# Is 'spooks' a racist term in America? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 5, 2008, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851 "2008-12-05T14:26:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/41 "2008-12-05T21:27:42Z")
One of my most embarassing racial moments: I used to work with a black theater major who loved musicals as much as I did, so whenever we “discovered” one we couldn’t wait to share it. (Discovered here means “new to us”- it might be a new musical or it might be one that’d been around 40 years but we just listened to it for the first time.) While I was working with her I ‘discovered’ HAIR (this was in the early '90s, when everybody knew _Age of Aquarius_ but most of the other tracks had been more or less forgotten). I was telling her how great it was and offered her my cassette player to listen to on break- it was one of those kinds that you can flip the sides of the cassette with a button without having to actually remove the cassette, and I positioned it to one of my favorite songs- Flesh Failures: “We starve-look At one another Short of breath Walking proudly in our winter coats Wearing smells from laboratories Facing a dying nation Of moving paper fantasy…” etc. She liked it. When it’s over so is the play, so she hit the flip-side button, which took her to the beginning of a song from the first act called “Colored Spade”. Though sung by a black actor, it is basically every last racist term for black people you have ever heard and a few you probably haven’t set to music, or put another way “Colored Spade” are the least offensive lyrics in the song. [Full lyrics here](http://tekstovi-pesama.com/pdf/Hair-Colored-Spade.pdf). When she came back from break she was scowling and said “I don’t know what I hate more… that damned song, or the fact that _you’re_ the one who introduced me to that song… or the fact that now I’ve got the goddamned thing stuck in my head because it’s catchy as hell!” (Ultimately she took no offense: hell, we’d sung duets from _Dreamgirls_ and _Miss Saigon_ and other musicals together in which we changed races and genders as needed and later appeared in _Jesus Christ Superstar_ together. (She actually appeared on Broadway a few years ago in _Lion King_ [one of the hyenas] and in the original pre-Broadway production of _The Color Purple_- don’t know where she is now.) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2008, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/42 "2008-12-05T22:58:52Z")
There was a counting rhyme in Britain that used ten little niggers as the way to count down the fingers. Agatha Christie used in in a novel published in 1939 with the title of _Ten Little Niggers_. She also turned it into a play using that title. British TV productions of the novel used that title as late as 1959. Other countries until 1970. Various reprints of the novel with that title appeared until the 1980s. The title was immediately changed in America to _And Then There Were None_, but also saw print as _Ten Little Indians_. A US TV production used that name in 1959, and then a couple of times as movies until the 1980s. That reference also started to run into problems, and I think the book now has _And Then There Were None_ as the title exclusively everywhere. The [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None) page has detailed information on this book, along with a picture of the first edition, something so fantastically rare and expensive that I’ve never seen one in person. A bit of trivia not on that page. Ellery Queen had to abandon his novel-in-progress when _Ten Little Niggers_ came out because it used exactly the same premise! ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2008, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/43 "2008-12-05T23:24:55Z")
I’ve never heard it used as a serious racial slur, and if I heard the term “spook” out of context, not clearly referring to a ghost, black person, or CIA agent, I’d assume they were talking about an agent without thinking more than a millisecond about it, except to wonder if it were talking about ghosts if it’s in fiction. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2008, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/44 "2008-12-05T23:48:31Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > … “gigaboo”. … I believe a gigaboo is formed when a hard drive gives up the ghost :eek: (always seen the racial slur spelled jigaboo). > [@winterhawk11](#): > > … we had a succession of black cats … Our cats were Spook, Spade, and Stokely. … I guess after those cats died she ran out of names, because the next one was Spook II. But there were so many names left; Eldridge, Huey P, Bobby, H Rap. 😃 CMC +fnord! ---
**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:** [December 6, 2008, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/45 "2008-12-06T03:17:17Z")
> [@InvisibleWombat](#): > > I was born in the 50s, and learned the “tiger” version. The first time I heard the “nigger” variation was when I was in my 30s. I was born in the 50s, and my experience growing up in the Bronx was the opposite. I was surprised the first time I heard the “tiger” version. ---
**Author:** ![Ichbin\_Dubist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ichbin\_Dubist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichbin_Dubist)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/46 "2008-12-06T03:52:55Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > I believe a gigaboo is formed when a hard drive gives up the ghost… No, it’s the word for 1,000,000,000 ghosts. The Agatha Christie title mentioned above has me astounded, although I know that white Britons have (or had) different feelings about that word that Americans (ie, the dog in [The Dam Busters](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dam_Busters_(movie)). Still … whew! As as aside, I once bought a turn-of-the-century book on herbs, and upon leafing through it was surprised to see echinacea listed as “niggerhead.” Hard to imagine Celestial Seasonings putting that on a box next to a pithy Henry David Thoreau quote. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/47 "2008-12-06T04:02:24Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > … we briefly had an albino one as a pet when I was a kid [we gave him to Auburn University’s vet school- no idea whatever happened to him]) Hmm, in Alabama, that IS a tough one. Study, stuff, or eat? ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/48 "2008-12-06T04:32:36Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > > [@dictionary](#): > > > > The derogatory racial sense of “black person” is attested from 1940s, perhaps from notion of dark skin being difficult to see at night. “It’s not easy being white, they can pick you off too easy in the night…” ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/49 "2008-12-06T05:39:43Z")
When I use the term, I use it to mean someone whose mental processes are so far from the norm as to be spooky. I guess it’s a good thing I seldom use it. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/50 "2008-12-06T06:31:23Z")
