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 1950s and early 1960s 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 in the late 1940s and early 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.
A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other areas of the city. Versions of such restricted areas have been found across the world, each with their own names, classifications, and groupings of people.
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:
The Black Arts Movement (BAM) was an African American-led art movement that was active during the 1960s and 1970s. Through activism and art, BAM created new cultural institutions and conveyed a message of black pride. The movement expanded from the incredible accomplishments of artists of the Harlem Renaissance.
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, but 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.
"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.
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 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) meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination". Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial justice, sexism and 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 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 and is clueless about racial and social issues", according to the Black Lives Matter leadership. For this reason, "Becky" is often associated with the slang term "basic" which has many similar connotations.
Karen is a pejorative term used as slang typically for a middle-class white woman who is perceived as entitled or demanding beyond the scope of what is normal. 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.
