faithful
servant from a boy!”
— Harriet Beecher Stowe,
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852
Stow e’s novel did much to stir anti­
slavery sentiment before the Civil War.
Proslavery people attacked white people
sympathetic to the plight of slaves for
th e ir U n c le T om ism (o r U n cle
Tomitude), their self-righteous love of
black people.
Cornell West describes an Uncle Tom
as “the spineless, sexless— or is it im ­
Uncle Tom 221
potent?— sidekick of whites” (1993,83).
by portraying Tom as a spiritual person,
Stowe robbed him of his sex and de­
prived him of human complexity (Par­
tisan Review, 16 June 1949, 578-85).
However, the reconstructed image of
Uncle Tom as a gap-toothed old man,
docile in his Christianity and loyal only
to his white masters, may not exactly be
the Uncle Tom created by Stowe. Turner
(1994, 72-74) sees the abolitionist hero
as a physically robust Christian warrior
so dedicated to his fellow slaves that he
gave his life for them.
The term was used contemptuously
by A frican Americans as early as the
1940s fo r th o se am ong th em w ho
seem ed overly d efe re n tia l to w hite
people. During the late 1960s, especially,
it was a label for those black people who
continued to call themselves Negroes,
supposedly out o f “racial” self-hate.
“M alcolm X, if he were alive today,
would call [Supreme Court Justice] Tho­
mas a handkerchief head, a chicken-and-
biscuit-eating Uncle Tom” (Spike Lee,
in Trevor W. Coleman, Emerge, Novem­
ber 1993, 40).
The term has also been applied to any
obsequious m em ber o f a subordinate
group.
Although there is no commonly used
equivalent for a woman, Aunt Tom or
Aunt Thomasina is sometimes heard, and
Major (1994) lists Tomette as a deroga­
tory term for a female Tom. A “Dr. Tho­
mas” is an educated “Uncle Tom.” A
“Tommer” is one who performed in a
“Tom-show,” a theatrical version o f
Uncle Tom's Cabin.
For other words black people use for
other black people, see A f r o - S a x o n ,
A unt T o m , B lack A nglo-S axon,
c h a l k e r , h a n d k e r c h ie f h e a d , N egro/
N e g r e ss , o fay, o r e o , pa n c a k e , t o k e n ,
See
U n c l e , w a n n a - b e , w h it e P a d d y .
for a contrast.
u p p it y
Patterned after Uncle Tom are a num-
222 underclass
ber o f terms adopted by other ethnic
groups to identify group members who
are overly accepting of WASP or main­
stream society, or are willing to aban­
don their ethnic past. T hese include
Uncle Ahm ad (Arab), Uncle Jake (Jew­
ish), and Uncle Giovanni (Italian). Simi­
larly, U ncle Tom ahaw k (also U ncle
Tommyhawk) is used mainly by Native
A m ericans for one am ong them who
emulates white people and is servile to­
ward them. For example, Native Ameri­
can activists have labeled as U ncle
Tomahawks those Indians employed by
the Bureau o f Indian Affairs, seen by the
activists as administering a paternalistic
program (see r e d p o w e r for a quotation).
See a l s o a p p l e , A r a b , c o o l ie , I t a l ia n ,
J e w , T io T a c o , v e n d id o / a .
underclass. The perennial poor. From the
Swedish underklass, this term was first
associated with the economist Gunnar
Myrdal and popularized in Ken Auletta’s
1982 book, The Underclass. In particu­
lar, it means urban racial minorities (ac­
cording to Jones [1992]; however, there
have also always been large rural and
white underclasses in U.S. society) who
lack training and skills; experience long­
term unemployment; or depend on pub­
lic assistance, crime, or drugs to make a
living. The term may connote a despised
o u tcast group, such as the R om any
(Gypsies) in Europe, or be a code word
for inner-city (ghetto) people, especially
blacks, in the United States.
Descriptions of the underclass and
explanations of its causes vary with the
social theory or political position of the
observer. Explanations include ethnic or
class victimization, social pathologies,
and structural changes in society. Many
who are sym pathetic to the plight of
these poor would explain that they have
been so untouched by affirmative action
and antipoverty programs and so mar­
ginalized by changes in U.S. society that
they represent a truly “other” social re­
ality.
The term has taken on pejorative con­
notations, su ggesting— esp ecially to
those who see the poor as undeserving—
unsavoriness and moral dissoluteness.
“ ‘U nderclass’ is a destructive and m is­
leading label that lumps together differ­
' ent people w ho have different p rob­
lem s.... [It] focuses on individual char­
acteristics and thereby stigmatizes the
p o o r fo r th e ir p o v e rty ” (R ic h a rd
McGahey, in W ilson 1987,6). Goldberg
(1993,173) notes the racialization o f the
concept: “In a society whose advantages
and opportunities are racially ordered, a
concept like the Underclass will almost
inevitably assume racial connotation.”
Wilson (8) takes a somewhat differ­
ent point o f view: “Certain groups are
stigmatized by the label underclass, ju st
as some people who live in depressed
central-city communities are stigmatized
by the term ghetto or inner city, but it
would be far worse to obscure the pro­
found changes in the class structure and
social behavior of ghetto neighborhoods
by a v o id in g th e u se o f th e te rm
underclass.” '
See also c u l t u r a l l y d e p r i v e d , d i s a d ­
vantaged, G H E TTO , IN N E R C IT Y , LO W ER
CLASS, M INORITY, SOCIAL PATHOLOGY, V IC­
TIM .
underdeveloped. See t h ir d w o r l d .
underprivileg ed . See d is a d v a n t a g e d .
undocu m en ted w o rk er. See a l ie n .
uppity. An Americanism for self-important
or putting on airs. Since 1885, this ad­
jective has been largely a white south­
ern usage for a black person who “does
not know his place.” Teaching black
people to read, for example, was once
regarded as giving them uppity notions.
In the traditional South, sassy and bad
were also used for black people who
lacked the expected deferential attitude
toward white people.
In O ctober 1991 Clarence Thomas,
a black conservative nom inated to serve
as Supreme Court associate justice, al­

luded to the racial com euppance he
seemed to be getting during the Senate
Judiciary Committee hearing investigat­
ing the harassment charges made against
him by his former assistant, Anita Hill,
in terms o f being “a high-tech lynching
for uppity black people.”
Uppity has also been used to charac­
terize other minority groups who show
more sophistication or assertiveness than
the dominant group’s expectations allow
for.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See U n c l e T o m for a contrast. See
also UPTOWN.
uptown. Those at the upper socioeconomic
end o f their ethnic group, such as the
“uptown Chinese” or “uptown Jews.”
T hough som etim es used neutrally, it
may connote uppity.
See also u p p it y .
urban 223
urban. An adjective meaning “of or relat­
ing to the city” ; often connotes what in
the minds of many white, middle-class
people are chief characteristics of the
city— disorder associated with ethnic
diversity and the social pathology of the
underclass. Urban became a euphemism
for black around 1970, when the great
migration of black people from the South
to the North ended and black Americans,
who, just three decades before, had been
49 percent rural southern, became pre­
dominantly city dwellers, many in the
North (Lemann 1991, 6). According to
popular perception, to be urban poor is
to be either black or Latino and often
the cause of your own problems. Urban
poor may be seen as leaning toward rac­
ism.
See also g h e t t o , in n e r c it y , p o o r .

