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Honky (also spelled honkie or even honkey) is a derogatory term used to refer to white people, [1] predominantly heard in the United States.
The first recorded use of "honky" in this context may date back to 1946, [2] [3] although the use of "honky-tonk" occurred in films well before that time.
The exact origins of the word are generally unknown and postulations about the subject vary.
Honky may be a variant of hunky , which was a derivative of Bohunk , a slur for various Slavic and Hungarian immigrants who moved to America from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the early 1900s. [4]
Honky may also derive from the term "xonq nopp" which, in the West African language Wolof, literally means "red-eared person". The term may have originated with Wolof-speaking people brought to the U.S. [5] It has been used by Black Americans as a pejorative for white people. [6]
The phrase honky-tonk refers to a particular type of country music, most commonly provided at bars for its patrons, or more commonly, may even refer to the bar itself. [7]
Honky may have come from coal miners in Oak Hill, West Virginia. The miners were segregated; Blacks in one section, English-speaking whites in another. Foreigners who could not speak English, mostly whites, were separated from both groups into an area known as "Hunk Hill". These male laborers were known as "Hunkies". [8]
The term may have begun in the meat packing plants of Chicago. According to Robert Hendrickson, author of the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, Black workers in Chicago meatpacking plants picked up the term from white workers and began applying it indiscriminately to all whites. [9]
Honky was adopted as a pejorative in 1967 by Black Power militants within Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) seeking a rebuttal for the term nigger . The Department of Defense stated in 1967 that National Chairman of the SNCC, H. Rap Brown, told a Black audience in Cambridge that "You should burn that school down and then go take over the honkie's school" on June 24, 1967. Brown went on to say: "[I]f America don't come 'round, we got to burn it down. You better get some guns, brother. The only thing the honky respects is a gun. You give me a gun and tell me to shoot my enemy, I might shoot Lady Bird." [10]
Honky has occasionally been used even for white allies of African Americans, as seen in the 1968 trial of Black Panther Party member Huey Newton, when fellow Panther Eldridge Cleaver created pins for Newton's white supporters stating "Honkies for Huey". [11]
"Father of the Blues" W. C. Handy wrote of "Negroes and hunkies" in his autobiography. [12]
In the 2012 rap song "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis ft. Wanz, "Damn, that's a cold ass honkey!" is used in reference to Macklemore and his secondhand clothes. Eminem, who is also a white American rapper, uses the line "He looked at me and said, 'You gonna die, honkey!'" in 1999's "Brain Damage." "Play That Funky Music," a 1976 disco/funk hit by Wild Cherry about a rock band adapting to the rise of disco, substitutes "honky" for "white boy" in the final chorus of the uncensored version. [13] The British band Hot Chocolate used "honky" and "spook" in their controversial 1973 hit single "Brother Louie" about an interracial relationship as the terms chosen by the respective fathers to slur their child's newfound lover.
Other uses of "honky" in music include Honky (an album by Melvins), Honky Reduction (an album by Agoraphobic Nosebleed), MC Honky (DJ stage persona), Honky Château (an album by Elton John, the first track on which is "Honky Cat"), Talkin' Honky Blues (an album by Buck 65), and Honky (an album by Keith Emerson). Honky's Ladder is a 1996 EP by The Afghan Whigs.
The Chicago style of polka music is also known as honky polka. [14] The etymologically connection remains unclear, but the word "honky-tonk" occurs often in country music, referring since the late 19th century to working-class nightclubs where country music is played. [15]
In 2022 Hank Williams Jr. released a blues album Rich White Honky Blues.
In film, there were some movies using "honky" without any derogatory connotation. Honky Tonk is a 1929 American musical film starring Sophie Tucker. And Honky Tonk is also a 1941 black-and-white Western film starring Clark Gable and Lana Turner.
Honky is a 1971 movie based on an interracial relationship, starring Brenda Sykes as Sheila Smith and John Neilson as Wayne "Honky" Devine. Honky Tonk is also a 1974 Western film starring Richard Crenna and Margot Kidder. Additionally, Honkytonk Man is a 1982 drama film set in the Great Depression. Clint Eastwood, who produced and directed the film, stars in the film with his son, Kyle Eastwood.
In a sketch on Saturday Night Live (SNL), Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor used both nigger (Chase) and honky (Pryor) in reference to one another during a "racist word association interview". [16] During this period, Steve Martin (as musical guest and stand-up regular on SNL) performed a rendition of "King Tut" which contained the word honky in its lyrics.
On the TV series Barney Miller , Season 5, Episode 8, "Loan Shark", Arthur Dietrich gives an etymology of the word "honky", claiming it was "coined by Blacks in the 1950s in reference to the nasal tone of Caucasians". [17]
On the TV series The Jeffersons , George Jefferson regularly referred to a white person as a honky (or whitey) as did Redd Foxx on Sanford and Son . This word would later be popularized in episodes of Mork & Mindy by Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters.
These and other shows, as exemplified by the controversial All in the Family , attempted to expose racism and prejudice as an issue in society using the subversive weapon of humor. However, the effect that this theme had on television created both negative and positive criticism[ citation needed ] and the use of anti-racist messages actually escalates the use of racial slurs. [18] The presence of higher education may countermand this effect. [19]
Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes, usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.