Joseph Wambaugh’s book and later movie the Choirboys, set in LA of the 1970’s had two characters called respectively “the spook and the gook.” Of course referring to a black and an Asian. It’s not the top of the derogatory list, but it’s still out there and I would think few Americans would \*not \*understand the reference in context. ---
**Author:** ![El\_DeLuxo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_deluxo/32/9043_2.png) [@El\_DeLuxo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_DeLuxo)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/51 "2008-12-06T10:00:03Z")
I’ve seen it used as a slur in books, mostly from the 1960s and earlier, but never heard it as anything but a humorous word for a ghost, or a slang term meaning a CIA spy. An aside: in the 1960s cartoon series\* Top Cat\*, one of TC’s motley crew of alleycat pals was nicknamed Spook – he had a brother whose name (I _think_) was Fancy-Fancy, and they looked and dressed exactly alike except they were different colors… ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/52 "2008-12-06T10:33:51Z")
> [@Ichbin\_Dubist](#): > > The Agatha Christie title mentioned above has me astounded, although I know that white Britons have (or had) different feelings about that word that Americans (ie, the dog in [The Dam Busters](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dam_Busters_(movie)). Still … whew! And one of the most popular fabric colours at the time was “Nigger Brown”. Different time, man. I’m wondering whether the racist meaning of “spook” was the only reason for changing the name of the TV series in the US – as others have already said, it’s probably not the first thing that people would associate with the word, these days. I seem to remember that when it was first shown in America, quite a few of the new shows around were on a supernatural theme – so they may have wanted to avoid confusion with those. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/53 "2008-12-06T12:08:18Z")
The only time I can ever remember hearing “spook” used in the racist sense was in the 1973 British hit song [Brother Louie](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiM6hF1naXE) by the band _Hot Chocolate_. (I believe another band had a hit with the same song in the U.S.A., but the _Hot Chocolate_ version was the original.) This is actually an anti-racist song about a mixed race couple who encounter prejudice from both the black and white parents. “Spook” occurs in a spoken passage which is supposed to be Louie’s farther objecting to his marrying a black girl. I remember being struck by the word because I had never heard it used in that sense before. There is an equivalent spoken passage earlier in the song where the black father of the girl refers to her white boyfriend Louie as a “honky.” [_Hot Chocolate_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Chocolate_(band)) were mostly black with, I think, one or two white members (the line-up varied over the years). Anyway, certainly the leader, singer and songwriter Errol Brown was a Jamaican born black man, and, probably most of the other band members were immigrants or children of immigrants into Britain from the West Indies (as were nearly all black people in Britain at that time). In the light of that, I wonder if “spook” was originally a West Indian term, perhaps used by white West Indians to denigrate their black compatriots. ```auto With regard to "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo," I also grew up with the racist version in England in the 1950s and 60s. I was quite surprised to hear the "tiger" version when it was used by my children in 1990s America, and had to suppress an urge to correct them. Certainly when I was a kid I had no idea what it meant, it just seemed like a nonsense rhyme really. (I can remember being puzzled about what "hollers" meant too - it is not at all common in British English, and suggests an American origin for the rhyme.) I doubt whether any of the other kids who I knew who used it ever gave any thought to its racial meaning either. Indeed, I am pretty sure that if my parents had realized the rhyme was racist (or "racialist" as people said then) they would have objected to it. They were strongly against racism in principle, although in practice the issue did not arise, because there were virtually no non-white around in the area where we lived. (It is quite different now, of course.) Of course there were lots of things in British culture at the time - golliwogs, the Black and White Minstrel Show on TV - that in retrospect were horribly racist, but for most of us were really quite innocent at the time, if only because most of us never knew any black people to be prejudiced against. It never even occurred to me that the golliwog toy I had as a child represented a black person, even after I came to know that "wog" was a nasty racist epithet. [QUOTE] **CurtC** I thought that the "tiger" version was a new, politically correct substitution. I only found out that the "tiger" version is actually older, in the last couple of years, right here on this message board. [/QUOTE] I certainly thought the same thing? Do you have cite for the "tiger" version being the original? Frankly it sounds implausible. (After all, although it seems quite possible that some plantation dwelling child might think of grabbing a slave child by the toe, who would ever do that with a tiger?) [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eeny,_meeny,_miny,_moe) seems to want to treat the "tiger" version as canonical, but it does not give a clear account of its origin or earliest occurrence, and it dates the "n......" version back to 1888. [QUOTE] [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eeny,_meeny,_miny,_moe) From Rudyard Kipling's "A Counting-Out Song", from "Land and Sea Tales for Scouts and Guides," published in 1923: Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo! Catch a nigger by the toe! If he hollers let him go! Eenee, Meenee. Mainee, Mo! You-are-It! Kipling's version is similar to the most commonly reported version of the rhyme among American schoolchildren in 1888.