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Hurston's Glossary of Harlem Slang
Posted by ESC on May 12, 2009 at 16:54
In Reply to: Hurston's Glossary of Harlem Slang posted by Brian from Shawnee on May 05, 2009 at 13:14:
: : : : : Zora Neale Hurston's - Glossary of Harlem Slang
: : : : : Slang terms circa 1930's
: : : : : aalbc.com/ authors/harlemslang.htm
: : : : : I was looking for a definition of "butt-sprung" and found it at this site.
: : : : Thank God for small lists. In going from top to bottom I found "Jig" and "Zigaboo." During summers in the 1940s and '50s, near my home in Tinytown, I worked alongside black migrant laborers from Jamaica and the Bahamas harvesting onions. The local white townspeople called the black workers "jigaboos," a term I had not heard previously and have not heard since. I don't know if the workers were aware of the term. I had plenty of conversations with ny co-workers, but that never came up.
: : : : SS
: : : I'm sorry to report that "jigaboo" is still alive and kicking among the white British working classes, right up there with "nig-nog" and "jungle bunny", though possibly only among the middle-aged and upwards; it might strike the younger generation as a bit passé. (VSD)
: : I grew up in the 1950s/60s in Smethwick in the English West Midlands; which was then a profoundly and openly racist town. It is still infamous for the 'if you want a [word removed in order to comply with Google's Publisher Policy] neighbour, vote Labour' slogan which cost the Labour party its previously safe seat in the 1964 election. Language that would now result in a prison sentence was rife there then. Jigaboo is a new one to me but there was a wide vocabulary of other derogatory terms. I'm glad to report that things have changed in Smethwick and that that sort of language is much reduced there, in private as well as in public.
: : : 1931 film: "Love At First Sight"
: : : Song and dance routine called "Let's Jig The Jigaboo" was featured along with title song.
: : Racism is alive and well in Kentucky. There was an incident at my workplace -- a government office -- involving a supervisor using the [word removed in order to comply with Google's Publisher Policy] referring to a coworker's biracial grandchild. An investigation ensued but nothing came of it. Back to the discussion at hand -- there's a lot of racist stuff on Internet, she says naively. This thread reminded me of a song, something about "a sign on the door says 'jigaboo.'" I searched "jigaboo" and, oh, my goodness. I'm going to give up on that search. Regards the word itself:
: : Jigaboo, also chickaboo, jibagoo, jigabo, jiggaboo, jiggerboo. Probably from jig (Black person probably from close association in the 1830s-50s of Blacks with jig dancing or minstrel dancing and with the banjo, the tunes for which were known as jigs) by analogy with bugaboo. Cf zigaboo. A Black person; rarely, an Asian -- usually considered offensive. (I love when they use that phrase.) 1909. Barnes-West, I've Got Rings, song lyric. "Dictionary of American Regional English," Volume III by Frederic G. Cassidy and Joan Houston Hall (1996, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, England). Page 129-130.
: I think the J-word must have died out sometime in the 1970's. The last time I remember hearing it in public was on the All in the Family show, in the episode where Cleavon Little and Demond Wilson break into the Bunkers' house.
: My favorite term in Ms. Hurston's glossary is "handkerchief head", a term I've run across only once. Apparently during a meeting of baseball Negro League owners, Effa Manley, co-owner (with her husband Abe) of the Newark Eagles, accused owner Cumberland Posey of the Homestead Grays of being a "handkerchief head" when he disagreed with her over limiting white involvement in the league. It seems like it would be strictly an intra-racial insult but Effa Manley was actually a white woman "passing for black" in an era when that was quite uncommon. (Source: Negro League Baseball b y Neil Lanctot.)
That was the title of a bio about a Kentucky state legislator: "Passing for Black: The Life and Careers of Mae Street Kidd" by Wade Hall. Rep. Kidd was biracial and light-skinned. She self-identified as a black woman but was often challenged on it. Another factlet about her, she was the black Kentucky legislator who did NOT visit with Martin Luther King the night before he was killed. The word went out that Dr. King spent the evening with a black female legislator from the Bluegrass State. There were only two. Rep. Kidd finally had to speak up and say, it wasn't me.
- Passing for Black
