A nerd is a person seen as overly intellectual, obsessive, introverted, or lacking social skills. Such a person may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, little known, or non-mainstream activities, which are generally either highly technical, abstract, or relating to niche topics such as science fiction or fantasy, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities. Additionally, many so-called nerds are described as being shy, quirky, pedantic, and unattractive.
Beatniks were members of a social movement in the mid-20th century, who subscribed to an anti-materialistic lifestyle. They rejected the conformity and consumerism of mainstream American culture and expressed themselves through various forms of art, such as literature, poetry, music, and painting. They also experimented with spirituality, drugs, sexuality, and travel. The term "beatnik" was coined by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen in 1958, as a derogatory label for the followers of the Beat Generation, a group of influential writers and artists who emerged during the era of the Silent Generation's maturing, from as early as 1946 to as late as 1963, but the subculture was at its most prevalent in the 1950s. The name was inspired by the Russian suffix "-nik", which was used to denote members of various political or social groups. The term "beat" originally was used by Jack Kerouac in 1948 to describe his social circle of friends and fellow writers, such as Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady. Kerouac said that "beat" had multiple meanings, such as "beaten down", "beatific", "beat up", and "beat out". He also associated it with the musical term "beat", which referred to the rhythmic patterns of jazz, a genre that influenced many beatniks.
An African American is a citizen or resident of the United States who has origins in any of the black populations of Africa. African American-related topics include:
High yellow, occasionally simply yellow, is a term used to describe a light-skinned person of white and black ancestry. It is also used as a slang for those thought to have "yellow undertones". The term was in common use in the United States at the end of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century, and is reflected in such popular songs of the era as "The Yellow Rose of Texas".
Rudolph John Chauncey Fisher was an American physician, radiologist, novelist, short story writer, dramatist, musician, and orator. His father was John Wesley Fisher, a clergyman, his mother was Glendora Williamson Fisher, and he had two siblings. Fisher married Jane Ryder, a school teacher from Washington, D.C. in 1925, and they had one son, Hugh, who was born in 1926 and was also nicknamed "The New Negro" as a tribute to the Harlem renaissance. Fisher had a successful career as an innovative doctor and author, who discussed the dynamics and relationships of Black and White people living in Harlem. This racial conflict was a central theme in many of his works.
In the United States, acting white is a pejorative term, usually applied to Black people, which refers to a person's perceived betrayal of their culture by assuming the social expectations of white society. It can be applied to success in education, though this view is highly debated. In 2020, 93.6% of African-Americans between 25 and 39 had a high school diploma, on par with the national average, though African-Americans have a higher tendency to drop out from college than their white peers.
In linguistics, reappropriation, reclamation, or resignification is the cultural process by which a group reclaims words or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. It is a specific form of a semantic change. Linguistic reclamation can have wider implications in the fields of discourse and has been described in terms of personal or sociopolitical empowerment.
White nigger, sometimes shortened to wigger, is an ethnic slur referring to a White American whose behaviors and mannerisms are similar to Black Americans. It was primarily used to refer to a lower-class White American by upper-class White Americans. The term nigger is a racial slur that refers to a Black American, typically one of low socio-economic status.
"New Negro" is a term popularized during the Harlem Renaissance implying a more outspoken advocacy of dignity and a refusal to submit quietly to the practices and laws of Jim Crow racial segregation. The term "New Negro" was made popular by Alain LeRoy Locke in his anthology The New Negro.
Stereotypes of African Americans are misleading beliefs about the culture of people with partial or total ancestry from any black racial groups of Africa whose ancestors resided in the United States since before 1865, largely connected to the racism and the discrimination to which African Americans are subjected. These beliefs date back to the slavery of black people during the colonial era and they have evolved within American society.
The origin of the word jazz is one of the most sought-after etymologies in modern American English. Interest in the word – named the Word of the Twentieth Century by the American Dialect Society – has resulted in considerable research and the linguistic history is well documented. "Jazz" originated in slang around 1912 on the West Coast. The meaning varied, but the word did not initially refer to music. "Jazz" came to mean jazz music in Chicago around 1915.
Race records is a term for 78-rpm phonograph records marketed to African Americans between the 1920s and 1940s. They primarily contained race music, comprising various African-American musical genres, blues, jazz, and gospel music, rhythm and blues and also comedy. These records were, at the time, the majority of commercial recordings of African American artists in the U.S., and few African American artists were marketed to white audiences. Race records were marketed by Okeh Records, Emerson Records, Vocalion Records, Victor Talking Machine Company, Paramount Records, and several other companies.
The Ways of White Folks is a collection of fourteen short stories by Langston Hughes, published in 1934. Hughes wrote the book during a year he spent living in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. The collection addresses multiple dimensions of racial issues, focusing specifically on the unbalanced yet interdependent power dynamics between Black and White people. According to Hughes, the short stories are inspired either by his own lived experiences or those of others he encountered.
Jive talk, also known as Harlem jive or simply Jive, the argot of jazz, jazz jargon, vernacular of the jazz world, slang of jazz, and parlance of hip is an African-American Vernacular English slang or vocabulary that developed in Harlem, where "jive" (jazz) was played and was adopted more widely in African-American society, peaking in the 1940s.
Mister Charlie is a pejorative expression formerly used within the African-American community to refer to an imperious white man. Occasionally, it refers to a black man who is arrogant and perceived as "acting white". The term is sometimes written as Mr. Charlie, Mister Charley, or other variations. The expression is rarely used by young African-Americans in the 21st century.
The African-American LGBT community, otherwise referred to as the Black American LGBT community, is part of the overall LGBT culture and overall African-American culture. The initialism LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.
Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) originally meaning alertness to racial prejudice and discrimination. Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights. Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States.
Becky is a female nickname for Rebecca. In some areas of popular culture, the name is a pejorative American slang term for a young white woman. The term has come to be associated with a "white girl who loves Starbucks and Uggs"; for this reason, "Becky" is often associated with the slang term "basic", which has many similar connotations.
Karen is a term used as slang typically for a middle-class white American woman who is perceived as entitled or excessively demanding. The term is often portrayed in memes depicting middle-class white women who "use their white and class privilege to demand their own way". Depictions include demanding to "speak to the manager", being racist, or wearing a particular bob cut hairstyle. It was popularized in the aftermath of the Central Park birdwatching incident in 2020.
