Apparently, some people are asserting that calling someone “boy” (as Rep. Davis from Kentucky controversially did to Obama) is just friendly, buddy-buddy stuff in the South. I see no reason to concede that point. Now, I’m from Texas, which is not the Deep South, but we have our fair share of inbred rednecks spouting Southernisms (I’m like 40% redneck myself, and prone to saying things like “fixing to” and “all y’all”), and I have never heard any redneck ever call someone a “boy” without meaning it to demean that person. Every single time. Even when you call a bona fide boy “boy”, it’s about asserting your superiority over him. Even if it’s used in a genial manner, it’s still an insult. Like you see someone taking a piss outside and you’re like, “Boy, what are you doing?”
There’s the watered-down version, as well, which is “young man” or “young woman”. It’s still asserting authority over the person addressed as such, but unlike “boy” or “girl”, it implies that the person addressed has some cognitive faculties, though minor and in need of correction. Like a kid who stayed out past curfew might get addressed as “young man/lady” while receiving a dressing down.
Then again, I’m far from Kentucky, so I asked a friend from a bordering state, and he said it’s used in exactly the same manner in Kentucky as it is in Texas. Pam maybe could ring in and let us know how East Coast Southerners use the term, though I suspect it’s in the exact same way. Which means quibbling over whether or not it’s racist is ridiculous. Of course it is.
96 Responses to “Don’t let those other Southerners lie to you”
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Same in MD and VA, Chesapeake bay area, where my family’s from - you *don’t* call a black man “boy”, ever, unless you’re a complete fucking racist *and* proud of it (or too old AND too senile to know any better, which isn’t all that many people these days.)
Reading the thread about this at Yglesias’s blog, I’ve learned that I’m “hypersensitive” to charges of racism and sexism. Apparently the Vogue cover was in no way racist, calling Hillary “emotional” isn’t sexist, and calling Barack Obama “boy” isn’t racist either.
I’m a native Georgian and there’s no way I’m buying the “boy = not an insult” thing.
Ringing in with my Louisiana and Mississippi experience, it’s pretty much what you said, Amanda.
Contexts for ‘boy’ include:
- Actual young people, though even when it’s used for a child, the direct address form is not considered particularly polite or friendly. For me, my first association with a sentence beginning with “Boy,…” would be that it probably ends with “go outside and pull me a switch!” i.e. it’s pretty aggressive.
- Nonwhite adult males, being addressed similarly aggressively and/or condescendingly: “There was this Mexican boy [read: middle aged Peruvian] down at the shop today pestering me for a job.”
- That same use directed ironically at one’s fellow white males. Usually intended to be as demeaning as the above uses, though sometimes somewhat in jest. “Boy, if you think Auburn can beat Ole Miss…” Note that it wouldn’t be a joke if the above two uses were not the norm.
Nobody I’ve ever heard of in the south uses ‘boy’ as an age/race neutral form of address to friends, aside from maybe the expression “good ole boy”. But that’s an expression, and even then I think it’s the same level of condescension, since it’s usually used in either a deprecating or self-deprecating way.
I’m kind of cranky right now, so excuse me for being trollish/glib [
I’m not from the South, but I’ve seen In the Heat of the Night. That movie alone represents a 41-year lead time for even the slowest of racists to have a lack of plausible deniability.
I’m kind of cranky right now, so excuse me for being trollish/glib (
(Sorry for the triple post-HTML funk)
I’m kind of cranky right now, so excuse me for being trollish/glib (ok, that is a cop out), but what’s the difference between the Conservative’s obnoxious knee-jerk reaction to Obama’s “bitter” comments and this guy’s vaguely racist choice of a noun?
I have a friend from Ohio and they even understand up there that you don’t call a man ‘boy’ unless you’re trying to disrespect him. If someone from the north can recognize this southern code, I can imagine that those in DC can recognize it too. It’s not just a southern thing.
OT: Has anyone in Texas seen that Whataburger commercial where the cops call the burger ‘boy’? Sends chills down my spine even though it’s supposed to be funny. Just hits too close to home for those of us who have to drive while black.
what’s the difference between the Conservative’s obnoxious knee-jerk reaction to Obama’s “bitter” comments and this guy’s vaguely racist choice of a noun?
“Bitter” can be seen as having been taken out of context. He said it, but it’s clear if you read more than a few words that he didn’t mean it the way the Clinton/McCain machines want him to have meant it.
“Boy” is only inoffensive if twisted out of context. Not to mention the construction used is pretty much always offensive. I thought the whole “cotton-pickin’” thing was a bit much, but no, actually, calling Obama “boy” is pretty much straight up a racist tactic of condescension and dismissal.
There’s no way these people buy their own bullshit. Seriously, no one can be that stupid.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7lptjR-PV9c
I hope very much that my post was clear on how I don’t think “boy” can ever be used to refer to a grown man without a racist connection, no matter what races may be involved.