V o f what, vary with the social theory or
vanilla. In urban black English, a white
person, often a white woman, from the
color (or lack of it) associated with the
food flavoring. It m ay also suggest
som ething or som eone plain and un­
imaginative.
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See especially w h i t e b r e a d . See
also CHOCOLATE.
Vanishing American, vanishing race. See
NOBLE SAVAGE.
vendido/a [b a n -'d e -th o /a j. Spanish for
“sellout”— a Latino who gives in to the
dominant white society. The term may
be used as a form of censure for indi­
viduals threatening to leave the group or
violate its norms.
For o t h e r w o r d s M e x i c a n A m e r i c a n s
u s e f o r o th e r M e x ic a n A m e ric a n s , se e
M e x ic a n A m e r ic a n , c r o s s - r e f e r e n c e s .
See e s p e c i a l l y a g r in g a d o ,
M e x ic a n o f a l s o , p o c h o / a , T io T a c o .
victim, victimization. A victim is someone
who suffers from an event or from the
action of other people, though one can
also be a victim o f one’s own actions. In
com mon usage today, it refers to some­
one subject to prejudice and discrimi­
nation or oppression.
Some are attracted to the term as an
expression o f anger at oppression. Oth­
ers, however, are exasperated over its
implications, especially the promotion
o f minority claim s against the dominant
group for its victimizing actions. “The
m iddle-class w hite ethnic m ale— Joe
Sixpack— is of the opinion that, on taxes,
welfare, schools, and crime, the national
D em ocratic Party is the procurem ent
agent for ‘society’s victim s’— blacks,
Hispanics, gays, welfare recipients, the
handicapped, the feminists” (from R ea­
son, January 1992, in American Speech,
Summer 1993, 188).
victim 225
Definitions of who are victims, and
political perspective o f the observer.
Thus, for example, the poor, many of
whom are racial m inorities, are seen
variously as being victims of racism or
clasS exploitation, o f technological and
economic changes in society, of bad gov­
ernment or business policies, o f their
own social pathologies, or even of their
self-serving beliefs about being victim­
ized. In a political and educational cli­
mate that encourages the so-called vic­
tim mentality, or “victimology,” the con­
cept can become a double-edged blade
that carves out a self-defeating system
of claims and counterclaims. Victims are
those who define themselves as such—
and they can be anybody who feels in­
jured or excluded; not just poor minori­
ties, but also white supremacists and
oppressors can claim to be victim s
(Webster 1992, 13).
Although often identified as a “po­
litically correct” usage, victim is not al­
L a M a l in c h e ,
ways regarded as appropriate because it
implies weakness and passivity and may
suggest that the group one belongs to is
characterized by some kind of pathology.
Survivor is sometimes preferred because
of its connotation of toughness and cour­
age. Black people, writes Allegra Bennett
(Thinking Black, edited by DeW ayne
Wickham, 1996, 214), must change the
way they think about themselves: “No
longer as the victims of 130 years ago
who are owed something, but rather as
extraordinary survivors who take life’s
lemons and make the tastiest lemonade
in the neighborhood.”
By at least 1995, as exemplified, for
example, in the march of male African
Americans on Washington, D.C., pro­
gressive thought among African Ameri­
cans had clearly shifted away from
victimology to what is understood as
“picking themselves up,” or, in the com­
mon cliche, “pulling themselves up by
their bootstraps.”
226 V ictor C harlie
-------------------------------- V
See also b l a m in g t h e v i c t im , o p p r e s ­
s io n , s o c ia l p a t h o l o g y .
V ictor C harlie. See C h a r l ie .
V iet Cong, the Cong. See
voodoo. The name for an African-derived
religion, predominantly o f rural Haiti but
practiced also in the southern U nited
States. The term comes from Louisiana
Creole voudou, related to an African
Ewe word, vodii, “god” or “spirit.” The
term sometimes used for this religion is
the H aitian Creole vodun or vodoun.
These, or voudou, are often preferred to
avoid the derogatory connotations of
primitiveness.
The religious system includes ele­
ments o f Rom an Catholicism and the
animism of Dahomean slaves. Believ­
ers are said to be able to communicate
(through trances, dreams, and states of
possession) with local deities, deified
ancestors, and saints, all of whom are
subordinate to a supreme god.
Adherents o f the religion who pos­
sess a charm, curse, spell, or fetish be­
lieved to be magically efficacious are
said to have voodoo, or also to be one.
In the South, hoodoo has served as a ref­
erence to the related body o f religious
or magical beliefs or the person who
C h a r l ie .
practices voodoo.
Used to attack things defined as back-
v w ard and in e ffectiv e, as in G eo rg e
B u s h ’s d e n o u n c e m e n t o f R o n a ld
Reagan’s economic thinking as “voodoo
economics” during the 1980 presiden­
tial primary campaign, the term draws
some o f its force by calling up an image
o f “primitive” peoples, handicapped by
backward, irrational thinking. “Vodou
has had a terrible press in this country....
It’s synonymous with black magic, evil
and ignorance, and it is used in a degrad­
ing way in popular discourse” (Donald
Cosentino, in Charles Storch, Chicago
Tribune Tempo, 21 O ctober 1993, 1).
See also H a i t i a n , j u n g l e , p r i m i t i v e .
vulgarian. Derogatory term from the early
twentieth century for a Bulgarian, based
on a m ispronunciation o f that proper
name.
See also b o h u n k .
 we/they 227

acronym was popularized by sociologist

W E. Digby Baltzell in the 1960s and was
w anna-be, w annabe, wanabe. From at initially used primarily in social and sta­
least the early 1980s, an Americanism tistical studies of ethnic groups in the
United States.
for someone aspiring to be (as in “I want
to be”) like someone else, such as a pop A WASP is technically a person of
English ancestry, although the term has
star, or for any unsophisticated, un­
trained person who wishes to attain a been applied to Scots and Welsh and to
others o f northern European descent.
position or standing in the world. It is
WASPs are less likely to be identified in
also used for a m em ber of any ethnic
terms o f race or ethnicity (attributes that
group who seeks entry into or associa­
tend to carry some stigma) than other
tion with another for its prestige, exoti­
groups are.
cism, or some other appeal.
Irving Lewis Allen (1990, 109) sug­
The term has often been applied to a
gests that WASP originated as a code word
black person with light skin or straight
for “Protestant” (the church affiliation
hair, or one who aspires to associate with
would be mainline Protestant), used when
or em ulates white people. In this case
■ reference to religion might be consid­
usage signals contempt for that person’s
ered intolerant or impolite; however, the
identification with white people (e.g.,
term has taken on connotations beyond
wanna-be white jigaboo, used in Spike
this. In the climate of political correct­
L ee’s 1987 film School Daze). Another
ness of the 1980s and 1990s, WASP has
frequent usage, however, is a white per­
been used derogatorily in identifying
son who befriends black people or iden­
someone as a part of oppressive, white,
tifies with the styles o f black street cul­
Eurocentric society. It suggests people
ture. A nother kind of wanna-be is the
who are influential or patrician and con­
non-Indian who identifies with the “new
notes the privileges, social conformity,
age” view of Indian spirituality. “That
standard setting (in practices and lan­
burgeoning tribe, the Wannabes, who
guage), smugness, and bigotry perceived
exploit Native American religious ma­
by their critics to characterize members
terial as nineteenth-century ranchers
of the group. They may be viewed as con­
exp lo ited their land” (B o o klist, July
gratulating themselves for being more
1993, 1933).
A m erican than anyone else. “In the
For other words black people use for
United States, they [the Irish] have faced
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
the hostility o f Yankees, WASPs, and
erences. See especially A f r o - S a x o n ,
other so-called Americans” (Leonard W.
B a p , B l a c k A n g l o - S a x o n , b o o jie , b u p p ie ,
Doob, in From Paddy to Studs, ed. Timo­
U n c l e T o m . See also
ofay, o r e o , ste po u t ,
thy J. Meagher, 1986). The acronym has
For other words black people
p a s s in g .
been taken up by self-identified WASPs
use for white people, see w h i t e , cross­
themselves and is often seen in print with­
references. See also w i g g e r . Related
out apology.
terms for nonwhite persons who affili­
Of the various spellings, Brookhiser
ate with white people include a g r in g a d o ,
(1991,20) notes, “ ‘Wasp,’ with only the
apple, banana, coconut.
‘W ’ upper-cased, has the sanction of
WASP, Wasp, wasp. From the early 1960s, Norman Mailer to recommend it. It is
an acronym for “W hite Anglo-Saxon also less ugly.”
Protestant,” applied most frequently on See also A n g l o - S a x o n , w h i t e .
the East Coast and in the Midwest. The we/they, us/them. See in g ro u p /o u tg ro u p .
228 welfare mother
w elfare m oth er, w elfare p im p /ch eat/
parasite. Welfare m other stereotypes a
woman receiving welfare money as lazy,
dependent, sexually promiscuous, and
fertile; one who cheats on the system,
perhaps even in possession o f a “wel­
fare Cadillac” ; usually a black woman
and often a single parent. The male ver­
sion may be known as a “welfare pimp.”
In either case, such a person may be per­
ceived as lacking in initiative, charac­
ter, “family values,” and other so-called
core American virtues. In 1991 David
Duke, onetime grand dragon o f the Ku
Klux Klan, mounted a strong campaign
for governor o f Louisiana by referring
over and over to “welfare cheats” and
reverse discrimination.
Quotation marks are often used when
the writer is aware of bias: “There is a
large literature that refutes the conser­
vative fantasy that ‘welfare m others’
have children to increase their income”
(Alan Wolfe, New Republic, 13 April
1992). Some writers substitute welfare
client or welfare recipient, less loaded
with prejudice, for welfare mother. Other
writers leave it as it is.
“This is who I am not. I am not a
crack addict. I am not a welfare mother.
I am not illite ra te.... N one o f these
things defines who I am, nor do they
describe the other black people I ’ve
known and worked with and loved and
befriended over these 40 years of my
life” (Patricia Raybon [objecting to ste­
reotypes of black people in the news],
Newsweek, 2 October 1989, 11).
M ajor (1994) says that in black us­
age, the m eaning o f welfare m other
shifts to a black woman who dresses in
cheap, tacky clothes.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See also in n e r c it y , s in g l e p a r ­
ent, URBAN.
welsh, welch. As a capitalized noun or ad­
jective, a reference to the people o f
Wales, to their Celtic language or cul­
ture, or to the native British population
during A nglo-Saxon tim es. The term
derives from the Old English wealh; the
people o f Wales prefer their own name,
Cymry.
v The verb welsh (variant welch), with
nineteenth-century origins in B ritish
gambling, means to cheat by not paying
a debt or defaulting on an obligation. The
person said to evade a debt in this m an­
ner is a welcher, or welsher (in 1995, a
headline from the Dallas M orning News
read “N ow ’s Time to Pin Social Secu­
rity Welshers”). Partridge (1933,8) links
the usage to an old nursery rhyme: ‘Taffy
is a Welshman, Taffy is a thief.” As an
adjective, welsh may be used to belittle
something.
These terms, though seldom intended
as a deliberate ethnic slur, are offensive
to many Welsh Americans. In 1993 some
people o f Welsh ancestry protested the
use o f the verb in the media. Rawson
(1994) notes that the origin o f welsh as
an ethnic insult follows the same pattern
as gyp, je w down, and Indian giver:
Disparaging compound terms formed
with welsh include welsh p earl (a fake
one) and welsch comb (one formed by
the thumb and forefinger).
F or sim ilar slurs directed ag ain st
o th e r E uro p ean g roups, see D u t c h ,
F r e n c h , G r e e k , I r is h , I t a l ia n , J e w ,
S c o t c h , S p a n is h . See also G y p s y , I n d ia n
GIVER, JEW /JE W DOWN.
wench. See buck.
wetback, Wetback, w et back. A tw enti­
eth-century slur deriving from the prac­
tice o f M exicans entering the U nited
States by swimming or wading the Rio
Grande (even though the Rio Grande is
not always high enough to wet the back
o f a wader). In 1954 an effort to deal
with the “Mexican problem”— the ille­
gal flow o f workers from Mexico into
the U nited States— w as inaugurated,
known as Operation Wetback (also Spe­

