"black as Caesar's tail"

[Charles Doyle]

I have never heard "black as Caesar's tail" either. Could it be a family expression?

Of course, there exist dozens of popular similes describing blackness. Except in a few cases, though, it would hard to argue that they have specific racist implications or "overtones"!

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2007 14:15:13 -0400
>From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject: Re: "black as Caesar's tail"
>
>I'm from Marshall, in the East-Texas region, myself, but I'm not familiar with this phrase. It doesn't strike me as necessarily racist, even though I'm black and I don't consider myself to be particularly unaware of even hidden racism.
>
>In this situation, my own mother, a native of Longview, would use "motley." As a consequence, it took me a while to understand the
>standard meaning in a phrase like "dressed in motley."
>
>What're your thoughts on this, Charlie?
>
>-Wilson
>
>On 4/6/07, Lee Murrah <mclee at murrah.com> wrote:
>>>
>> When I was growing up in East Texas in the 1950s, when something was very dirty, my mother would say it was as "black as Caesar's tail." I have searched for an explanation of the term but have never found a single reference to it.  In that time and place one might suspect that it had some racial overtones, but I never heard it used in that sense.  Does anyone have an information on its origins?

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