Jonathan, “boy” isn’t a “vaguely racist choice of a noun.” Its meaning in the south is just as clear as if Davis had called Obama a “fag” or even a “nigger.” Anyone from the south claiming otherwise is deluded, even if they’re actually sincere in their claim.
As a native Tennesseean, I can say that using the term “boy” is definitely an insult. Even among friends. Hillbillies & rednecks may vary in some ways state to state, but calling a black person “boy” is totally about white superiority across the board.
It’s clear, Stephen. I was using your post as a jumping off point to express my annoyance and people who are trotting out excuses for this word.
From NC Appalachia usage, none insulting usage of boy occurs in the context of referring to someone’s son, ie “the Caldwell’s boy”, normally by someone actually significant older, but not necessarily, or to refer to actual children. Much the same as Texas it seems, any other usage of boy pretty much only implies an inferior status.
Yep, I’m from Kentucky and I’ve never heard anyone call anyone else “boy” without asserting some sort of authority.
I don’t know if Rep. Davis represented me while I was living in Kentucky, but he certainly doesn’t represent me now (I’ve moved to Tennessee). Nevertheless, I am ashamed of him.
Please understand, not all of we Kentuckians are like that.
Thank you, Amanda. I was wondering when Pandagon would say something.
Yeah, “boy” as a term of address is definitely threatening even when applied to your own son; “You sassin’ me, boy?” It’s practically unheard of to use it to anyone else, because of the racial connotations.
Most of the modern South now uses the slang African Americans started in the 60s’ and call everybody “man”, as in “Man, don’t piss outside. That’s gross, man.”
Another Georgia resident here. The only people who use Boy in any way are racists, usually the kind with Confederate flag decals on their trucks and at least one closeted Klan member in the family if not a white hood of their own tucked in some trunk somewhere.
There really are only two forms of Boy as colloquial address and unless it’s preceded by the words “Good ‘ol” it’s racist.
And in context, Rep Davis was slamming Obama on Security, so there’s no way he was referring to his pal, the black Yankee Democrat as being one of the Good ‘ol Boys.
It’s great (actually incredibly disheartening) that the “boy” controversy, which really is purposely insulting, is overshadowing the vicious aspect of the comment: The implication that Obama (and by extension all Blacks) lacks “the necessities” or whatever to be POTUS.
So a new meme is slipped into the public conscience (like a knife into Obama’s back) and the phrasing creates the distraction needed to make most people ignore the real slander of the attack.
Real (evil) genius on the part of the Reichwing…
Not very many people are going to be voting for McCain because they think he’s such an awesome choice for POTUS. In fact, the Reichwing tried everything to get him eliminated. Until he was the default Rethug, every day would bring new examples of wingnut nastiness regarding McCain. Since then, silence.
On top of that, the vast majority of Americans have finally realized they don’t like Cheney/Bush and Bushism.
So the real queston comes down to whether you are voting FOR Obama, or AGAINST Obama.
Everything done or said by the wingnuts is aimed at giving people just one more reason to vote against Obama. And, of course, we haven’t really even started seeing the rotten underbelly of the Reichwing yet…
none insulting usage of boy occurs in the context of referring to someone’s son, ie “the Caldwell’s boy”, normally by someone actually significant older, but not necessarily, or to refer to actual children.
Yes, but this is quite obviously not what Davis meant. The funny thing, too, is that even this use can easily be twisted into being condescending. See for instance Bush asking James Webb how his “boy” was doing in Iraq.
The great thing about southern English is that even the most polite turns of phrase can be used as vitriolic dogwhistles.
“Bitter” can be seen as having been taken out of context. He said it, but it’s clear if you read more than a few words that he didn’t mean it the way the Clinton/McCain machines want him to have meant it.
Is there more context to the quote below me? Because to me, it still seems a tad insulting (not to the level that the talking heads are yelping about). If someone where to tell me that the failure to implement a free market economy has led me astray from the “correct” political philosophy and is the reason I clutch to my pornography, atheism, and LGBT friendliness, I’d throw a hissy fit.
That’s at least how I interrupt what he said.
“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising, then, that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
If someone from the north can recognize this southern code, I can imagine that those in DC can recognize it too.
Exactly. Sometimes I have to wonder if they think northerners are stupid. (Although I postulated this theory back in the day when they tried to pass off every stupid thing Dubya said as a southern cultural artifact.)
I didn’t say whether the ‘bitter’ quote was or was not insulting. Just that, when seen in context, it’s possible to be charitable.
Whereas the opposite is true with Davis’s ‘boy’ — put into context, it’s impossible to think anything other than “racist fucktard”.
I’m sorry you missed the actual thread about the ‘bitter’ controversy, but there’s no reason to pollute this one.
It’s absurd to suggest that a white man calling a black man a “boy” in any but the most literal context is acceptable in the South (as noted above, I’d assume that “Hank Caldwell’s boy” is OK as long as the “boy” in question is Hank Caldwell’s son and not his gardener.)