cial Forces O peration). Wetback was
later changed to the less offensive ille­
gal alien and then to the neutral undocu­
m ented worker.
“Last April two white male students
at UC Davis punched her, cut her hair,
and scrawled on her arms and her back
with a black magic marker: ‘Wetback’
and ‘Go home you illegal’” (Elizabeth
M artinez, ZM agazine, D ecember 1993,
23).
M ojado [m o-'ha-tho], Spanish for
“wet,” though a part of immigration dis­
course, is often used derisively in the
U nited States as a synonym for wetback.
“M o jados” after W orld W ar II were
“dried out” in a process that consisted
o f providing them with identity docu­
ments, returning them across the border,
and then reintroducing them under the
sanction o f the law.
For o t h e r w o r d s f o r M e x i c a n A m e r i ­
c a n s , s e e M e x ic a n A m e r ic a n , c r o s s - r e f ­
e re n c e s. See e s p e c i a l l y p e o n , t e e - ja y .
See a l s o a l ie n , y e l l o w ( y e l l o w f i s h ) .
w h is k e y m ic k . See M ic k .
w h ite .As a reference to a racial category,
said to have been invented in the early
seventeenth century. The pink and other
overtones found in the pigmentation of
many white people make this an inac­
curate allusion to skin color (what white
people have prejudicially called “flesh
colored”). As Bernard Shaw once noted,
a truly white person would be a horrible
sight (in Barzun 1937, 12). The term
usually refers to Europeans or people of
European ancestry and is often equated
with the old racial category “Caucasian.”
White makes a symmetrical fit with black
(as long as both terms are either capital­
ized or lowercased).
Although generally used, it neverthe­
less smacks o f color consciousness. In
addition, it is offensive when meant to
connote the “goodness,” “purity,” or
“success” o f white people. “An image
used to brainwash the black world. It
white 229
goes along with angels who are white.
Jesus was w hite...angel food cake is
white, and devil’s food cake is black”
(Muhammad Ali, speaking of Tarzan, in
The New York Public Library Book o f
20th-C entury A m erican Q uotations,
[1992, 393]).
In W estern society, however, both
symbolic whiteness and racial whiteness
have also had negative connotations. For
example, Herman M elville made Moby
Dick white: “It was the whiteness o f the
whale that above all things appalled me”
(Moby Dick; or, The Whale, 1851). W il­
liam Safire (1993a, 16) noted a tainting
of the term white due to voguish blam­
ing during the 1990s of white people for
so many of the social problems in the
United States. “In our equal opportunity
world, white men have become the New
Minority” (E. G. Satiriko, Transpacific,
April 1994,92). Leonard Jeffries, o f the
Black Studies Department o f City Col­
lege, New York, used the term ice people
for white people, describing them as
having evolved in caves into “egotistic,
individualistic, and exploitative” be­
ings— in other words, cold. Among some
African Americans, white has long been
used as a term of abuse, connoting some­
thing that is bad or immoral, inverting
the common association with virtue.
The term’s purview has been enlarged
over the course of U.S. history. In earli­
est colonial days, there was no concept
of “whiteness” as we know that racial
term today. Colonial British originally
considered them selves people, men,
women, or citizens, while others were
Negroes, redskins, or the yellow race. The
term white, as it emerged, was reserved
primarily for persons of English ances­
try. The Naturalization Law, which passed
in 1790 and remained in effect until 1952,
specified that naturalized citizenship was
to be reserved for “whites.” Catholics and
Jews, whose freedoms were restricted,
were identified as white only with time
(some people still do not regard Jews as
230 whiteboy
white). The M sh entered white society,
according to Ignatiev (1995), only as they
cam e to em b race w hite suprem acy
against African Americans. Armenians,
Lebanese, Iranians, the descendants of
Asian-European marriages, and many
Latin Americans have been coming un­
der the rubric slowly. (W hether they all
want to or should be so designated is an­
other matter, and there are differences
o f opinion on that.) As this widening pro­
cess continues, the original, largely
A n g lo co n n o tatio n o f the term has
eroded. Many white people, however,
especially working-class white people,
still see themselves more in terms o f
other group characteristics (such as eth­
nicity) than race, or see their whiteness
through the prism of ethnicity.
In certain social or political contexts,
terms such as taxpayers and gentrifica-
tion may be code words for white people.
For words black people use for white
people, or white society, see a l l ig a t o r ,
B a b y l o n , b a l l - f a c e , b l u e - e y e d d e v il ,
BUCKRA, CHICKEN LIPS, CRACKER, DEVIL,
DOG, FACE, GRAY, HONKY, IRISH, KLUXER,
LILY-WHITE, MAN, OFAY, PALEFACE, PECKER­
WOOD, PIG, PINKY, SILK, VANILLA, WHITEBOY,
WHITE BREAD, WHITE DEVIL, WHITEFOLKS,
W h it e Is R i g h t , W h it e m a n , w h it e m e a t ,
WHITE PADDY, WHITE POWER STRUCTURE,
WHITE SLAVE MASTER, WHITE TRASH, WHITEY,
YACOO.
For related issues o f color w ithin
other groups, see A s ia n I n d ia n , b l a c k ,
BLEACH, COLOR, NONWHITE, RACE. See also
A n g l o , A r y a n , C a u c a s ia n , D W E M , e t h ­
n ic , G r e a t W h it e F a t h e r , h a o l e , m a in ­
strea m , NIGGER LOVER, REDNECK, WHITE
m a n ’ s b u r d e n , w h it e m a n ’s d is e a s e ,
w h i t e m a n ’ s h o p e , w h it e n i g g e r , w h i t e
SUPREMACY.
w hiteboy, w hite-boy, w hite boy. African
American term for a young white male
or for something associated with white
people, such as a style o f music created,
played, or listened to by white people.
In either case, it carries derogatory con­
notations, whiteboy being an answer to
the old w hite taunt boy used against
black males. “Com m on insults about
musicianship (even am ong white m usi­
cians) include ‘to play white,’ ‘they’re
too w h ite ,’ ‘w h ite b o y s,’ e tc .” (Jo e
vSalm ons and M o n ic a M acau lay , in
' M a led icta 10, ed. R e in h o ld A m an,
1988-89, 89-90). Variants are lily boy
(see also l il y - w h it e ), snow boy, and pale
boy, all alluding to whiteness. Whiteboy
is also a black term of contem pt for a
young black male whose light color or
behavior places him outside the group
identity. “Why you walk so funny? Walk
like you afraid to move, like you Fran­
k e n s te in . W alk lik e a w h ite b o y ”
(R eginald M cK night, in E arly 1993,
101).
For other words in black use for white
people, see w h i t e , cross-references. See
also b o y , c o l o r .
w hite b rea d , w h ite -b rea d , lig h t b re a d .
Black slang expression for a white per­
son, sim ilar to cracker or redneck. “The
jury has found you guilty o f b ein g .. .red­
neck, w hite-bread...” (From rap song by
Niggas with Attitude, in Stanley 1992,
234). White bread connotes dullness and
conventionality and sometimes virtue.
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See especially c r a c k e r , r e d n e c k ,
v a n il l a .
w hite-centric. See E u r o c e n t r is m .
w hite devil. Term used by the Chinese (hok
kuei) to curse white people; also white
demon. The term has also found use in
Black Power groups. The Nation of Is­
lam and the Yahweh “cult” (or nation),
self-proclaimed African A m erican Jews
.
in M iam i led by b la ck su p rem acist
Yahweh ben Yahweh, use it in dispar­
agement o f white people and their use
o f pow er. “A c c o rd in g to [E lija h ]
M uham m ad ’s teach in g s, ‘th e W h ite
devil race’ was created by Yakub, a mad
Black scientist bent on destroying his

