# Black Panthers coin the term pig **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [April 8, 2019, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227 "2019-04-08T16:30:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ciofoci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecccb3/32.png) [@ciofoci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ciofoci)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/1 "2019-04-08T16:30:09Z")
I read with interest your article on slang for cops: The Straight Dope: > **[Why are the police called cops, pigs, or the fuzz?](https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2209/why-are-the-police-called-cops-pigs-or-the-fuzz/)** > > A STAFF REPORT FROM THE STRAIGHT DOPE SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD the term, “pig” reappeared as a term for police, not because of Hippies or the lawless but because of the Black Panthers, particularly Huey P. Newton. I don’t think he was aware it was previously enlisted to rebuke police. He/ the Black Panthers tried other terms that didn’t stick. Shortly thereafter, Hippies everywhere were using it. Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman picked it up and even carried a pig into court. Although I can’t prove the following, using the term as part of a disciplined rebuke against the police who often arrested panthers for other language. Along with having a lot of traction and offending cops it was also a word that fell within the purview of the 1st amendment/free speech. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/2 "2019-04-08T16:45:32Z")
**Moderator Action** Welcome to the Straight Dope, **ciofoci**. We have a forum specifically for discussions about Cecil’s Columns and Staff Reports. I will move this for you. Moving thread from ATMB to Comments on Cecil’s Columns/Staff Reports. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/3 "2019-04-08T16:46:37Z")
What is your source for this information? ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/4 "2019-04-08T17:14:04Z")
This seems to support the claim, at least from the Black Panther’s point of view. This appears to be a quote from Huey P. Newton himself: > [@](#): > > We thought up new terms for them. At first I figured that the reverse of god – dog – would be a good epithet, but it did not catch on. We tried beast, brute, and animal, but none of them captured the essential quality we were trying to convey…Eldridge showed us a postcard from Beverly Axelrod. On the front was the slogan “Support Your Local Police”; there was a sheriff’s star above the phrase, and in the center of the star a grinning, slobbering pig. It was just what we were looking for. We began to show policemen as pigs in our cartoons, and from time to time used the word. “Pig” caught on; it entered the language… > > “Pig” was perfect for several reasons. First of all, words like “swine,” “hog,” “sow,” and “pig” have always had unpleasant connotations…”Pig” has another point in its favor: in racial terms “pig” is a neutral word. Many white youths on college campuses began to understand what the police were really like when their heads were broken open during demonstrations against the draft and the Vietnam War. This broadened the use of the term and served to unify the victims against their oppressors. Even though white youths were not victimized in the same way or to the same extent that we were, they nonetheless became our allies against the police. In this case the ruling circle was not able to set the victims against each other, as the racists in the South had done by setting poor whites against Blacks. The source is listed as Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide From here: [http://www.manhoodraceculture.com/2017/03/15/why-we-call-them-pigs-huey-p-newton-explains-the-black-panther-partys-use-of-the-term-pig/](http://www.manhoodraceculture.com/2017/03/15/why-we-call-them-pigs-huey-p-newton-explains-the-black-panther-partys-use-of-the-term-pig/) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/5 "2019-04-08T17:23:02Z")
Did the term “male chauvinist pig” come before, or after? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/6 "2019-04-08T19:32:21Z")
> [@ciofoci](#): > > Shortly thereafter, Hippies everywhere were using it. Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman picked it up and even carried a pig into court. However, that was not, at least ostensibly, to represent the police. [Pigasus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigasus_(politics)) was nominated for President in August 1968. The name “Pigasus” was a reference to the winged horse Pegasus and the expression “when pigs fly.” It is evident from Kunstler’s remarks in the testimony, however, that the term “pig” for police was already well established. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/7 "2019-04-08T21:22:25Z")
So [according to Newton](http://www.manhoodraceculture.com/2017/03/15/why-we-call-them-pigs-huey-p-newton-explains-the-black-panther-partys-use-of-the-term-pig/) the idea came from a [middle-aged, white Civil Rights lawyer who took on progressively more radical causes and who wound up suing Eldridge Cleaver for not giving her her share of the royalties from _Soul on Ice_.](https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Beverly-Axelrod-attorney-to-Black-Panthers-2805883.php) That’s way more interesting than the column. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/8 "2019-04-09T01:28:31Z")
