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Question
#38729. Hamlet.
asks:
Why are white people sometimes called honkies, especially by black people?
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sequoianoir
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HONKY OR HONKIE - This derogatory term for white people probably evolved from "hunkies," according to two references. "Black Talk: Words and Phrases
from the Hood to the Amen Corner" by Geneva Smitherman (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1994): "Honky - a negative term for a white person. Probably derived and borrowed from the name-calling and expression of resentment by settled European Americans against central and Eastern Europeans immigrants, who were negatively referred to as 'hunkies' (from Hungarians). Blacks, in competition with these immigrants in the first half of the twentieth century, generalized the term to all whites. Also hunky."
Ditto for "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Fact on File, New York, 1997): "HONKIE; BOHUNK - 'Bohunk,' a low
expression for a Polish- or Hungarian-American, arose at the turn of the century, and is probably a blend of Bohemian and Hungarian (both Poles and Hungarians were called Bohemians). 'Bohunks' were also ' hunkies,' and black workers in the Chicago meat-packing plants probably pronounced this as 'honkie,' soon applying it as a derisive term not just for their Polish and Hungarian co-workers but for all whites."
In West Virginia "hunkie" means Italian-American
Sep 13 03, 7:59 AM
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