Words you don't know have Racist Root in American #Racism

Racism is the marginalization and/or oppression of people of colour based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.

Here are the phrases which you should know are offensive to an African American person:

1. Tipping point

In the late 1950s, this phrase was commonly used by the Whites and it means a point of no return or a force of change. “Tipping point” described the “white flight,” when white families moved away from neighbourhoods that had a large number of Black residents, according to Merriam-Webster.

For instance, in a 1958 letter to the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Will Maslow, a civil rights leader and former director of the American Jewish Congress, wrote, “The percentage of minority occupancy that initiates withdrawal of other tenants has been denominated the ‘tipping point.'”

2. Peanut gallery

The peanut gallery is the top gallery in a theatre where the cheaper seats are located. It is reported that most Americans use this term to describe hecklers.

However, the phrase came about in the 19th century in Vaudeville theaters. The “peanut gallery” referred to the worst seats in the house, typically in the very back, where Black people were forced to sit. Peanuts were sold at the shows (much like they are at modern- day baseball games), and if the performances were bad, sometimes the audience would throw peanuts.

3. Call a spade a spade

If you have ever thought that this popular expression which means to “say it like it is,” is about a gardening tool, you got it wrong.

Variations of this phrase date back to 120 A.D. with the ancient Greek phrase, “to call a fig a fig and a trough a trough.” But, it took on a racist slant during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, when a “spade” became a derogatory slur for a Black person, according to NPR.

4. Uppity

This word is often thought to be synonymous with the term arrogant but it has a racist connotation. It was first written in the Uncle Remus series of Black folk tales published in the 1880s by Joel Chandler Harris. Later on, white supremacists would use it to describe “insolent” Black people who were lynched for “not knowing their place,” according to PBS.

Even today, the word still lingers: Former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama have been called “uppity” by critics.

5. Grandfathered in

In America, companies often use the “grandfather clause” to mean that you are exempted from a set of rules even after new laws or terms are put into place. For instance, if you have a membership or plan that raises its prices, you would be able to pay the same amount because you’re “grandfathered in,” while new members would have to pay a higher rate to join.

And what you also may not realize is that the phrase is actually rooted in slavery. It is said that after the 15th Amendment was ratified on Feb. 3, 1870, prohibiting racial discrimination in voting, several Southern states created the “grandfather clause” to disenfranchise Black voters. The “grandfather clause” stated that requirements (such as literacy tests and poll taxes) were suspended for anyone eligible to vote on or before Jan. 1, 1867, as well as their descendants. But, since Black people were not legally allowed to vote until 1870, they were excluded.

6. Sold down the river

Today, this expression signifies betrayal, but really, it is a reference to slaves who were literally sold down the Mississippi or Ohio Rivers to cotton plantations in the Deep South, according to NPR. Louisville, Kentucky, was at the heart of this horror, being one of the country’s biggest slave-trading marketplaces throughout the first half of the 19th century.

7. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

This is considered to be a children’s counting rhyme which has existed since 1820. But the lyrics changed from the original iteration as seen in The Counting-out Rhymes of Children: Their Antiquity, Origin, and Wide Distribution, a Study in Folk-lore (published in 1888), the rhyme which means the “tiger” that was caught by the toe was actually originally the N-word. This version of the rhyme was popular during slavery, when it was used to describe slave selection or punishment for runaway slaves, according to Vox.