Sorry to be raining facts on this parade, but _pig_ for “police officer” is first attested in 1811. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/9 "2019-04-09T04:32:24Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > Sorry to be raining facts on this parade, but _pig_ for “police officer” is first attested in 1811. Yes, that’s mentioned in the column. However, as noted it was not widely used except among criminals until the 1960s. There is also some question as to whether the earlier usage of the term for police developed independently in the US from that in the UK. The question is what prompted the resurgence of the term in the late 1960s. The fact that Axelrod found a postcard depicting the police as a pig suggests the meaning was already current before the Panthers started using it. They may, however, have helped promote it. The Panthers were founded in 1966. By 1968-1969 the meaning was popular. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/10 "2019-04-09T04:33:09Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > Sorry to be raining facts on this parade, but _pig_ for “police officer” is first attested in 1811. No one is arguing against that. In fact, it’s even stated as such in the staff report that **ciofoci** linked to. Dex goes even further and states that the term was used as early as the mid-1500s to refer to a person who was very much disliked. The 1811 date is also in the staff report. Dex’s staff report says that the term was confined to the criminal classes until the 1960s when it was taken up by protesters. The point of the OP is that it was the Black Panthers, not protestors, that revived and popularized the term in the 1960s. The quote I dug up from Huey P. Newton seems to support the OP’s statement that the Black Panthers coined the term independently from its original meaning. Of course it’s possible that “pig” took off when “dog”, “brute”, and “animal” did not because the term was already in use by some folks due to its previous use back to the 1800s. Or maybe it took off due to the reasons that Huey stated. I couldn’t tell you. So, you’re right, the earliest known cite is from 1811. But what caused the term to become more widespread in the 60s, and did the Black Panthers create the term independently from its original use? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/11 "2019-04-09T04:42:53Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Did the term “male chauvinist pig” come before, or after? The first attestations I can find are from 1970, so maybe slightly later. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/12 "2019-04-09T05:02:27Z")
Checking the _New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English_, the earliest citations are from 1968. In _Do It!_, Jerry Rubin say “Pigs was a Berkeley San Francisco thing, inspired by the Black Panthers.” ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/13 "2019-04-09T05:17:30Z")
The _Oxford English Dictionary_ gives some usage citations for “pig” as slang for police officer that are much earlier than 1968: > [@the Oxford English Dictionary](#): > > 1811 _Lexicon Balatronicum_ (at cited word) _Pig_, a China street pig; a Bow-street officer. > 1834 _Sun_ (N.Y.) 20 June 2 The person with whom he had been conversing was one of the ‘Pigs’. > 1848 G. Thompson _House Breaker 6_ We have _cracked_ a _crib_, and the _pig_’s are after us. [Note] We have broken into a house and the officers are after us. > 1917 E. Fenwick _Diary_ 23 Nov. (1981) 186 I hate the gendarmes… I found the two ‘pigs’ round the corner…and they walked me home to see my ‘permis de sejour’. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/14 "2019-04-09T05:31:14Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > The _Oxford English Dictionary_ gives some usage citations for “pig” as slang for police officer that are much earlier than 1968: Yes, we know. See posts #9 and #10. I was referring to New Partridge, which only includes more recent citations. We’re looking at the resurgence of the term in the 1960s. I don’t believe I heard the term in that sense before the late 1960s. I don’t think there’s much question that it became much more widespread then. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/15 "2019-04-09T05:34:14Z")
My bad. I think I misread your remark about “_male chauvinist_” pig as being about “pig=police”. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panthers-coin-the-term-pig/832227/16 "2019-04-09T05:49:04Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > My bad. I think I misread your remark about “_male chauvinist_” pig as being about “pig=police”. “Male chauvinist” seem to date from as early as 1924. By the late 1960s, it was becoming popular to refer to various kinds of social oppressors as pigs, such as racist pigs etc. [Piggies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhY1x8CpWeI) by the Beatles (1968) may also influenced/been influenced by this.