race” (George E. Curry, Emerge, July/
A ugust 1994, 34).
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See also d e m o n i z e , d e v i l , w h i t e
SLAVE M ASTER.
white ethnics. See e th n ic , e th n ic g ro u p .
white eyes. See p a le fa c e .
whitefolks, white folks. This term may re­
flect the lack o f differentiation black
people see in white society. Though not
usually disparaging, it may be used when
the speaker intends to designate white
people as “them.” W rote Maya Angelou
o f her perception o f white people in seg­
regated Stamps, Arkansas: “People were
those who lived on my side of town. I
didn’t like them all, or, in fact, any of
them very much, but they were people.
These others, the strange pale creatures
that lived in their alien unlife, w eren’t
considered folks. They were whitefolks”
(excerpt from I Know Why the Caged
B ird S in g s, in R o ch m an 1993, 5).
Brown-skin whitefolks is used among
African Americans to mean people that
Euro-Americans recognize as white but
who are considered nonwhite by black
people.
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences.
w h i t e h o p e , w h i t e m a n ’s h o p e . See great
W HITE HOPE.
W hite Is Right. Often ironical reference
to white society in black use, suggest­
ing what is norm al, valued, and pre­
ferred. As a capitalized expression this
was a sloganeering reference to con­
forming, to the mold of white society.
Leaders in the Black Power movement
used this phrase to label and censure
those black leaders who intentionally or
otherwise took white society as the norm
and endorsed the goal o f assimilation.
A lso expressing ironically the idea of
white as a standard, and the devaluation
Whiteman 231
of blackness, is the black saying, “If you
white, you all right, if you brown, stick
aroun’, if you black, git back.”
For other words black people use for
white society, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences.
white "kaffir. See K a ffir.
W h item an , W h ite M an, w h item a le.
Among Native Americans, a stereotype
of white society— an undifferentiated
mass o f “them,” whose individual mem­
bers are lost against the background of
crimes, past and continuing, committed
against Native American people. “He
called the Indian ‘Savage’; but in truth,
as his own ruthlessly murderous behav­
ior toward his host later amply demon­
strated, it was the W hiteman who was
the Savage” (David R. W rone and R. S.
N elson, in The Invented Indian, ed.
James A. Clifton, 1990, 34).
The stereotype also occurs in A fri­
can American or white liberal thought.
W hitem ale may suggest a “narro w ­
m inded, uptight bigot, eith er o f the
Archie Bunker type or of the Harvard
Club oil-portrait type” (Bernstein 1994,
129). In particular, Rastafarians use the
te rm W h item a n fo r w h ite p eo p le.
Rastafarians, who see white people as
being inferior to blacks, believe that
whites caused the exile of black people
(Blackman), who are the reincarnation
of ancient Israel.
Perhaps because right-wing extrem­
ists follow some minorities in seeing
white people as a monolithic entity of
some kind, whiteman has also appeared
in the flyers of Aryan Nations. Only here
its sense is o f a group that feels the need
to protect itself against a “threatening”
multicultural world.
A historical southern white usage for
white southerners was white man, used
to d istin g u ish s o u th e rn e rs from
northerners.
For other words for white people, see
w h i t e , cross-references.
232 white m an’s burden
w hite m a n ’s b u rd en . Racist colonial no­
tion (after Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem
by that name) that it is the duty o f “white
men” to care for subject peoples of other
races. The underlying assumption was
that the people who were colonized—
usually dark-skinned people— were un­
intelligent, unsophisticated, or otherwise
too inferior or weak to fend for them­
selves— “Half-devil and half-child,” in
Kipling’s words. “I believe at last in the
white m an’s burden. We (Nordics) are
as far above the modem Frenchman as
he is ab o v e th e N e g ro ” (F. S co tt
Fitzgerald, in a letter dated 1921, in
Fikes 1992, 33). The phrase is used to­
day either in its historical context or
ironically, and often w ith quotation
marks.
See also E u r o c e n t r i s m , p r e j u d i c e ,
w h it e .
w hite m a n ’s disease. Black reference to a
white basketball player’s comparative
inability to jum p.
w h i t e m a n ’s p r o b l e m . See I n d ia n p r o b l e m .
Vulgar twentieth-century al­
w h ite m e a t.
lusion, often in black use, to a white
woman as a sexual object. Also, largely
in theater use, a white female performer
for hire (Wentworth and Flexner 1975).
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See especially w h i t e y . See also
DARK MEAT.
w hite nigger, w hite Negro. White nigger
is a derogatory British and U.S. term
from the late nineteenth century for a
white person who did manual labor or
other work considered degrading. It was
also used com m only by local w hite
people in the South during the 1960s,
along with epithets such as Jew, damn
ya n k ee a g ita to r, n ig g e r lover, and
Com m ie, for any w hite person who
worked for the civil rights movement.
“G et tho se n ig g e rs— and get those
goddam n white niggers” (Sheriff Jim
Clark, ordering his possemen to assault
civil rights marchers near Selma, A la­
bama, 1965, in Fikes 1992,18). It is still
used for a white person who is known
to befriend black people and adopt as­
pects o f their culture (in the 1950s such
a white was known by N orm an M ailer’s
term white Negro).
- White nigger has been used by some
African Americans in scom or censure
for those African Americans who look
or act white or are liked by white people.
In The P h ila d e lp h ia N egro (1 8 9 9 ),
W. E. B. Du Bois recorded several in­
stances o f “white Negroes,” people o f
black descent passing as whites. White
Negro has also been used am ong black
people for a black albino or a mulatto
since the eighteenth century.
See also m u l a t t o / a , N e g r o / N e g r e s s ,
NIGGER, W HITE, W IGGER.
w hite p addy. A derogatory black usage for
any white person; extended from paddy,
for an Irishman. It also refers to a black
person who is light skinned, em ulates
white people, or acts superior. “Some­
body don’t act the way they do or look
or think the way they do, and they wanna
c a ll him w h ite p a d d y ” (R e g in a ld
McKnight, in Early 1993, 102).
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. For other words black people use
for other black people, see b l a c k , cross­
references. See especially A f r o - S a x o n ,
B a p , B l a c k A n g l o - S a x o n , b o o jie , b u p p ie ,
c h a l k e r , o fay, o r e o , s t e p o u t , U ncle
T o m , w anna-b e . See also P addy.
w hite pow er stru ctu re . Expression arising
out o f the black radicalism o f the sixties
and referring to w hite society as the
dominant or majority power.
See also A m e r i k a , B a b y l o n , m a n ,
m a in s t r e a m , m a j o r it y , w h i t e s l a v e m a s ­
t e r , w h it e s u p r e m a c y .
w hite slave m aster. Among Black Power
groups, a disparaging reference to the
power white people held over slaves and