I was once at a basketball tournament in Richmond and there was a point guard for one of the teams who was quite diminutive, perhaps 5′7″. At one point he dribbled the ball out of bounds and I said something like “that boy better get it together” and the usage elicited an immediate and audible gasp from the people around me, including one woman who said “you better be careful.”
This despite the fact that the person I was referring to was A)tiny, by comparison to the other players and B) nineteen.
It’s not OK to call a black man “boy.” Period. And anyone who has lived in the South for more than about six minutes either knows this or is phenomenally obtuse.
APS
It’s absurd to suggest that a white man calling a black man a “boy” in any but the most literal context is acceptable in the South (as noted above, I’d assume that “Hank Caldwell’s boy” is OK as long as the “boy” in question is Hank Caldwell’s son and not his gardener.)
I was once at a basketball tournament in Richmond and there was a point guard for one of the teams who was quite diminutive, perhaps 5′7″. At one point he dribbled the ball out of bounds and I said something like “that boy better get it together” and the usage elicited an immediate and audible gasp from the people around me, including one woman who said “you better be careful.”
This despite the fact that the person I was referring to was A)tiny, by comparison to the other players and B) nineteen.
It’s not OK to call a black man “boy.” Period. And anyone who has lived in the South for more than about six minutes either knows this or is phenomenally obtuse.
APS
One could *maybe* interpret it as not racist if it had been coming from an 87-year-old man who could be forgiven for thinking everyone under the age of 50 is a boy.
But my understanding is that the man who said it is only a few years older than Obama. If it had been said of a white man, it would still be unbelievably condescending and insulting, claiming that an experienced adult only a few years younger than oneself is a callow youth. When combined with the history of “boy” in racism, it is a racist comment.
Hell, “girl” as a term used of women of any age is vastly more common in public speech and it would *still* be plainly sexist an condescending if the same thing had been said of Hillary using the term “girl”. “Boy” used of men is *much* less common than “girl” used of women, so it should be *more* obvious, not less, that this is an insult.
Actually this may be one of the very few areas where you can more freely hear racism in public than sexism; as much misogyny as has been piled on Hillary throughout the campaign I still can’t imagine any pundit or politician saying “That girl shouldn’t have her hand on the button”. Rare, but I guess sometimes it does happen that the racism in speech becomes more acceptable to say than the sexism.
VERY occasionally I’ll use “boy” to another white guy in an ironic manner, or even just used as a meaningless expostulation (”Boy is it hot!”), but should I ever slip up and use it around MOC I feel pretty fucking stupid.
OTOH, I’m from and living in the PNW, and cracker-isms are lightly used around here.
If Geoff-erson Davis and his apologists think they’re fooling anyone in this situation, they’re really fooling themselves. These clueless mouth-breathers don’t understand that they can’t get away with this dog-whistle rubbish anymore.
Yeah, but that’s because “boy” has become such a loaded word. People are a lot less hesitent about using “girl” because youth is much more valuable to women in Western culture. If you call a woman a “girl”, you can plausibly come off as praising her; “Oh, it’s just because she’s so pretty and fresh, she looks younger than she is.”.
If you call a grown man a “boy”, you’re insulting him, unless he’s your kid or your high school student or your bestest friend. Somehow, I doubt any of those situations apply in this case.
“I meant, ‘boy, is it hot out here’!”
Of course, anybody not clinically brain-dead or an apologist for a racist organization (Steve Sailer factors prominently in the head-scratching Yglesias thread) knows this; the question is whether it would actually hurt the Congressman in what might be a heavily gerrymandered district.
Born and bred Kentuckian here. (haven’t lived there since I left for college though, but my family yanks me back 2-3 times a year) Amanda is exactly right. At best it’s vaguely demeaning, and that would be using it toward someone who’s white. I suppose it’s mitigated when pairing it with “ole,” in which case it becomes a positive, hur hur hur. *backslap*
I doubt anyone really parses it like this consciously, but I am also positive that anyone who uses it doesn’t instinctually know what it means, especially in this instance. Any reasonable person would never use it when addressing a person of color, unless they’re willfully ignorant and/or an asshat. It’s too loaded a term.
The guy’s district is right across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio, essentially a suburb of it, and I can tell you, “boy” is not an honorific, it means exactly what it means further south.
“boy” is sometimes used (here in SC at least) as a term of endearment (”that boy can hunt!,” and of course, “he’s a good old boy”)…
…but that usage only tends to reinforce the condescension inherent in the term (compare to African-Americans calling each other the n-word)
that is, you have to be pretty with a guy to call him ‘boy’ in the extended or inverted sense
Davis is not a close friend of Obama, ergo…
uh, pretty *tight* with a guy, I meant to type…
Born in Atlanta.
Raised from the time I was 4 in Newport News, VA.
