# Was "booger" ever used as a racial slur?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-booger-ever-used-as-a-racial-slur/579476
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 23, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-booger-ever-used-as-a-racial-slur/579476 "2011-04-23T17:54:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-booger-ever-used-as-a-racial-slur/579476/1 "2011-04-23T17:54:23Z")
My mother tried telling me the other day that when she was a kid, the word “booger” was used as a slur against blacks. I’ve personally never heard of this, nor can I find anything online. Maybe she’s thinking of “boogey” or something, but booger? Call me a skeptic on this one. :dubious:
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### Author:  [@TheChileanBlob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheChileanBlob)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-booger-ever-used-as-a-racial-slur/579476/2 "2011-04-23T18:01:47Z")
I’ve heard country people use “booger” to mean something like “boogeyman.”
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-booger-ever-used-as-a-racial-slur/579476/3 "2011-04-23T18:24:15Z")
I’ve never heard that usage. [“Boogie”](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/boogie) was certainly sometimes used as a disparaging term for blacks; probably your mother is confusing this with booger.
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### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-booger-ever-used-as-a-racial-slur/579476/4 "2011-04-23T18:42:01Z")
My recollection, too (agreeing with Colibri). Although I heard it used only onscreen and not real life, so maybe it was mostly regional?
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-booger-ever-used-as-a-racial-slur/579476/5 "2011-04-23T19:03:33Z")
Was that short for “jigaboo”, maybe?
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### Author:  [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-booger-ever-used-as-a-racial-slur/579476/6 "2011-04-23T21:14:48Z")
Booger was used as a slur for blacks by some people. The old wives tales didn’t mean it was a black man though. It was more like a nasty bigfoot was going to get you.
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### Author:  [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-booger-ever-used-as-a-racial-slur/579476/7 "2011-04-23T21:49:18Z")
Looking at American Memory articles Booger is used as a swear word for something giving you trouble. The 3 articles I found that weren’t about a rider called Red Booger were in this context. A lawman looking for your illegal booze. A polecat in a herd of cattle causing a stampede. Indians looking to cause trouble for settlers. As you see it’s used for different things that bodes bad things to the person using booger.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-booger-ever-used-as-a-racial-slur/579476/8 "2011-04-23T21:57:53Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#):
>
> My recollection, too (agreeing with Colibri). Although I heard it used only onscreen and not real life, so maybe it was mostly regional?
It’s used [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOnkv76rNL4) in this version of Dustin Hoffman doing a Lenny Bruce routine in the movie “Lenny.”
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### Author:  [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-booger-ever-used-as-a-racial-slur/579476/9 "2011-04-23T22:17:39Z")
I found a few old books using booger in the usual haint context.
In the text of stories from freed slaves I found booger as the term for a Ku Klux man one had encountered at night at a well.
The rider I mentioned above was Booger Red.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-booger-ever-used-as-a-racial-slur/579476/10 "2011-04-23T23:11:43Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> Was that short for “jigaboo”, maybe?
No evidence that it was. **Colibri’s** cite for _boogie_ is correct. Possibly an alteration of _bogey_.