[3] Kipling's version was the most commonly recited version in in the United States and Canada until as late as the early 1970s when even school aged children became aware of the political incorrectness of the poorly-aged wording. The word "tiger" soon became the standard, as parents were quick to correct their children not to use the "N" word. [/QUOTE] If you look at the Wiki page, there is a cite for the 1888 date. It sort of implies earlier in the article that "tiger" goes back to 1855, but it is not made very clear and there is no cite. [The version I remember using was like Kipling's except that I doubt whether we would have used his spelling, and we did not have the final line. As we used it, you were chosen on the final "Mo."] ``` ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/54 "2008-12-06T16:02:55Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > But there were so many names left; Eldridge, Huey P, Bobby, H Rap. 😃 > > CMC +fnord! Heh. I don’t think my mom was with-it enough to come up with those names. But I did remember another one, which makes me even more convinced that she knew what she was doing: we also had a cat named Spade. /facepalm ---
**Author:** ![jasonh300](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/46a35a/32.png) [@jasonh300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasonh300)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/55 "2008-12-06T16:37:55Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > No kidding! It was always “catch a tiger by the toe” when I was growing up. When I was a kid, I was taught “Catch a monkey by the toe”. Now I guess that “monkey” could also have a racist connotation, but as a child, I never thought anything other than a monkey, which I still find amusing to this day. At some point, I heard the “nigger” version and still didn’t make any connection. When I got older, it dawned on me that “monkey” probably meant “nigger” and I told my mother (who is now 72 and grew up in New Orleans which was heavily segregated well into the 1970s) and she was shocked that “monkey” might’ve been referring to a black person. The version that I’ve heard from my kids is “catch a fellow by the toe”. I’ve never heard anyone use “tiger”… …I just polled the kids and my 8 year old son says “fellow” and my 11 year old daughter says “tiger”. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/56 "2008-12-06T17:48:32Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I was born in the 50s, and my experience growing up in the Bronx was the opposite. I was surprised the first time I heard the “tiger” version. Funny. I was born a ways north of there in a smaller town (I guess they’re all smaller towns compared to NYC), so from this vast sampling of two data points, urban liberal NY used the racist version and rural conservative NY used the “politically correct” version. I know, I know. This has no statistical significance, but it feeds my deep-seated conviction that urban/rural stereotypes and conservative/liberal stereotypes aren’t any more accurate than racial stereotypes.. ---
**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:** [December 6, 2008, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/57 "2008-12-06T19:47:29Z")
> [@InvisibleWombat](#): > > Funny. I was born a ways north of there in a smaller town (I guess they’re all smaller towns compared to NYC), so from this vast sampling of two data points, urban liberal NY used the racist version and rural conservative NY used the “politically correct” version. > > I know, I know. This has no statistical significance, but it feeds my deep-seated conviction that urban/rural stereotypes and conservative/liberal stereotypes aren’t any more accurate than racial stereotypes.. My neighborhood, in the northeast Bronx, was mostly working class Irish and Italian. It was in no way “liberal.” It was extremely rare to see a black person in the neighborhood (in part because the local hoods would harass them and sometimes beat them up if they dared to enter.) The first black family to buy a house in the area, in the early 1970s, had a fire bomb thrown on their porch. This said, as kids we didn’t think anything of the use of “nigger” in the rhyme. We didn’t really realize it was offensive. In the same way we would refer to the corner laundry as “the Chink’s”; it was just what he was called. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/58 "2008-12-06T21:29:17Z")
> [@winterhawk11](#): > > Heh. I don’t think my mom was with-it enough to come up with those names. But I did remember another one, which makes me even more convinced that she knew what she was doing: we also had a cat named Spade. /facepalm Wow, I’m an idiot. I just realized I posted the same cat name twice. That’s what I get for posting first thing in the morning. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/59 "2008-12-06T21:42:29Z")
> [@InvisibleWombat](#): > > Funny. I was born a ways north of there in a smaller town (I guess they’re all smaller towns compared to NYC), so from this vast sampling of two data points, urban liberal NY used the racist version and rural conservative NY used the “politically correct” version… FWLIW, I grew up in an Appalachian-foothills town in the 1970s and never heard the racist version of this rhyme at the time… although I did hear some casual racist remarks from other kids now and then. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851/60 "2008-12-06T21:46:57Z")
I recently reread _Alas, Babylon_ and in it one of the characters refers to ‘dinges’. Was this a common racist term at the time (1960ish) and does it still have any currency? One character admonishes her husband when he uses the term and tells him ‘darkies’ is the correct term! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-spooks-a-racist-term-in-america/475851.md?page=2)