You are spot on for use of “boy” as an assertion of authority.
Geoff Davis is 3 years older than Barack Obama.
Just for reference…
And it doesn’t bother me so much tha they are all hung up on the “boy” controversy as long as they keep ignoring the “Barack shouldn’t be near the button b/c I say I saw him act like a nervous nelly, but it was a doubleplusgood secret meeting, so there’s no way to verify anything I say.”
“(as noted above, I’d assume that “Hank Caldwell’s boy” is OK as long as the “boy” in question is Hank Caldwell’s son and not his gardener.)”
well, I don’t know if I’d give that one a pass either. I’ve most often heard it in the sense “that Miller boy” or even “Hank Caldwell’s boy” to ascribe to the person in question (of whatever age) any and all charachteristics of the parent/family. I’ve never heard it used in a positive sense, most often I’ve heard it to imply ‘that Miller boy, just like his daddy/uncle/whoever, lazy no good theif’ even when the ‘boy’ in question has gone off to ‘make something’ of themselves.
So if nothing else it still is all about dehumanizing the person being referred to.
I realize that this is an impossible argument to enter into, but - Davis is not from the South. He is from Montreal, which I beeeleeve is somewhere to the North. He was not raised to call anybody “boy”. His mimicry of the Southern “boy” phrase was about as overt as you can get. Generally, he sticks with the term “guy”. If you go to Factiva, take a glance at quotes from Cincinatti papers of Davis over the years, you’ll never find a boy. You will find guy.
I do wish the fact that he is from MONTREAL would penetrate. This was an intentional racist stunt. Having grown up in the suburbs of Atlanta, I am pretty familiar with the Northern bigot who moves south and happily adopts the language he’s seen in movies used by Southern bigots. They are gross people.
For goodness sake, I’m in the UK and I know this is racist! I find it just gob-smacking that anyone could claim otherwise with a straight face. It is so widely known to be a racist insult that I would dare anyone to go into Brixton (in London) and call a black man “boy” and see what happened.
As a native of Kentucky, I can assure all that the use of the term “boy” in this instance is an insult.
And let’s be clear, this isn’t some “good ol’ boy” forgetting himself. Geoff Davis is a native of Canada and attended college in Pittsburgh.
This is the opening salvo in the battle for the Presidency and the not-so-subtle racism that Barack Obama and all of us will be having to endure.
I have family in the south, grew up in SW Ohio and live in Northern VA/DC. I’ve heard “boy” used in several contexts.
1. From an older man to a much younger one. Can be either denigrating or affectionate teasing from an older family member to a younger.
2. Between friends kidding each other. (”That boy ain’t right!”) A variation of this is the usage “Good ol’ boy.”
3. Or from a white person denigrating a black man.
Davis isn’t that much older than Obama, and they’re not good friends kidding each other. That leaves choice 3 doesn’t it?
I am from the south (Virginia) and currently live on the Northern Neck of Virginia a very rural area (in this five county area there is not one shoping mall, movie theather or Starbucks) and let me tell you calling a back man “boy” is racist, even calling a black male child “boy” is racist. It is not only true here in the south, but is true anywhere in this country, and to pretend otherwise is ignorant and foolish.
That “boy” who made that remark should go home to his momma and get his mouth washed out with soap.
Just beat the racist apologists about the head with MLK’s letter from a Birmingham jail and be done with it. That’s what I’ve been doing.
Maybe it’s just a guy thing.
Watch Pardon the Interruption on ESPN sometime. Everyone is everybody’s boy: Kobe is your boy, Wilbon. Clemons is your boy, Kornholer.
Or, watch Old School sometime: You’re my boy, Blue!
U2 also has an album called Boy. Wham! used to wear Boy t-shirts.
It’s used as a diminutive and an affectionate context.
There’s also a racial connotation, but it’s practically archaic.
It’s not uncommon to hear the word “boy” used to describe a white adult male i.e. “when those boys get to drinkin’ they really raise hell.” See, also “frat boy.”
I think Bill Clinton, referring to Obama and Edwards said that “those boys are tough” on Hillary a few months back.
Davis unquestionably wasn’t connoting anything nice about Obama, but it’s not an unambigously racist statement.
I predict that before November, somebody will make a “watermelon gaffe.” Or possibly Woodpile-gate.
Mitchforth and kevin, those have to be the most pathetic attempts to excuse this I’ve read. All of those uses of the word “boy” or “boys” are entirely context specific. What do you think is the contextual excuse for what Davis said?
If Mitchforth doesn’t believe Gefferson Davis’ use of “boy” is racist, it must be even more racist than we realize…
Standard Swahili is about 15 percent English. The Swahili term for “waiter” is “boi.” It certainly wasn’t Africans using an English word to denigrate adult male service workers. And do you think white Englishmen and women have ever called a white waiter in England “boy”? I think not.
I forgot Avril’s song Sk8ter Boi. I don’t think it’s derived from Standard Swahili in this case, actually.