In the English language, Nigger is a racial slur directed at black people. Starting in the 1990s, references to nigger have been increasingly replaced by the euphemism "the N-word", notably in cases where nigger is mentioned but not directly used. In an instance of linguistic reappropriation, the term nigger is also used casually and fraternally among African Americans, most commonly in the form of nigga, whose spelling originated from the phonological system of African-American English.
A honky-tonk is both a bar that provides country music for the entertainment of its patrons and the style of music played in such establishments. It can also refer to the type of piano used to play such music. Bars of this kind are common in the South and Southwest United States. Many eminent country music artists, such as Jimmie Rodgers, Ernest Tubb, Lefty Frizzell, Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Johnny Horton, and Merle Haggard, began their careers as amateur musicians in honky-tonks.
Anderson Meade "Lux" Lewis was an American pianist and composer, remembered for his playing in the boogie-woogie style. His best-known work, "Honky Tonk Train Blues", has been recorded by many artists.
William Ballard Doggett was an American pianist and organist. He began his career playing swing music before transitioning into rhythm and blues. Best known for his instrumental compositions "Honky Tonk" and "Hippy Dippy", Doggett was a pioneer of rock and roll. He worked with the Ink Spots, Johnny Otis, Wynonie Harris, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Jordan.
Colored is a racial descriptor historically used in the United States during the Jim Crow Era to refer to an African American. In many places, it may be considered a slur, though it has taken on a special meaning in Southern Africa referring to a person of mixed or Cape Coloured heritage.
Charles Arthur Feathers was an American musician most associated with the rockabilly scene of the 1950s. Although not initially recognized for his contributions to rockabilly, over time his presence would become greatly elevated and he has been cited as an influence by a number of musicians.
In the United States, there have been several controversies involving the misunderstanding of the word niggardly, an adjective meaning "stingy" or "miserly", because of its phonetic similarity to nigger, an ethnic slur used against black people. Although the two words are etymologically unrelated, niggardly is nonetheless often replaced with a synonym. People have sometimes faced backlash for using the word.
Kaffir, also spelled Cafri, is an exonym and an ethnic slur – the use of it in reference to black people being particularly common in South Africa. In Arabic, the word kāfir ("unbeliever") was originally applied to non Muslims before becoming predominantly focused on pagan zanj who were increasingly used as slaves. During the Age of Exploration in early modern Europe, variants of the Latin term cafer were adopted in reference to non-Muslim Bantu peoples even when they were monotheistic. It was eventually used, particularly in Afrikaans, for any black person during the Apartheid and Post-Apartheid eras, closely associated with South African racism, it became a pejorative by the mid-20th century and is now considered extremely offensive hate speech. Punishing continuing use of the term was one of the concerns of the Promotion of Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act enacted by the South African parliament in the year 2000 and it is now euphemistically addressed as the K-word in South African English.
Music history of the United States includes many styles of folk, popular and classical music. Some of the best-known genres of American music are rhythm and blues, jazz, rock and roll, rock, soul, hip hop, pop, and country. The history began with the Native Americans, the first people to populate North America.
Juke joint is the African American vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African Americans in the southeastern United States. A juke joint may also be called a "barrelhouse". The Jook was the first secular cultural arena to emerge among African American freedmen.
Chicago Wind is the fifty-eighth studio album by American country singer and songwriter Merle Haggard, released in 2005. It peaked at number 54 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. A video was made for the track "America First".
Honky is a derogatory term applied to people of the European descent in North America.
Joseph Denton "Jay" Miller was an American record producer and songwriter from Louisiana, whose Cajun, swamp blues, and swamp pop recordings influenced American popular culture.
Cracker, sometimes cracka or white cracker, is a racial epithet directed towards white people, used especially with regard to poor rural whites in the Southern United States. Although commonly a pejorative, it is also used in a neutral context, particularly in reference to a native of Florida or Georgia.
"With Apologies to Jesse Jackson" is the eleventh season premiere of the American animated television series South Park, and the 154th overall episode of the series. It first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on March 7, 2007, and was rated TV-MA-L. In the episode, Randy says the word niggers on the real-life game show Wheel of Fortune, leading to widespread public outrage. Stan attempts to understand the epithet's impact on his black friend Tolkien. Meanwhile, a man with dwarfism has a hard time trying to teach Cartman to be sensitive.
Coon songs were a genre of music that presented a stereotype of Black people. They were popular in the United States and Australia from around 1880 to 1920, though the earliest such songs date from minstrel shows as far back as 1848, when they were not yet identified with "coon" epithet. The genre became extremely popular, with white and Black men giving performances in blackface and making recordings. Women known as coon shouters also gained popularity in the genre.
"Little Miss Honky Tonk" is a song written by Ronnie Dunn, and recorded by American country music duo Brooks & Dunn. It was released in February 1995 as the third single from their album Waitin' on Sundown. The song reached the top of the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.
"Word Association", also called "Racist Word Association Interview,""Racist Word Association" and "Dead Honky", is a Saturday Night Live sketch first aired on December 13, 1975, featuring Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase.
1946 Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues xii. 216 First Cat: Hey there Poppa Mezz, is you anywhere? Me: Man I'm down with it, stickin' like a honky.