to the continuation o f white domination
in the United States. “The only perma­
nent solution to Am erica’s race problem
is the com p lete separatio n o f these
twenty-two million ex-slaves from our
white slave master” (Malcolm X, in The
E nd o f W hite W orld Suprem acy, ed.
Imam Benjamin Karim, 1971, 131-32).
See also m a n , w h i t e p o w e r s t r u c t u r e ,
w h it e s u p r e m a c y .
w hite suprem acy. A doctrine espousing the
cultural, political, and “racial” superior­
ity o f w h ite p eo p le o ver non w h ite
people; also the policies that ensure the
su b o rd in atio n o f nonw hite to w hite
people, and the social or legal enforce­
ment o f separation between the races.
A fter the Civil War, southern policy that
sought to m aintain the political, eco­
nomic, and social supremacy of white
p eople over A frican A m ericans was
known as white supremacy. Today, those
identified as white supremacists not only
hold racist views of African Americans;
they are often antisemitic and nativist
and in many instances anti-big govern­
ment. Some also have ties to the militia
movement.
The meaning, or value, o f the term
white supremacy varies greatly depend­
ing on the speaker. For example, in the
Black Power movement, it refers to the
o ppressiveness o f w hite dom ination
(M alcolm X referred to the need for
black people to liberate themselves from
the “bonds of white supremacy”). For
someone in the white supremacy move­
m ent it is som ething to foster. In the
1960s, when integration was a major le­
gal issue, some white people voiced their
opposition to integration with slogans
p ro m o tin g w hite suprem acy. R acist
white groups often deny that they are
white supremacists, accepting only the
term sep a ra tist. W hite suprem acist
groups have recently been known col­
lectively as the “white-right movement.”
“T he w hite suprem acist...w as found
wiggcr______ 233
guilty of murdering M edgar Evers more
than three decades ago and immediately
sentenced to life imprisonment” (Char­
lotte Observer, 6 February 1994, 1).
See also F o u r t e e n W o r d s , p r o m a j o r ­
ITY, W HITE POWER STRUCTURE, W HITE SLAVE
MASTER.
w hite town. See n ig g e r t o w n .
w hite trash . See p o o r w h it e t r a s h .
whitey, W hitey, whitie. Usually pejorative,
tw entieth-century A frican A m erican
term for a white person or the white com­
munity. As a diminutive form of white,
it suggests the “sm allness” o f w hite
people. Some black writers have de­
picted “whitey” as an inhuman exploiter,
enslaver, and m ass m urderer. Julius
Lester linked the epithet with the tone
o f the Black Power movement in his
book titled Look Out, W hitey! Black
Power’s G on’ Get Your Mama (1968).
The expression “get whitey” has usu­
ally m eant little m ore am ong black
speakers than to stand up to w hite
people. But to white people and some—
but probably very few (see, e.g., Van
Deburg 1992)— black supremacists, it
has meant the seizing by black people
of the country’s economy.
Whitey can also refer pejoratively to
a very light-skinned black person or to a
white woman as a sexual object (see also
w h it e m e a t ).
For other words black people use for
white people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences.
wigger. A white person who befriends black
people or adopts aspects of their culture,
or both. American Speech (Fall 1991)
reports that U.S. high school students
who have used the name claim it is not a
racist slur. Indeed, the intention behind
the usage may not be racist, but its deri­
vation from white nigger leaves little
doubt of its pejorative origins.
By the early 1990s the term was be­
ing used for young white men who were,
w ithout necessarily associating with
234 Willie
----------------------------------— :—
black people, adopting a hip-hop dress
style that had transcended the ghetto. “At
Strath Haven High School in genteel,
mostly white Wallingford, Pennsylvania,
they call Marc Santosusso and Shawn
K otzen ‘w ig g e rs’— w hite kids with
black attitude” (Patrick R ogers with
D avid G ates, Newsw eek, 10 January
1994,49). In fact, such young men might
be white, suburban youth with, in some
cases, racist feelings and may not accept
the term self-descriptively.
Wigga in black dialect.
See also n i g g e r , w a n n a - b e , w h i t e
n ig g e r .
Willie. See H o rto n e s q u e .
wog, W og, W OG. O riginally, and still
largely, a British (but with some— espe­
cially World War II U.S. Army— Ameri­
can use) derogatory reference to an Arab,
South Asian, or black African— or to any
foreigner, but especially a dark-skinned
on e. It is p erh a p s a sh o rte n in g o f
golliwog, the name of a black male doll
character with frizzy hair popularized by
Bertha U pton’s The Adventures o f Two
Dutch Dolls— and a ‘G olliw og’ (1895).
The folk explanation behind this term
claims it is an acronym derived from ei­
ther “Westernized Oriental Gentleman”
or “Workers on Government Service,”
specifically, those working in the area
o f the Suez Canal.
See also A f r ic a n , A r a b , n a t iv e / n a ­
t iv e p e o p l e .
wood. See p e c k e rw o o d .
wooly head, woolie head, woolly-head.
Since the early nineteenth century, a de­
rogatory term for a black person, allud­
ing to the texture of hair, which has been
called nigger wool.
For other words white people use for
black people, see b l a c k , cross-refer­
ences. See especially b u r r h e a d , f u z z y -
WUZZY.
wop, Wop. Perhaps from the Italian dialec­
tal word guappo (originally Latin vappa,
“wine gone flat”), a reference to a dandy,
a large and handsome man, or a ruffian.
Commonly, in ethnic discourse, an Ital­
ian. One story, suggesting the difficul­
tie s experienced by early Italian im m i­
grants, claims that wop is an acronym
derived from “W ith-Out Passport” (or
“Papers”)— a reference to Italians who
tried to enter the U nited States w ithout
docum entation and w ere returned to
Italy (Dundes 1971). In fact, as with the
British wog, etymological stories vary,
tracing the term to a num ber o f acro­
nyms. A nother folk candidate is “Work­
ing on Pavement” (an occupational ref­
erence; this is what many o f the Italians
did after arriving in the United States).
A round the turn o f the nineteenth
century, guappo was used by male Si­
cilians in the U nited States as a saluta­
tion. Also around this time, associated
with the arrival o f the new immigrants,
wop (originally spelled wap) came into
use as a slur on an Italian, but it has oc­
casionally been used by extension to-dis-
parage other people o f southern Euro­
pean descent. Since the 1920s wop has
also signified the Italian language and
has occurred in com bined forms such as
wop house (an Italian restaurant), wop
special (spaghetti), and wopland (Italy).
In w o rk in g -c lass u sag e, e sp e c ia lly
among men, it may not carry the same
derogatory connotation.
In a prejudicial reference to the ste­
reotypical criminality of Italians, H. L.
M encken once remarked, “You have to
hand it to the wops. They don’t let no
padlocks bother them none” (from a let­
ter to Lilian Gish, 1928, in Fikes 1992,
71).
See also d a g o , d in o , e y e t a l ia n , g a r ­
l ic BREATH, GUIDO/GUIDETTE, GUINEA, ITAL­
IAN, m a c a r o n i , M a f i a , p iz z a m a n , s p a ­
g h e t t i, s p ic , U ncle T om (U n c le
Giovanni), w og.

X ues. “Intergroup hostility became part of
xen o p h o b ia, xenophobe. From the Greek
word meaning “fear of strangers,” the
fear or hatred o f anything that is foreign
or outside o f one’s own group, nation,
or culture. X enophobia is an overt form
o f prejudice and ethnocentrism that may
contribute to feelings of nationalism. It
confirms the views of some of those who
would exclude others, restrict immigra­
tion, or— in those cases when abstain­
ing from engaging in international rela­
tions is done out o f loathing or devalua­
tion o f outsiders— take an isolationist
stand in foreign policy. Xenophobes are
likely to tell themselves that it is not that
they are hostile toward foreigners, but
rather that they are patriotic, nationalis­
xenophobia 235
tic, or afraid of losing their ethnic val­
the growing postwar political isolation­
ism, patriotic xenophobia, and religious
fundam entalism ...” (Perlm utter 1992,
213).
' W hile the Greek xenos means “for­
eigner,” it also means “friend” or “guest.”
The ancient G reeks practiced “guest
friendship,” an institution in which two
persons of different towns would host
each o ther w hen eith er w ent to the
other’s town. This practice served to bind
otherwise divisive groups.
W hen xenophobes take to unpro­
voked attacks on foreigners, the term
may be used synonymously with basher.
See also - b a s h i n g , d e m o n i z e , e t h n o ­
c e n t r is m , f o r e ig n e r , n a t io n a l is m , o t h e r ,
p r e ju d ic e .