English is a living language, so usage expands over time, far beyond the handful of examples I’ve provided.
Agreed 100% with Roger. It’s just not a turn of phrase that gets used up here in Canada, unless we’re aping a southern accent a la Hank Hill. I’ve never heard anyone use it in a “folksy” manner up here that could be confused as racist.
Kobe is your boy, Wilbon. Clemons is your boy, Kornholer.
Yeah, because that’s obviously the context of the remark.
Avril’s song Sk8ter Boi.
Since this song came out when Levigne was a teenager, I’d guess it’s meant to refer to someone who is an actual boy. Most teenage girls use “boy” to refer to young XY-chromosome bearers of their own age. Because they are, in fact, boys. Just like teenage girls tend to refer to themselves as “girls”, because that’s who they are.
There’s another aspect to the use of the word “boy” that hasn’t been mentioned, in the social dominance thing.
Who does *everyone* call “boy” no matter where you are in the country? (Or, alternately, *what*)
That’s right.
“Heeeere, boy!”
Goes real well with the notion of “dogwhistles.” Not so much with respect between human persons, though…
(The use of “girl” as contrasted with “man” by conservatives especially is its own specialness, but not in my experience regional at all.)
Well, parsing…but
He used the term in a description not an address.
As in, if I read it right…
“That boys finger on the trigger…”
Not
“Hey boy!, get yo ass ‘way from that ther trigger.”
And that makes it different somehow..to me.
But then this hyah boy’s always wrong, so…
I guess I’ll stop sending my pittance every month to
Obama ‘08.
[Damn!, an’ I really liked him.]
Thanks, has_te.
Now I’ve got Jackie Gleason’s “performance” as the redneck sheriff in Smokey and the Bandit stuck in my head.
Thanks.
Thanks a lot…
OK, here’s a quick and dirty way around all of this. Imagine this sentence referring to any former president. You can’t? Oh, right.
That’s because it’s racist.
Kentuckian here.
It should be pointed out that Geoff Davis is not a native Kentuckian–in fact, he’s from Quebec. I don’t recall how long he was around before he got elected, but IIRC it wasn’t that long.
His district is also far from stereotypically Southern. He represents Northern Kentucky, aka Baja Ohio. There are a few rural counties out on the edges of the district but the vast majority of his voters are Cincinnati suburbanites.
There is a 0% chance that this was anything but an insult. As I see it, there are two possibilities. The kinder interpretation is that Davis accidentally said what he was really thinking, and honestly didn’t mean to go there. The other possibility is that he did it on purpose as a shout out to his overwhelmingly white (something like 94%) district.
I lean toward the second possibility.
Well, I’ve lived my entire life in Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina. Sometimes, albeit rarely, “boy” is used in a non-denigrating fashion. As noted above:
“(as noted above, I’d assume that “Hank Caldwell’s boy” is OK as long as the “boy” in question is Hank Caldwell’s son and not his gardener.)”
I call my son boy affectionately as do my in-laws. Of course, he’s 2.
Also, comments like “that boy can drive” or “that boy can hunt” are used in complementary terms - but only by whites in reference to whites; as is “I saw the neighbor boy walking his dog this morning.”
Mostly any reference by a white to a black male of any age as “boy” or female as “girl” as well, is blatantly derogatory. I can think of maybe a few instances in high school sports when a black teen on the team did well and the coach or other players would give him an “atta boy,” but that was common to say to all team members. Also, I’ve seen a group of male friends where say, one of them was black and the others were white, and they all called each other boy indiscriminately.
I however, would never in a million years consider calling a black person boy or girl. And it would probably have resulted in my mom saying “young lady, go pick out a switch” if I ever had done so in my life.
It was never used as an epithet. The diminutive context can have a possessive aspect of it, and it was certainly used to refer to slaves.
It’s probably demeaning when referenced toward someone in a servile position, like a waiter or a janitor. There is a hint of racial menace when someone in a position of authority uses it toward a subservient.
If a manager referred to a black employee as “boy” that would be racist. If a cop referred to a black man he had pulled over in a traffic stop as “boy” that would be intimidating.
It is disrespectful when used in place of a proper name. “Boy, where’s my fritatta?”
In a context such as “that boy is crazy” or “you can’t trust that boy,” it may not necessarily be complimentary, but I don’t think it carries a racial implication.
I can easily imagine it being used to describe Kennedy, Clinton or Bush.
“In a context such as “that boy is crazy” or “you can’t trust that boy,” it may not necessarily be complimentary, but I don’t think it carries a racial implication.”
“I can easily imagine it being used to describe Kennedy, Clinton or Bush.”
And again, Mitchforth proves that this tactic will work for the Rethugs.
The racist wording was bad. The implication that Obama is unqualified or incapable is worse. Much worse. And yet that aspect, along with the racist phrasing, goes right through without the MSM noticing it.
