Through e-mails from a couple of people today, I was led to 'The Racial Slur Database'. It's a very detailed listing of the insults and epithets used by people of one race to describe people of (an)other race(s). For example, in the listing for 'B' alone, I found these that I'd never encountered before:
- Belegana - a Navajo term which roughly translates to "silly white person".
- Blacky Chan - Blacks who practice martial arts.
- Briar - The term probably comes from the briar bushes found in Appalachian states. Variant: briar-hopper. Applied locally to redneck Kentucky native or other southerner from Appalachia who resettled in Southwestern Ohio during or after WWII in search of factory jobs.
Whether for entertainment or information (but preferably not for use as insults!), 'The Racial Slur Database' is an interesting site for research.
Peter
1 comment:
I heard Belegana quite a lot growing up but I grew up in Indian country (west side of Albuquerque). We had many Navajo's in school with us and in my neighborhood. My dearly departed Grand Mother (herself a full blooded Apache) used to call us white boys the Spanish word for Lard because it was white. I never took offense, she used it to describe all white people. As far as I could tell there was no disparaging word for the white people in the Apache language, that was why she used Spanish.
BT: Jimmy T sends.
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