Y phrases as the anti-American 1950s slo­
yacht people. See b o a t p e o p le .
yacoo, yakoo. Derogatory black usage from
the second half of the twentieth century
for a white bigot.
For other words black people use for
w hite people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­
ences. See also b ig o t .
yak. Twentieth-century slang pejorative for
a Polish person or someone of Polish
descent. In a related sense the term also
means “a stupid person.”
See also b o h u n k , P o l a c k , P o l e , p o s k i .
Yankee, Yank. In the South, especially
during the Civil War but still today, a
nam e for a northerner— someone bom
and raised north o f the M ason-Dixon
line. It is usually derogatory. Also in the
U nited States, Yankee has commonly
been used for a resident of New England,
often connoting such things as white-
steeple Protestant piety, plain living, and
hard bargaining (and at one time also
meaning non-Irish and non-Canadian).
Perhaps originating as a nam e for
D utch pirates operating in the W est
Indies in the 1600s, by the eighteenth
century Yankee was a term of insult used
by British soldiers for the provincials in
the American colonies. After the rebels
stood up to British troops at Lexington
and Concord, however, it was reclaimed
by colonists as a respectable term, just
as th e B ritish tune Yankee D oodle
proudly came to be thought of as Ameri­
can. A m ericans thus took their ethnic
identity from the very people they were
rebelling against. By 1784 Yankee was
used by the British for any American.
Today, in New England, the term is
generally regarded as nonbiased, except
when used in the sense of a yokel, as in
the expressions brush Yankee and swamp
Yankee. Yankee has also been used for
the dialect spoken in New England, or
for American English in general.
yanqui______ 237
Outside the United States, in such
gan “Yankee Go Home,” it refers to any
U.S. citizen. Among the British, the term
Yank may be used affectionately for an
American, but it still suggests an out­
sider. During World War II, a saying
heard in England was, “The only trouble
with the Yanks is that they are overpaid,
oversexed, and over here.” Yankee inge­
nuity, on the other hand, though heard
less frequently in the age of Pacific tech­
nological prowess, endows those Ameri­
cans believed to possess it with esteem.
A number of etymologies have been
offered for this term o f hazy origin.
Webster’s Word Histories (1989) finds
some of the speculations, dating at least
to 1789, still afloat. One of them sug­
gests, for example, that Yankee is related
to the Dutch Janke, a diminutive of Jan
(John), supposedly a nickname of Dutch
sailors. Another claims a derivation from
Jan Kees, either ■ dialectal version of
Jan Kaas, “John Cheese,” or a diminu­
tive of Jan Cornelius. Others have said
it evolved from a Native American pro­
nunciation of either English or Anglais
(James Fenimore Cooper used the spell­
ing Yengeese), though the Indians had
their own words for the English. Another
theory involves a former British Army
officer who, in Travels through the Inte­
rior Parts o f America (1789), wrote that
Yankee came from eankke (or eankkle),
which he thought, incorrectly, was a
Cherokee word for “slave” or “coward.”
See also A m e r i c a n , b e a n - e a t e r ,
c h e e s e - e a t e r , w h i t e m a n (white man),
y a n q u i . See j e w / j e w d o w n for a quota­
tion.
yanqui, Yanqui, yanqui [‘yarj-ke]. In Latin
America, a Yankee or gringo. To Cubans,
a non-Cuban North American. The word
represents a Mexican pronunciation of
Yankee, borrowed from English around
1820, commonly used with the negative
overtones of gringo. It may also be used
238______ yap
V \
in English-language publications to re­
flect a L atin A m erican perspective.
“Latin America is experiencing sweep­
ing change that h a s.. .replaced the tradi­
tional suspicion o f Yanqui cultural im ­
perialism with an eagerness to hook into
the m odem world” (Newsweek, 1 N o­
vember 1993, 68F).
See also A n g l o , g r in g o , Y a n k e e .
yap. A hillbilly, a farmer, an oaf or sap, or a
Japanese person (possibly a modifica­
tion o f the epithet Jap).
See a l s o h il l b il l y , J a p .
yappie. See m o d e l m in o r ity .
Y ejuda, Y ehuda, yah ud i, Yedudi (p i.
Yehudim). A Jew; used mainly in the
U nited States. Regarding the term as
nonderogatory slang used almost exclu­
sively by Jews, Wentworth and Flexner
(1975) derive Yehuda from the Arabic
yahudi, for a Jew. However, antisemites
use yahudi with intent to slur. It arose in
earlier nonslang use for Jews in Arabic­
speaking or Muslim countries (The Ox­
fo rd Dictionary o f M odem Slang [1992],
which dates this sense to 1823).
See also Jew, Y id.
yellow. A n erroneous and pejorative allu­
sion to the skin color o f East Asians.
W hile the skin tones o f Asian people
may, like that o f some other peoples,
include yellow, Asian skin color is more
likely to resemble a tan or beige. In any
case, the usage supposedly originated
with the belief that the early Chinese
immigrants were a docile, hence cow­
ardly, lot— cowardice being associated
with yellow (as in yellow-belly). W hat­
ever its origin, the term has often been
freighted with negative and, especially
during World War n , threatening con­
notations. Yellowfish refers to a Chinese
person who has entered the United States
without papers (compare with w e t b a c k ) .
See also A s ia n A m e r ic a n , c o l o r , y e l -
l o w - b e l l y , y e l l o w h o r d e s , y e l l o w p e r il .
The term has also been used among
African Americans for a light-skinned
black person or one aspiring to a role in
white society (dialetically, yaller).
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k . See espe­
cially b a n a n a , h ig h y e l l o w , s c h o o l b u s ,
y e l l o w s u b m a r in e .
Historically, in relation to ethnicity,
the color yellow has also been associ­
ated with Jews, who were m ade to wear
the stigmatizing yellow star in Nazi Ger­
many and a yellow badge in other coun­
tries.
See also c o l o r , J e w , r a c e .
yellow-belly. Pejorative term not only for a
coward but, at different times, an Asian,
a Eurasian, an Irishman, or a M exican
(used during the M exican W ar for a
Mexican soldier).
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , M e x ic a n ,
y e l l o w , y e l l o w h o r d e s , y e l l o w p e r il .
yellowfish. See y e l l o w .
y ello w h am m er, y e llo w p eo p le. S ee
t r ir a c i a l m i x e s .
yellow hordes. Racist reference to the size
o f Asian populations or, specifically, to
an increase in Asian imm igration to the
United States. Today, especially, yellow
hordes is used to convey feelings o f re­
sentment about the alleged, stereotypi­
cal success o f Asian Americans. “Stop
the Yellow H ordes” has appeared re­
cently as anti-Asian graffiti on the build­
ings o f U.S. college campuses. The re­
lated expression yellow tide is also used
when non-Asian Americans feel inun­
dated by Asian immigrants, though it has
less of an edge than yellow hordes.
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , y e l l o w ,
YELLOW-BELLY, YELLOW PERIL.
yellow peril, Yellow Peril. Usually deroga­
tory, though sometimes ironic and jo cu ­
lar, term for Asians. It alludes to the
white or European world being overrun
by them. This coinage has been attrib­
uted to K aiser W ilhelm II (German, die
gelbe Gefahr), who is said to have used
the term to mobilize fear of a possible

Chinese invasion o f the West. In 1904,
writer Jack London wrote a piece for the
San Francisco Exam iner called “The
Yellow Peril,” in which he pejoratively
depicted the Asian as a great imitator of
things Western but lacking in spiritual
life. The term is usually restricted to its
historical context and, even then, quota­
tion marks are used.
Once commonly used for the Japa­
nese during World War II, the slur has
been renewed in response to arguments
for an independent Japanese defense
policy. The idea of “peril” has been ex­
pressed in racial, economic, and social
terms as well as militaristically.
In the 1960s, the concept was re­
claim ed by some Asian people, as in the
ironic slogan “Yellow Peril supports
Black Power,” seen on signs carried by
Asian Americans championing the civil
rights movement among African Ameri­
cans. Yellow menace is a synonym.
See also A s ia n A m e r i c a n , y e l l o w ,
y ello w -belly, yellow h o r d es.
yellow su b m a rin e . D isdainful reference
used by African Americans for a black
person who is very light-skinned.
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially b a n a n a , h ig h
YELLOW , SCHOOL BUS, YELLOW, ZEBRA.
Young T\irk 239
Yid, yid, Yidfly (pi. Yidden, “the Jewish
people”). A Jew, particularly an eastern
European Yiddish-speaking Jew, which
is w hat the term denotes. A ppearing
around 1875, Yid derives from the Ger­
man Jude (Jew), from Yehuda, the name
of the Jewish commonwealth during the
period o f the Second Temple, in turn
from the name of the fourth son of Jacob
of the Old Testament.
However offensive it may be when
used by non-Jews, it was used among
Jews (and still is) before it came into
derisive usage. As Rosten (1989) points
out, pronunciation reflects whether the
usage is intended to slur: Yid, rhyming
with did, as antisemites pronounce it, is
offensive; but Yeed, rhyming with deed,
is not.
“Doctor, my doctor, what do you
say, LET’S PUT THE ID BACK IN
YID!”
—Philip Roth, Portnoy’s
Complaint, 1967
Yidfly is a slur meaning a “Jewish
pest.”
For other words for Jews, see J e w . See
especially Y e j u d a .
you people, y o u r people. See I ngroup/
O utgroup.
Young T urk. See T urk.