Come November: “You know, I just get this feeling that Obama just isn’t up to the pressures of being president. But McCain, hell - he was a goddam prisoner in Vietnam! He must have balls of steel!…”
…and somewhere in Hell, Lee Atwater gives a great big grin - just before being doused with another well-deserved dose of fire-’n-brimstone…
What about “Kenny Boy” Lay?
Very, very racist in my opinion.
You know, I don’t think that, in this context, it really matters how steeped in Southern culture you have to be to justify the “boy” reference one or the other way. This was an elected representative using a culturally and historically fucked-up term. In other words, someone who should know better. There’s simply no apology for that, no matter how many sociolinguistic contrivances the spin doctors want to leverage.
“What about “Kenny Boy” Lay?”
If it was self-chosen, whatever he wants. If it wasn’t, it’s insulting. Of course, Ken Lay was just another rich white asshole, so racism wouldn’t figure.
Until he was convicted, the current administration had a guy in a key position who wanted to be called “Scooter”. I don’t know (or care) why, but that’s what he wanted. I think it was stupid, but it’s not my business.
If Obama wanted to be called “Boy”, and made this clear, hey, it’s fine with me. So if you can prove that’s what Obama wants, we’ll all back off and shut up.
Otherwise, it’s incredibly obvious that a white guy, living in the South, who calls a prominent Black man “boy” is intending racism. Period.
Pretty damn simple…
“Otherwise, it’s incredibly obvious that a white guy, living in the South, who calls a prominent Black man “boy” is intending racism. Period.”
Semicolon. Or, perhaps, when a prominent elected white politician repeatedly taunts someone by calling them Kenny Boy, as in Senator Fritz Hollings and Ken Lay.
Or, Boy George.
Flavor Flav: Yeah, bouy.
Various Cabana Boys.
Etc. etc. etc.
Who was it who sang that racist anthem, Let’s hear it for the boy. Let’s give the boy a hand…?
kevin, I suggest you find the nearest Black man and refer to him as “bouy”. Ask to rub his head to really cap off the experience.
If he’s in a charitable mood, he will carefully explain why it’s insulting and ask that you not do it again.
If he isn’t, well, as the saying goes “A learning experience is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted.”
Hopefully a harsh encounter will disabuse you of the ignorant opinion that “boy” is somehow always race neutral because some people somewhere used it once…
Or when referenced toward someone that the speaker thinks should be in a servile position rather than being in one above the speaker. Either that, or you think that someone who refers to, say, Tiger Woods as “boy” couldn’t possibly do it for a racist reason since Woods is clearly in a superior position to most white people who would say it.
In one of her books, Linda Ellerbee told a legend that went around newspapers in New York about a name change that happened with a subordinate position in the newsroom.
It used to be, when your copy was ready to be taken to the editor at the New York Times, you would call out “Boy!” for one of the copyboys to come running and take it from you.
This changed the day that the Times hired a few new people in the copyboy positions, and one of them decked the reporter who called him “boy.” From then on, the Times would yell “Copy!” like most other newsrooms in the country.
But, hey, they didn’t mean anything by it, so there was no reason for the copyboy to get upset. Let’s all go have some Coon’s Chicken!
Well, it’s not anywhere close to as bad as when mnemosyne refers to poor whites as “Crackers.”
At least with boy there are other uses of the word; crackers, not so much beyond the food item and the bigot’s usage.
Various Cabana Boys.
I think Kevin is my new favorite troll.
Seriously, he brings up ‘cabana boy’ as a non-fucked-up use of the word ‘boy’ for an adult man.
What’s next “pool boy”?
Is Kentucky deep south now?
Well, it’s not anywhere close to as bad as when mnemosyne refers to poor whites as “Crackers.”
Yes, that’s right, when I refer to my fellow whites as “crackers” and Flavor Flav refers to his fellow black men as “boy,” that’s exactly the same thing as a white US Representative referring to a black US Senator as “boy.”
Tell me, are you this stupid naturally, or did it require a head injury of some kind?
“Tell me, are you this stupid naturally, or did it require a head injury of some kind?”
kevin is another
tragic victimchronic abuser of wingnut Koolaid.So, yes, self-inflicted “head injury”…
I’m glad we finally agree. Both of you are condescending towards those to whom you feel superior. Classic hate speech.
mnemosyne: As bigoted as you think…
I grew up in Florida (getting near 50 now) and my dad’s family is from Kentucky and I can assure you, when spoken with regard to a black man, it means Nigger! In this case, it means “uppity nigger”.
Another innocent example to disprove the theory: “That boy’s good!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoS8j9eNMZU&feature=related
Ah, Kevin, you really are the salt of the earth. Or, as it was so lovingly spelled out in one of the greatest American films of all time:
“You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.”
Jesus Christ, Kevin. Could you be more obtuse?
When, o tell me, did African Americans ever enslave whites and yell at them, “Hey cracker, dig that ditch faster or I’m gonna whup yew agin!”. When o when did African American EVER own whites?????
