Duplicate
Not a food metaphor, no. Though perhaps Vanilla Ice might qualify…
It’s basically a complaint that you belong to the same ethnic group as the speaker but have different interests or mannerisms (“Um, we’re Korean, what are you doing listening to country?”), things they would be offended about if they were pointed out by someone outside the ethnic group (“What, you’re saying Asians can’t like country music? We can listen to what we want, racist! Leave her alone!”).
Those folks are typically called wiggers, which is not a food term, obviously.
I think the term means different things to different groups. SOME ethnic groups are THRILLED when their kids or their neighbors’ kids get straight A’s, win scholarships to college, and become doctors and lawyers. But SOME ethnic groups are suspicious of tribe members who are ambitious or well educated. There are some blacks and Mexicans who think that getting an education and moving up in the world means “I’m too good for this neighborhood, I’m too good for this family, I’m too big for my britches, and you guys are beneath me.”
Seriously, my Mexican ex-wife had cousins who asked why she wanted to get an MBA, why being a secretary or a nurse wasn’t good enough for her. Those folks used “coconut” as a perjorative, as if a Mexican girl was arrogant if she aimed for a better life than her parents had.
The FEW people I heard use the term “Twinkie” were Asian males, guys who resented Asian girls for dating white guys. The implication was something like, “What’s the matter, you’re too high and mighty to date a Chinese guy now? You think you’re hot stuff for going out with the quarterback, huh?”
I found a picture of one in transition. They’re still white at the core.
I’m Japanese-American and have lived in minority-majority areas all my life. I’ve definitely heard it.
I posted a photo of Hostess Banana Twinkies to Facebook a while back, to the great amusement of a dozen friends and family.
Idiocy, of course.
If I were *really *acting white, I’d have been leaving neighbourhood boys in unmarked graves, siring illegitimate kids on their sisters and spreading smallpox…
I slogged through one too many internet rants about how racist “Gipsy Danger” was. As it turns out, the writer (Travis Beacham) named it in homage to the De Havilland Gipsy Moth, not to the ethnicity.
However, once he learned about the controversy, he was dismayed and apologized for his ignorance on the matter. So apparently he thinks he should’ve avoided it, regardless of the spelling difference.
I think you can find members of every ethnic group who use it in different ways. For example, some blacks use it against other blacks who are educated, some use it against people who have different tastes in hobbies than expected. Then you have some people who get called oreo/twinkie/whatever because they’ve rejected every part of the culture they were raised in - they hate the music, the food, the traditions etc. and in some cases look down on anyone who doesn’t feel the way they do. In those cases, it’s less of a personal preference and more of an avoidance due to embarrassment or disdain.
Jeez, now I’m hungry for Oreos. I also didn’t know they sold Chewy Chips Ahoy with Oreo filling!
http://www.snackworks.com/products/product-detail.aspx?product=4400003628
I’m struggling to figure out which group that would be, and feel vaguely uncomfortable about doing so!!
I’ve heard that term and “twinkie” before since I was married to a Korean woman. I’ve never heard it said by a non-Asian to refer to an Asian. I’ve only ever heard it used by Asians against other Asians.
I said yes, in the sense that i know what a “banana” is, but really I see it as a metaphor, if an annoying one, not a word that is generally rude outside that context.
Oh, and I consider the drive to stamp out “gypsy” as offensive itself, considering that “gypsy” is still used for a genre of music, and some Rroma people call themselves gypsies.
In learning different languages, or in code-switching, you have to deal with words–or sequences of sound, or metaphors, or just certain consonant sounds–being offensive in one cultural context and not in another. Just because Chinese people don’t like it doesn’t mean I can get away with dropping the \θ\ sound in English or Greek. “Dikshit” is a perfectly respectable name in parts of South Asia. Animal metaphors are a minefield in translation. “Gift” is a present in English and poison in German.
So too with words* you *think are offensive. They may be inoffensive to someone else. They may be important. They may be necessary. They may be someone’s name, as Gypsy sometimes is.
/rant
[RIGHT]fool’s guinea, whose username* is two slurs.* (Although I’m named after the coin.)[/RIGHT]
They’re upper middle class suburban things, which has a connotation of white. I can’t imagine that’s actually a surprise to you.
stuffwhitepeoplelike was a very popular blog for a while.
In my experience it’s mostly tongue in cheek and friendly ribbing, not intended to denigrate.
I had no idea.
I guess you* could call them “Zeros”, which even sounds overtly derogatory.
*I mean, not you, but people who call other people silly derogatory food-based nicknames based on those other people not acting in accordance with perceived stereotypes of how people of a particular “race” ought to act.
For reverse Oreos, I thought of Pepperidge Farms’ “Milano” or “Monaco” (depending on the market) cookies, but that doesn’t work that well.
Serious question—is there a master list of all these terms somewhere? Both banana and apple are completely news to me. I was entirely unaware that they are derogatory terms when used in a particular context. I really, really simply can’t keep up this ‘PC-no-no-of the-week’ phenomenon that has imbued our culture. On top of that, I’m already pretty dense about these things and always have been. For example, I didn’t know until just a couple of years or so ago, until I read it here, that the expression “to sell somebody down the river” derived from American slave trade. I mean, seriously—what’s a person to do? I once wrote a paper on the subject of common inter-culture hostilities for a cultural awareness class. I focused on the two that were of most interest to me, which are the longstanding animousity between Armenians and Turks, and the hostility expressed by culturally Deaf people towards the practice of forced speechreading education, which was ubiquitous for the greater part of the twentieth century in the United States and Europe. When I got the paper back, the professor had written in the margin that saying “native speaker” (meaning a person whose language is the one they were raised speaking and writing) is no longer considered acceptable. I had absolutely no idea. I never asked her why, so I still don’t know the basis for it. Anybody know of a web page that lists all of the things which we’re not supposed to say, and why we’re not supposed to say them? I’ve searched my mind over and over again for any irrational prejudices that I have, any I can only think of two. So I’d be happy to play ball if doing so is necessary to avoid uncomfortable social interactions. But I was born with terminal foot-in-mouth disease and faux pas constantly, so any help I could get in this area would be much appreciated. Even if I find something in the list that seems completely arbitrary or nonsensical, I’ll still try to avoid using that term.
Yeah, we need an Urban Dictionary for these potentially-offensive terms.