Z zip, ZIP. Derogatory term for an Asian. It
zeb ra. Disdainful reference used by black
people for a black person who is very
light-skinned (part white and part black)
or for an interracial (black and white)
couple. “In school, everyone would say,
‘W hat are you?’ I was called Zebra and
O re o .... In social studies, som eone
brought in a zebra s k in ...” (biracial
w om an, in L ise F underburg, Black,
White, Other, 1994, 105).
For other words black people use for
other black people, see b l a c k , cross-ref­
erences. See especially b a n a n a , h i g h
YELLOW, MULATTO/A, OREO, PINKY, SCHOOL
BUS, WANNA-BE, YELLOW, YELLOW SUBMA­
RINE. See also c o l o r , i n t e r r a c ia l .
z ig , z ig a b o o , z ig g a b o o . See jig a b o o .
Zionism. A Jewish nationalist movement
that dates back to the ancient Jewish
longing to return to the biblical home­
land— the Lamentations of Jeremiah and
Psalm 137 tell of the exiles’ yearning for
Zion. The root o f the word orginally re­
ferred to both Jerusalem and the sense
o f loss among Jews after the destruction
o f Solom on’s temple in 586 b .c . Zion­
ism played a major role in the creation
o f the Jewish state o f Israel in 1948.
References to Zionism or Zionist of­
ten appear in racist right-wing epithets,
such as “Zionist Occupation [or Occu­
pied] Government,” or “ZOG.” This eu­
phemism is used by hate groups alleg­
ing that the U.S. government is in the
hands o f Jews who control the economic
resources of the country and its media.
“The Z ionist m edia is crying the big
blues about Okie City [Oklahoma City,
after the bombing of the Federal build­
ing there in 1 9 9 5 ].... Unfortunately, as
in all w ars,.. .innnocents get killed in the
cross-fire” (Florida citizen militia com­
mander, in Miami Herald, 30 April 1995,
1).
See also a n t is e m i t i s m ,
p l o t , p r e j u d i c e , r a c is m .
Zulu 241
is often used for the Vietnamese, as in
the U.S. military during the Vietnam
War. “It was hard to see for all the gun­
powder smoke and dust kicked up by all
the muzzle flashes, but everyone looked
up2—GIs and zips...” (Larry Heinemann,
Paco’s Story, 1987,14). ZIP supposedly
stands for “zero intelligence potential”
and is reinforced by zip and zilch, both
meaning “nothing.”
See also C h i n k , d i n k , d i n g e , d o g -
EATER, FLAT FACE, GINK, GOO-GOO, GOOK,
slan t, slo pe. For other words used for
Asians, see cross-ref­
A s ia n A m e r ic a n ,
erences.
zip coon. See c o o n , Sam bo.
ZOG. See Z i o n is m .
zoot-suiter, zoot suiter. See p a c h u c o .
Zulu, zulu, zoolo. Bantu word meaning
“heaven” or “sky”; also the general name
for a group of Southeast African black
people and their Bantu language. In the
United States, since the early twentieth
century, it has been a deprecatory term
for a black person, connoting lack of
civilization and very dark skin. Usage
alludes to what is assumed to be the an­
cestry of black Americans.
In 1992, antim ulticulturalist presi­
dential candidate Pat Buchanan posed
the question of whether a million Zulus
w ould assim ilate to U.S. cu ltu re as
readily as a million English people. Wall
Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot re­
sponded that the Zulus would probably
work harder than the English.
R ecently, th e term has been re ­
claimed by black people. It is found, for
example, in the names for break-dance
groups (Zulu Kings, Zulu Queens) and
in the name of the religious organiza­
tion, Zulu Nation, which is associated
with hip-hop culture and which takes a
strong stand for freedom, justice, and
J e w , J e w is h equality. “Bambaata...used his influence
with black and Latino youth to form the
242 Zulu
V »

Zulu Nation and fight for racial justice”

(Nelson George, The Source: The M aga­
zine o f Hip-Hop Music, Culture & Poli­
tics, November 1993, 46).
A lso reflecting A frican A m erican
pride in Zulu culture is the black super­
hero Zwanna, who appears in an Afro-
centric com ic book first published in
1993 by ANIA (Swahili for “protect and
defend”). Descended from a Zulu king,
Z w anna now rules over the “ghetto
jungle,” wielding ■ magical spear against
his enemies.
See also A f r i c a n , b u s h ( B u s h m a n ),
E t h io p ia n , H o t t e n t o t , K a f f ir , M au
M a u , N ig e r ia n , P y g m y .
 Core Works Consulted 243

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V' *

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 Ethnic Epithets in Society______ 255

Ethnic Epithets in Society

It is hard to imagine anyone living in the United States who has not heard an
ethnic epithet (e.g., wop, gook, or redskin) th^t disparages groups or individu­
als because of their culture, language, religion, nationality, or skin color. A
ubiquitous reminder of the American melting pot, ethnocentric name-calling is
something in which every ethnic group in this country has taken part. Ethnic
epithets, which form a large part of this dictionary, derive from social experi­
ence, and it is to society that we turn briefly to understand what they are and
how they come about.
Like other vocabularies, ethnic epithets develop in response to the chang­
ing needs of their speakers and the evolving societies of which they are a part.
In the United States the vast array of abusive ethnic words reflects the society’s
complexity, increasing ethnic diversity, and fast-paced social change (Allen
1990). Epithets turn up in places of conflict in our neighborhoods, workplaces,
or wherever people of different ethnic backgrounds rub shoulders—especially
when they compete for jobs or social status. For instance, the revival among
white people in the 1980s and 1990s of many racist slurs has been attributed to
a backlash against minorities. The use of ape, for example, a slur on African
Americans, has been reported in recent incidents of racial conflict in the work­
place. Attempts by businesses to hire more people of color, coupled with the
wave of downsizing in corporations, have made white people feel more inse­
cure about their jobs, exacerbating racial tensions.
Abusive names gain currency in a number of other situations that aggra­
vate ethnic or racial tensions, especially those related to crime and war. A num­
ber of U.S. minorities at one time or another have been stereotypically associ­
ated with criminal behavior, name-calling (see, e.g., Mafia) serving to rein­
force the stereotypes. Similarly, war makes the enemy, immigrants, and de­
scendants of immigrants from the enemy nation the targets of prejudice. After
the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, for example, Japanese Ameri­
cans on the West Coast were greeted by storefront signs that read, “We kill rats
and Japs here.” Ethnic epithets and taunts also come into play when urban
street gangs, operating from a similar principle of territoriality as nations, mark
their “tu rf’ with graffiti spray-painted on walls (Ley and Cybriwsky 1974).
Traditionally, ethnic slurs have been largely the vocabulary of men. They
were heard in informal but also sometimes formal settings where men—until
recently more visible than women in roles outside the family—congregated or
worked and spoke maliciously, ironically, or insultingly of people of a differ­
ent color or ethnic ancestry. Epithets were once also more overt than they are
today; people used to be more willing to speak so-called fighting words. But
256 The Color of Words
V' x

the rules that apply to the use of ethnic epithets have changed to some extent in
recent years. They are increasingly regarded as taboo in public, unless in coded
form (not so easily recognized as offensive), and are no longer so much the
property of men.
The social nature of ethnic name-calling is especially evident when we
view it in terms of the relationships between groups of greater and lesser power
in society. For the majority, or dominant group, the use of such slurs as Jewboy,
wetback, or slanteye creates a sense of solidarity and a perception of keeping
the targeted minorities “in their place.” Name-calling can also serve to justify
discrimination against minorities. On the other hand, for minority groups re­
belling against the inequality, the response— such as WASP, gringo, or
roundeye—provides a way of talking back. It gives these groups a say in defin­
ing the relationship between them and the dominant group. Minority groups,
however, also label and disparage other minority groups, as recent antago­
nisms between some African Americans and Jews illustrate.
In addition, name-calling within both majority and minority groups serves
to control the behavior of members. At the least, biased names can be used to
reproach group members for behavior perceived as threatening to the group’s
status. During the civil rights movement in the South, for example, many con­
servative southern whites called white liberals marching in support of civil
rights nigger lovers. The white liberals answered with redneck. Within minor­
ity groups, biased names serve in similar ways to control or admonish mem­
bers. Labeling others of the group as vendido (“sellout,” used by Latinos for
other Latinos), bananas (Asian Americans regarded as yellow on the outside,
white on the inside), or apples (Native Americans viewed as red on the outside,
white on the inside) is a way of scolding group members whose dress, lan­
guage, or behavior reflects a desire to assimilate into mainstream white soci­
ety.
Of course, ethnic epithets could not work in society the way they do if they
did not acquire pejorative meanings. What especially interests us about epi­
thets are those meanings known as connotations, the emotional and cognitive
associations of words—meanings that go beyond the dictionary definitions.
Meaning might be affected by such factors as the sound of an ethnic epithet,
which can contribute to its impact. For instance, the hard sounds heard in such
words as kraut and kike have an effect on the ear that lends them to use in slurs.
The meanings of epithets are not inherent in their sounds, however, but are
closely tied to social interaction and sensitive to its changes. Meanings are
flexible, shifting, and ambivalent, reflecting a diversity of users, targets, iden­
tities, intentions, and social perspectives or relationships.
This sensitivity of meaning to changes in society is clear when we observe
how meanings shift over time. Before social usage changed their meanings,
 Ethnic Epithets in Society______ 257