“Cracker” is in no fucking way any-fucking-where close to calling an African American “boy.”
The history, the historical power dynamic, the context of the idiot representative’s remark, IN CONTEXT, AS WELL AS HIS SUBSEQUENT APOLOGY, should be a big fucking clue stick for you, you fucking idiot.
And don’t “class” us - I grew up poor in the south. I know damn well what “boy” means in this context. And I never-never-never heard anyone use the term cracker UNLESS it was my relatives who, like me, were born in Georgia and called them-own-damn-selves “cracker” - as in “Georgia Cracker.”
You need to go take some fucking linguistics classes. It’s ALL ABOUT CONTEXT.
Fucking nitpicking concern-trolling dumbass.
Did I leave anything out?
I think Kevin left out Amos Moses, where the Cajun alligator hunter is called “the boy’ a couple of times.
And now Jerry Reed is singing it in my head. Thank you verrrry much.
I grew up in WV (the part right next door to Kentucky) and ‘boy’ has exactly the same usage there as in Texas and everywhere else. You just do not refer to a black man as ‘boy’ unless you are a really old white guy who doesn’t know any better or you’re a racist ass (which a lot of the old why guys are as well).
And as for Mnem’s use of ‘cracker.’ It isn’t even remotely the same thing. I come from poor Appalachian hillbillies and rednecks, etc., and we’ll refer to ourselves as crackers, trailer trash, etc., quite frequently. It’s more like black people calling each other ‘nigger’ or Dan Savage calling other gay guys ‘fags’. In those contexts, it isn’t that big a deal. It isn’t even really that big a deal if a black man/woman calls me a ‘cracker’ or something similar, because their people haven’t historically owned and oppressed mine.
However, if I, a very white woman, were to call some random black guy (or Obama or anyone else) ‘nigger’, that would make me a racist ass. Because my people have historically owned and oppressed theirs. Hell, my ancestors even fought and died in a war for the right to own and oppress theirs. It is definitely all about context.
Sing it, sister.
I wonder if we’re related…. Seriously.
It’s still okay to call textile workers you don’t know ‘Sweetie’ though, right?
What is this, “Norma Rae”?
kevin, I suggest you find the nearest Black man and refer to him as “bouy”.
If he really wanted to get the racist thrill without the danger, he could call the guy a “buoy.” It would be a dogwhistle so high-pitched even dogs couldn’t hear it.
Oh, kevin’s never going to let go of the fact that I once said “cracker” because he’s desperate to cover up what I actually said in that comment, which was that all of the cracker farmers in downstate Illinois voted for Obama in droves. That’s right, the people that Rush Limbaugh claims he understands inside and out voted for the black Democrat and gave him a 70%+ majority.
Kevin can’t possibly let it get out that a Democrat can get past someone’s initial prejudices and win their vote, because then the entire Republican experiment collapses and the Southern Strategy loses the power it once had.
Do the cracker farmers grow Saltines or Ritz crackers? Or them fancy Waverly Wafers?
And what do the seeds look like?
Do they use an all-in-one combine harvester that puts the crackers directly in packages? That’s cool.
It’s not really an epithet as much as it is a connotation of possession, which really shows how antiquated it is.
Someone could very easily go through life entirely unaware of the racist connotation of the word “boy.” It’s not heavily used in pop culture. Maybe once or twice, I’ve seen a menacing cop call a black guy “boy” on network television where racist characters can’t use real epithets.
In fact, the only time I’ve really heard it used to indicate racist intent is when it’s used in place of a name, as in “Boy, fetch me another mint julep” or “Best watch your step, Boy, we don’t like your kind,” or “Step out the car and put ya’lls hands on the hood, Boy.”
I’ve seen waiters referred to as “the boy” and maids referred to as “the girl.” I think that is impolite, and it makes me uncomfortable, but I don’t think that’s exclusively used to denote a black waiter or maid.
Personally, I have never heard the word “boy” used in the third person as an epithet. I’ve heard it to describe, for example athletes “that boy sure can knock down free throws,” and in that context someone might also refer to the athlete as a “kid” which has no racial connotation that I am aware of.
I have never thought of “boy” as being synonymous with an epithet like “n*****” and “boy” has lots of other connotations, i.e. frat boy, pool boy, copy boy, good ol’ boy, you’re my boy, white boy, etc.
I can’t think of any nefarious reason for Davis to drop “boy” in describing Obama. It’s not a “dog whistle.” Everyone has already noticed that Barack Obama is black.
I think Davis probably meant to be condescending and dismissive of Obama’s abilities in referring to him as a “boy,” and I think Bill Clinton intended the same thing when he used the plural “boys” to refer to Obama and John Edwards. I don’t think it was intended as an epithet.
