GAY-BASHING query

[Charles Doyle]

On the subject of GAY-BASHING (QUEER-, FAG-, HOMO-, FAIRY-BASHING, in descending order of Google prevalence), in the literal sense of "bashing," I reckon somebody ought to mention the analogous NIGGER-KNOCKING, an activity that I expect almost anyone who grew up in the South a generation or more ago has heard of, probably by that name. Curiously, though, the earliest printed instance I can find is from the Washington Post in 1968, quoting a reminiscence of Janis Joplin (of Port Arthur, TX). Of course, the so-called "n-word" has become the most taboo word in the language, which is not to say, of course, that any diminution in the incidence of racism itself has paralleled the scarcity of the word in print.

And evidently another sense of "nigger-knocking" has occurred; the term designates a prank that entails the rapping on the door of a black family's home (which, presumably, would have no doorbell) and then running away or hiding and watching (thus in the Urban Dictionary and in many of the Google hits).

--Charlie

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