some of what are now regarded as offensive ethnic labels were originally or
etymologically largely descriptive. Polack, for example—a slur on Poles or
people of Polish descent, known especially to All in the Family viewers as
Archie Bunker’s way of abusing his son-in-law—comes from the Polish word
(.Polak) which originally meant “an inhabitant of Poland.” By the late nine­
teenth century, in the United States, Americans of northern European descent
applied the term insultingly to the swelling numbers of Polish immigrants, all
competing for jobs with their resentful neighbors. In many situations, names
of primarily neutral origin may remain in good standing unless they fall into
the hands of outsiders who, because they are not on familiar or noncompetitive
terms with the group being named, may subject the names to bias.
Also changing over time have been terms for African Americans that origi­
nally had other meanings but came to evoke slavery and submission to white
people. Negro, for example, comes from the Spanish word that refers simply to
the color black. Use of the word by the dominant white society, however, and
deliberate mispronunciations— such as nigrah—led to highly degrading con­
notations, driving out the neutral or positive meanings. Actually, nigrah, too,
may originally have been neutral or even positive. Some language experts re­
gard nigrah as simply a southern pronunciation of Negro, even once a polite
variant. A biased speaker, however, as Lipski (1976) has pointed out, is likely
to pronounce it by emphasizing the first vowel, pausing before the second syl­
lable. This pronunciation might indicate “that the speaker had intended to say
nigger but changed his mind midway through the word” (Lipski 1976, 114).
Thus, the speaker can phonetically suggest the insulting word nigger without
actually saying it.
While such words as Polack and Negro have tended to deteriorate in mean­
ing in the context of ethnic conflict or racial domination, there are many ex­
amples of how African Americans or other minorities are able to adopt the
dominant group’s slurs and give them a positive, or ameliorative, twist. One
such example is black. Once a slave term, black was inverted in meaning by
African Americans in the 1960s from an epithet used by white people to a
declared group preference. In like manner, Chicano, initially a pejorative used
by border-area Mexican Americans for recent immigrants and eventually by
Anglo-Americans as a slur for all Mexican Americans, rose in status in the
1960s to a proud self-description among some Americans of Mexican descent.
However, whereas black is now a designation largely acceptable both to many
African Americans and to white people, the reclaimed Chicano, especially in
previous decades, remained freighted with negative connotations in most of
U.S. society, reflecting the ambivalence of such designations. In his study of
responses to ethnic labels, Lampe (1982) found that Hispanics, African Ameri­
cans, and Anglos tended to respond negatively to Chicano, characterizing
Chicanos as gang members or as lazy and untrustworthy.
258 The Color of Words
-------------------------------------------- V -----; '

Another, related point bears mention here, too. Not only may the meanings
of ethnic epithets differ from one time or context to another, but one group,
especially a dominant group that is the target of bias, may not be aware of the
existence of the epithet. Even if it is, it may not know what connotations the
user group attaches to it. One such example is peckerwood. Used pejoratively
by black people in the South for white peQple, it has been familiar to most
white people there; but in the North, whe’re the term is still in use among Afri­
can Americans, most white people have never heard of it. This is in part a
reflection of the term’s southern origins and the distance between the two groups
in highly segregated northern urban settings, but it also suggests the traditional
indifference of a dominant group to the attitudes of a minority. Similarly, whitey,
used contemptuously by black people for white people, may not be fully un­
derstood by the latter as the harsh slur that it often is. Few African Americans,
by contrast, are unaware of the terms used in white society for them and of the
bias they carry.
The accounts of how the meanings of ethnic epithets come about can take
on social meanings of their own. As folk etymologies, they can tell a kind of
story of the experiences of ethnic groups in society or relate their images of
other groups (Allen 1990, 10-11). For example, many scholars today think
that honky, a slur on white people popular especially among African Ameri­
cans since around the 1950s, is an alteration of hunky (in turn from Hungar­
ian), an old epithet for an immigrant central European laborer. It may be that
black people needed an epithet for the immigrant European laborers with whom
they competed for jobs. But there are a number of other, less convincing but
nevertheless equally socially revealing stories about the origins of honky. One
derives it from the honking sound of pigs, an unflattering animal metaphor that
suggests that white people are—as the familiar minority image goes— con­
temptible, fat, gross, and greedy, or, according to a more recent meaning, rac­
ist.
Like our society, which is culturally heterogeneous, many small-scale,
culturally homogeneous societies have in their languages words that refer to
something lacking in other groups or something deviant about them. Some
traditional Native American societies, for example, have labeled other people
as “cannibals,” “little snakes,” or “speakers of strange speech.” In small-scale
societies, people not tied to the community of kin fall outside the community’s
standard for what is normal and human. The terms used for them may thus
allude to what the community sees as the uncivilized or even subhuman status
of the outsider.
In small-scale societies, however, the relative lack of social diversity and
complexity limits the number and types of ethnic labels and their meanings. In
addition, these societies seem to lack the source of so many of our ethnic slurs:
 Ethnic Epithets in Society______ 259

a vocabulary of slang and nicknames (such as honky or kraut) that falls outside
the standard form of the language. The social associations conveyed by slang
“would be entirely foreign to nonliterate societies lacking both a standardized
written language and a system of formal education to inculcate it” (Lighter
1994, xviii). The ethnic names used, though they may be satirical and dispar­
aging, would likely be a part of the standard language, regarded as acceptable
by all the language users.
The use of ethnic slurs does not necessarily reflect prejudice or racism on
the part of the user. What’s more, eliminating slurs, if it were possible, would
not by itself wipe away gross social inequities. Yet these names do point to a
particularly troublesome area in our society. Their use, especially in certain
kinds of social relationships, whether they do injury to individuals or not, re­
flects a one-dimensional awareness of other people that shuts off communica­
tion. Referring to what he calls the “deficit theory approach,” Agar (1994) notes
that when we look at cultural differences, we too often see only what others
lack compared with ourselves. Many ethnic slurs reflect an ethnocentric view
about what others lack—civilization (monkey), loyalty (vendido), intelligence
(dumb Polack), courage (yellow), or taste or couth (greaser). One way or an­
other, epithets have a way of distorting the targeted group’s culture and iden­
tity. Agar suggests an alternative way of looking at others, one that allows the
ethnic group named and evaluated a chance to speak for itself—to reveal its
own inner workings. Knowledge of language, including an understanding of
the ethnic words discussed in this dictionary, can act as a bridge, opening lines
of communication based on what people are rather than on what we think they
are.
 • epithets once pejorative but reclaimed
by groups as self-descriptive,
• words shaped in the conservative
response to m ulticulturalism and
affirmative action,
• language stereotyping w om en of
color and people of mixed heritage,
and
• other biased and potentially thorny
terms used to refer to the various
dimensions of ethnicity and race.

Herbst's approach is largely descriptive.

He looks at the social processes under­
lying the labeling of groups and the
dynamic nature of racial and ethnic
identity. He writes as objectively as pos­
sible, describing the entire range of
meanings and nuances.

Extensively researched and meticulously

written and edited, The Color of Words will
be a welcome resource and reference for
librarians, writers and editors, educators
and businesspeople, students of lan­
guage and culture, and anyone with an
interest in language and its role in a mul­
ticultural society.

Philip Herbst has over nineteen years of

experience as an editor, writer and de­
veloper of college, trade and technical
publications. He received his doctorate
in cultural anthropology from Cornell
University. He is currently a freelance
editor and college instructor. His writ­
ing has appeared in such publications
as Booklist and Oceans.
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b la ck p o w er, b lack p ro b le m , b lack y, b la ck ie , b la c k e y , b la m in g th e v ictim , bleacli
k, B o h u n k , h u n k , b o n e h e a d , b o o g ie , b ^ o g y , b o o g e y ; b o g e y m a n , b o o jie , b o ffjee, b«
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lire Lee,
The Color of Words is an excellent source which we, in all our n(on, t ’a
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ethnicities, all our colors, can use to begin to educate ourselves on the
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biases in our vocabularies, the histories of our oppressions and, most ; th e IV
importantly, the positive, empowering ways we choose to name our­ it, co lo i
selves. tonck, c
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Reference Librarian, Colby College live, Cu
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A balanced, scholarly treatment of intercultural communication. This ite, East
work will help define the language of cultural relations. A useful ocentri:
referencefor both academic and public libraries. i, fa ce , f.
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[The Color of Words] fills a need by bringing together definitions, gray, gri
etymologies, and commentary on the language of ethnic relationships p p y -g o l
in the United States. Even more interesting than the definitions them­ h a te sj
selves, however, is the sensitive discussion of the origins and changing e r r in g -
connotations of these terms. Although it can be painful to contem­ a n ic isn
plate the full extent of ethnic conflict and mistrust, these words are a »rtones<
part of American history and American life that reflect our multicul­ e , id e n t

tural society in afascinating way. Therefore I think this book [will] be he, indi;
of interest not only to libraries, but to anyone interested in American sib ility,
w ish Ai
society and the American language.
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-Jean Alexander
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Reference Librarian, sin Iris!
Northwestern University Library vn broil
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In "About This Dictionary" Philip Herbst says: m an, jii j
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The Color of Words is about the language that captures the
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multiethnic temper of our times. It tells the stories of words used in
the United States to label ethnic groups or to talk about the sod
landscape of which they are a part. In particular, these are terms thi
may reflect ethnic or "racial" bias, bear confusing or controversial
meanings, or offend.

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sah; sh a y g e ts, sh in e, sh in y , s h y lo c k , silk , s in g le p a re n t, s k in h e a d , sla n t, s la n te y e ,
. so cia l p a th o lo g y , "S o m e o f m y b est frie n d s arc*...," S o u th e rn e r, sp a d e , sp a g h e tti