Maybe it indicates some subconscious bias, one of those weird things like the George Allen “macaca” gaffe. But “boy” has a lot of meanings. I think Davis insulting Obama is just a convenient distraction from Obama insulting Pennsylvania voters.
Anyway, the proper channel of attack on Obama is not that he is black. That’s one hundred percent to backfire, and muddy the speaker and generate sympathy for Obama. The correct way to hit Obama is to highlight his liberalism, his elitism, his arrogance, his condescension and his disconnectedness.
He’s like John Kerry, except he’s not a war hero, he won’t wear a flag pin or eat a cheese steak, and his preacher loves Louis Farrakhan.
Farmers are likely to vote for Obama in November as well. Those guys are the most rational, interest based voters in the country and they back the candidate who will hook them up with their subsidies.
McCain doesn’t play ball with them, which is why he doesn’t bother campaigning in Iowa caucuses.
Gee, kevin, so because “crazy” can sometimes be used to mean wild or fun or daring instead of mentally unbalanced, I can say, without any insult whatsoever intended:
kevin is just plain crazy to think it was non-racist to call Obama boy in that context.
Crazy kevin.
Being from northern Canada, myself, “‘boy” means almost nothing to me–but I trust the people who actually live where it is or has been part of the lexicon to tell me what it means. And I remember a scene in a civil-rights era movie in which a white cop called a black middle-aged church pastor that, and the extreme disrespect in the way he used the term made me want to punch the white character in the face. So–nope, not buying that it was an innocent use of the phrase.
Being from northern Canada, myself, “‘boy” means almost nothing to me–but I trust the people who actually live where it is or has been part of the lexicon to tell me what it means.
You don’t even have to be from around here to know that it sounds odd. Normal people simply don’t go around calling each other boy or girl in a buddy-like way. The only two people I know who do that are a brother and sister who call each other Boy and Girl. Amanda was exactly right in her post; you simply do not address a stranger and an equal in that manner.
For someone with no real relationship with a person to call him “boy” is straight up weird, which is what gives so much credence to the idea that Davis is utilizing an old-school racial epithet. Sure, except for in the super deep south, a racist under the age of 40 probably wouldn’t use “boy” that way, but there are still plenty of people living who did, and as another commenter mentioned, it lives on in pop culture references, allowing you to know that the tv cop is a good-ol-boy racist redneck without using the the dreaded n-word.
It never ceases to amaze me at how many people call other people “boy” and not be bothered by its meaning.
To this Aiken, South Carolina native, calling a man a “boy” is an insult, no matter what. Commissioner Marion Williams of Augusta, Ga. called fellow Commissioner Joe Bowles a “boy” during one of their heated meetings at the Commission office.
Gah. I grew up five seconds away from Davis.
And boy is definitely an insult.
Here in Mississippi, “boy” among rural white folks and among some black folks (mainly young and urban, in my experience) can be congenial. Usually it’s spoken in the third person. e.g., “That boy can really shoot, lemme tell you, I went huntin’ with him a few weeks ago and…” Listen to some Jerry Clower and you’ll hear “boy” used in this way a good bit.
But this is ONLY appropriate in contexts of relative intimacy. You never say “boy” about somebody you don’t like, and when you do, it’s always an insult. In this way it’s sort of like the Hindi ap/tum distinction–if you use the “tum” terminology, it either means you know the person well or you don’t respect the person enough to use the more honorific term.
And non-intimate CROSS-RACIAL use of “boy” is always insulting, at least in every context I ever remember hearing it, given the word’s obvious history as a racial slur. The idea that any white person with a room temperature IQ would drop “boy” into a conversation about a person of color he doesn’t know well and doesn’t like and not expect it to at least potentially come across as racist is kind of stupid.
And saying “I don’t want that boy to have his finger on the nuclear button,” or however the guy worded it, definitely sounds like a racial slur–though the part about not trusting Obama with the same nuclear button wielded by (among others) Bill Clinton strikes me as much more racist than the actual use of the word “boy.”
Hi:
I’m from a border state, where some of us are proud that we seceded from the secessionist south. Around here “boy” is often used generically, as in “What are you boys up to this evening?” when walking up to a fire at a party (and hoping there was a bottle of ’shine in the answer!)
I’m also sometimes called “honey” by the older gentleman at the hardware store when he asks me what he can do to help me out. He’s like 15 or 20 years older than me, and I’m 50ish. So honey is gender neutral, and boy isn’t always racist or insulting, at least in my neighborhood, which is WAY rural.
Language in these hills is very old fashioned, and my older neighbors (who are most all dead now) spoke in almost Elizabethan terms, using meandered pronounced as mindered, for example. This was a wonderful place to live for someone interested in the history of language.
I’m not saying “boy” isn’t used in a hateful way in other places, by other folks, but, really, my neighbors would rather spit on their Mom’s floor than be rude.
All that said, I do believe that the political boys using the term boy for a man of color running for national office are low as pond scum. I’m with Tom Head on that!!
JR