The color of words : an encyclopaedic dictionary of ethnic bias in the United States 9781877864421, 1877864420

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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

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© 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

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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

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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

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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

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The Color of Words

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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,

w...we, away

active

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...murmur, dim

,...m ark preceding a syllable with 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). •

affirmative action

A 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 ace o f sp ades.

See

coon. 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.

1

L ater in th e 1960s, the u sa g e was changed to mean providing com pensa­ 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 emotiontinged 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 ,

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 ­

QUOTAS, REVERSE DISCRIMINATION, TOKEN/

also

TOKENISM, TWOFER.

affrish y tow n, A ffrishy town. See

n ig g e r

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.”

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 . da rkest

See

A f r ic a , ju n g l e .

A frican A m erican, A frican -A m erican . A 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

Afrika

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 Afrocentrics 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,

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 .

I am now an African-American.

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.

They call me out of my name. BLACK is an open umbrella.

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 AfroAsian. Even the euphemistic Afro-Caucasian 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

(Van Deburg 1992, 2). See also A f r ic a n A m e r i c a n , black,

A fro,

E u r o - A m e r ic a n .

Afro-Caucasian. See

A fro .

Afrocentrism , Afro-centrism . From the 1980s and 1990s, a noun, with its adjec­ tive form, Afrocentric (also African-cen­ tered), referring to an ideology and ap­ proach among some African Americans. A frocentrism takes pride in the customs o f African cultures and teaches their in­ fluence on African Am erican culture, focuses on understanding the African perspectives in culture and history, and reflects the contributions of Africans in history. For exam ple, the pervasive theme in D etroit’s Paul Robeson Acad­ emy, in which each room is named after an African country, is “African-centered, o r A fro c e n tric , e d u c a tio n ” (K eith Henderson, Christian Science Monitor, 23 February 1993,11). Nevertheless, the term has not yet established meanings evident to everyone. Molefi Kete Asante’s The Afrocentric Idea (1987) discusses the point of view that stresses African cultures and their effects on the histories and cultures of black people around the world. His A fro cen tricity (1988) led the charge against Eurocentric history. The African A m erican sociologist and civil rights leader W. E. B. Du Bois was an earlier proponent o f Afrocentrism. Interest in and identification with A frica vary am ong A m erican black people. W hile the U.S. nationalistic movement toward group consciousness and cultural pride in Africa has been ar­ gued to be a source of self-esteem among African Americans and a counter to the d am ag in g p sy c h o lo g ic al effec ts o f E u r o c e n t r is m , not all African Americans subscribe to its main premises. Martin Luther King Jr., for example, said that “The Negro is an American. We know nothing o f A frica” (in W arren 1965, 216).

5

Along with many strong proponents of Afrocentrism, there have been critics, both white and black, who, for example, deny the premise that black people need to be protected against contact with w hite people and w hite institutions. They/may also oppose the concept of history as therapy for black people and contend that the racial focus of Afrocen­ tric history does not prepare black chil­ dren for a place in the larger society. In addition, there have been many charges of irresponsible scholarship that falsifies history (see, e.g., Mary Lefkowitz, Not Out o f Africa, 1996). The Afrocentrics rebut that it is not protection o f black people and glorification o f African cul­ tures that they seek but a nonethnocentric view that provides accurate information and balances the prevalent Eurocentric p erspective (see, e.g ., M olefi K ete A sante, in Pincus and Ehrlich 1994, 307-13). Afrocentric may be used to refer to the movement, to a person in the move­ ment, or to a black person’s identity as an African Am erican, A frica being a place in the mind as much as in geogra­ phy. See also id e n t it y p o l it ic s , n e g r it u d e . Afro-Saxon. The name for a black person who adopts the ways of a white person or aspires to be like one. It was part of the African American vocabulaiy during the 1960s, as in Nathan Hare’s The Black Anglo-Saxons (1965), which critiqued the African American middle classes, but its use is often attributed to Continental A fricans (Smitherman 1994). Among black users who do not support integra­ tion or assimilation into the mainstream, it connotes an Uncle Tom, a term of strong censure. Less frequently heard is Afropean (for more on this word, see the San Francisco Examiner, 22 September 1991, A3); m ore recent is European Negro (Smitherman 1994). For other words black people use for

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.

