racial epithets

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 29, 2005, at 7:24 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: racial epithets
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> --------
>
> These exx. are the mildest I could find on the Net, Ferber's being the
> earliest.  More are unfortunately available at overtly racist sites,
> including dire references to the "poisoned bite."
>
>
>
> [ ca2003 _The FictionMags Index_
> http://users.ev1.net/~homeville/fictionmag/s706.htm : Woods
> Hutchinson, "Does Blood Tell?" _Sat. Eve. Post_ (Apr. 29, 1911)
> "mentions a popular belief that the bite of Negroes with blue gums is
> poisonous, which I had never heard before."]
>
> 1911 Edna Ferber _Buttered Side Down_ 212 : Looking like a flat-nosed,
> blue-gummed Igorrote [sic].
>
> 1939 [WPA Federal Writers Project] _Tennessee: A Guide to the State_
> ch. xiv [http://newdeal.feri.org/guides/tnguide/ch14.htm] :  Thousands
> of Tennesseans still judge character by physical traits catalogued by
> generations of observations. "You watch," they say, "and see if
> politicians don't most usually always have big noses. You take a man
> with stubby fingers. He masters his way through the world and he's
> bull-stubborn. Take a man that grays early. Most likely he's a fine
> fellow and will lend you money. A blue-gummed Negro is a killer and
> his bite is as poisonous as a copperhead's. A dimple in a girl's chin
> is a mighty bad sign, means the devil within. But a dimpled man is a
> good steady sort of fellow and can be trusted. Don't know why it is,
> but rich men most usually are hairy. Any man who talks to himself has
> money in the bank, but he won't lend you any.
>
> 2003 _Cringe Humor Forum : Comedy That Questions Your Morality_ (Feb.
> 10) :  I never heard the term Bluegum until you posted it, but sure
> enough it is in the Racial Slur Database: http://rsdb.fuck.org/ .
>
> 2005 Thadeus Davis, at  _Oprah's Book Club : The Sound and the Fury Q
> & A_
> [http://www.oprah.com/obc_classic/featbook/asof/fury/qa/
> fury_qa_display.jhtml?contentId=20050708_08.xml] :  The black man—who
> in Versh's story

> became a bluegum

"... *become* a bluegum"?! Nobody can *become* a blugum! That is
fucking amazing!!! Are there really white people who have even *heard*
of this shit, let alone actually believe it?! If so, I've spent my
entire life living in a dream. No wonder lynching, for so long, was
regarded as a triviality! If, as a bluegum,

>  with the changing of his name—has certain powers connected to the
> full moon, but he is eventually eaten by his own bluegum children.
> (According to folk tradition, the bluegum bite carries poison.)

As a bluegum, if I could kill white people simply by biting them, by
this time, I'd be one hell of a serial killer!

But, for the record, I wouldn' bite none a y'all, 'cause y'all be good
white folk.

-Wilson Gray

>
> 2005 "GODBLESSAMERICA" at  _Amazing Talking [African] Parrot_
> [http://comments.big-boys.com/?id=3685] (May 11) : I have not met any
> african american (ie. porch-monkey, spear-chunker, Mississippi
> blue-gummed ****) that could speak english.
>
> (Onomastic note: Prof. Thadeus Davis is a woman.)
>
> My copy is misplaced at the moment, but ISTR an entry for "bluegum" in
> _Dictionary of Americanisms_ with 19th C. exx.  Wentworth & Flexner
> (1960) defines it naively as "a Negro. Civil War use," which tells me
> they got it from _DA_ or _DAE_.
>
> JL
>
>
> George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU> wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: George Thompson
> Subject: Re: racial epithets
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> --------
>
> In the very distant past of my life as an English major, someone told
> me that the term "blue-gum" appeared in one of Faulkner's novels.
>
> It might be possible to look up where, though be damn if I see any
> reason to. I'll take requests, though.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Wilson Gray
> Date: Friday, July 29, 2005 2:51 am
> Subject: Re: racial epithets
>
>> On Jul 28, 2005, at 4:20 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: "Mullins, Bill"
>>> Subject: racial epithets
>>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------
>>> --------
>>>
>>> high yellow -- HDAS has 1923, OED has 1951
>>> "At the Theatres" | Nebraska | Lincoln | The Lincoln Daily Star |
>>> 1916-06-22 p. 3. col 3.
>>> "They present the typical minstrel nigger and high yaller octoroon."
>>>
>>> "Honey Boy" Minstrels Please Large Audience at Atlanta
>>> The Atlanta Constitution; Mar 12, 1915; pg. 12 col 3.
>>> "Eldon Durand is a classic in make-up in his part of the Miss
>>> Flooeyanna
>>> Wilkins, the "high yellow," for whose charms "Lasses" inevitably
>>> falls."
>>>
>>> blue gum -- not in OED nor HDAS, as near as I can tell
>>>
>>> THE MAGIC CHARM
>>> The Atlanta Constitution; Oct 18, 1891; pg. 11 col 3.
>>> "Their bite is as bad as a blue gum nigger."
>>>
>>> "BLUE GUM NEGROES"
>>> Ohio | Lima | The Times Democrat | 1897-07-23 p. 7 col 4.
>>> "Among the numerous superstitions of the old plantation days which
>>> still
>>> linger in the south none is more pronounced or more widely diffused
>>> than
>>> the belief in the fatal effecs of the "blue gum nigger's" bite." "
>>>
>>> [I had heard "blue gum" as an epithet for AA for years, usually
>> taking> it to mean "a black person whose skin is so dark their
>> gums look blue
>>> in
>>> comparison". But I've never heard this business about the bite
>> of a
>>> blue gum.
>>>
>>
>> If this term is in actual use an epithet, it must be used by only a
>> vanishingly-small portion of the white population, since even you are
>> unaware of the term's referent. I personally have never heard it
>> spokenby anyone anywhere. It's strictly a literary term that I'm
>> familiarwith only as a consequence of having read the book,
>> Mandingo, by Kyle
>> Onstott (1957 et paperbacks seq.), in which the term appears.
>> Accordingto a white character in the novel, blue-gummed black
>> people, such as
>> the Ibo, are inferior to pink-gummed black black people, such as the
>> Mandingo. It's not clear whether this is Onstott's own opinion or
>> merely that of his character. It's more likely only that of his
>> character. For his time, Onstott was way liberal. Anyway, if not for
>> this novel, your mention of it would have come as a surprise to me.
>>
>> I've had a series of friendly discussions with one of my sisters-
>> in-law
>> as to whether white Americans have any idea of what black people
>> actually look like. Your post supports my claim: that white people
>> haveno real idea of what black people look like.
>>
>> Allow me to run it down to you.
>>
>> Some black people are non-distinct from white people WRT the color of
>> their gums. Other black people, among them your humble correspondent,
>> have gums that are a kind of mottled pink and blue(-ish) in color.
>> Thismottling is what the term, "blue(-)gum," refers to. This
>> phenomenondoes not correlate in any way with the bearer's skin
>> tone - i.e. the
>> percentage of white ancestry that a black person has - or with any
>> other visible feature. Within a given nuclear family, some members may
>> be blue gums and other members may not be. A pink-gummed black couple
>> may have blue-gummed children and vice-versa. It appears to be one of
>> those random, benign mutations that has no application but doesn't die
>> out.
>>
>> -Wilson Gray
>>
>
>
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