•

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 to be elitist or cocky to deflate his ego 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

alligator

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

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

American

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.

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 unAm 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 Englishlanguage 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 rik[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.”

Anglo

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.

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 AngloSaxon 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 nonLatin 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

antisemitism

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

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 nineteenthcentury 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

Arab

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

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, PECKERW 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 ArabAmericari) 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 AYrab (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

A ryan

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 , head,

M o h a m m e d a n , M u s l im , r a g -

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 ‘superhard’ 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 IndoEuropean languages (a large grouping of languages including Hindi, Spanish, Greek, French, Polish, German, Gaelic, and English). Under Nazism, a non-Jewish Caucasian, particularly one who was blond, blue-eyed, and w hite-skinned. A ryan was also used in the nineteenth

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 Cambodianlanguage 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. Combodian, 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 secondor 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\

Asiatic flu

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

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 “unAmericanness”) 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-

Aunt Jemima

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 multiculturalism) 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

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 .

banana

B Babel, Tower of. An allusion sometimes used as an attack on the multiculturalization 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

23

tempted to control black people, first through enslavement, then later through 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 barbarianism 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.

bigot

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, tow n.

See also

H a i t i , n ig g e r

e t h n ic n e ig h b o r h o o d .

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,

-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 .

25

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, 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

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 exv 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

black as the ace of spades

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 ;

HNIC;

negro,

G u lla h , house

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 .

E t h io p ia n ; h ig h y e l l o w ;

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

o l e , c r o w , d a r k y , g u in e a ,

29

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 ’

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 .

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 ­

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 ,

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

BLACKY, PICKANINNY, SAMBO, SPADE, TAR

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 ,

baby.

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 , g r o id ,

E t h io p ia n , f u z z y w u z z y ,

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.

C re-

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

Black Power

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

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-organized 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 Americanwhite 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-

blood

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 nondeterministically, 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

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

boogie

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 Boho. See

G y p sy .

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

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 closecropped 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 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

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 ' has also been used for any male who 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 .

coon.

Bootchkey, Butchski. See c h e s k y . 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

BP. See b l a c k

pow er.

b ra c e ro [bra-'ser- o]. Spanish A m erican 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

Brit

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 .

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

buckra

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

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, integrationist 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 “pseudoblackm 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 Bboy, 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 ­

butchski

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 secondrate, 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

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.

cannibal

C 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 .

43

Cambo. U.S. slang, sometimes derisive, for a Cambodian. Associated with military 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 Ameriycan 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).

C aucasian

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.”

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 AngloIrish 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 for white people, see w h i t e , cross-refer­ ences. pa d d y .

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, cheeseeater 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).

Chicano/a

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 borderarea M exican Americans for recent im ­ migrants or for those among them who

47

showed little desire to assimilate to TexMex 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-Americanized 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

m ix e s .

Am ong black users, a late 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.

c h ic k e n lip s .

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 c h in a b o y .

ape.

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 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

Chinese

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

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 , the

J ew s of

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 chingching, 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 chinkichonks. 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 chino. See

C h in k .

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,

chop suey

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 ParliamentFunkadelic 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 acculturated Native American. In California it

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 , chow

C h in e e , C h in k , c h o p s u e y ,

, 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.” ' 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 longheld 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 Americans, “the people”— for example, 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).

city boy

See also doll,

A s i a n A m e r i c a n , C h in a

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

53

come a coded invocation against nonChristians, 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 Christkiller, 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 Cochise. See

p o o r w h it e t r a s h .

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

colorblindness

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,

colonist. See

OREO.

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

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 mainstreaYn 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

color-struck

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. MerriamW 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.

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 majorleague 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 darkbrown 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 lowclass 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.

coon

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

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

p ic k a n i n n y ,

TOW N,

PAN CA KE,

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 lowclass 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

Creole

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.

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 “Cherokees,” 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.

cultural imperialism

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

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 prov 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 Anglorooted 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

Cupid’s Muslims

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

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

.

Efc' *j

-

ft.:. .-■-«

•

^

% • -?...

^•’ *J ..

t , \*

’-■

'

1'

,.*

*»

*!>
? .--

S,, ■'.■).*

.

(

-

$4§t r ^ l p j ' ., f r g g

': *#■** '" '

* Tr ^ f |.

^

4a**

ftS f

i

■ ..

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