Noone mentioned my favorite slang word.
Badunkadunk (which is for a voluptuous derriere) It makes me smile just saying it.
Badunkadunk 
Badunkadunk
Badunkadunk
Hee hee hee…
Badunkadunk 
I am an ecologist who loves classic rock and can’t color coordinate to save her life.
So tell me about it.
I get it from black and white people. It used to bother me when I’d hear it from whites but now I realize they think they’re giving me a compliment. As in, “You’re one of us”. I don’t like it, but it doesn’t offend me. But it does bug me when I hear it from black people. I’ve always considered myself a strong black woman. I don’t think being a strong black woman requires knowing the latest slang and knowing how to dance (although I wish I knew how to).
Slight hijack…
UUURRRK…
Barry MANilow? (not so sure that’s all that white, most of my fellow whities think he’s a wee bit bubblegum)
(okay, okay, I have to admit, coca cobana IS a bit catchy if you aren’t paying attention).
That happens. It’s just that Mom was an Anthropologist, yet another reason why I like the guy, and you go where the grants take you.
Yeah, that’s the “touch of the tar brush” you used to hear about. And to expand on what jayjay said, up to about twenty years ago Louisiana would classify a person as Black with as little as one-sixteenth Black “blood,” which I guess would make one a semioctaroon. (A hemidemisemiroon?)
Nope. A hemidemisemiflavah…
(God, we need Snopes’s smack-with-a-trout smiley…)
Many of the race-dividing politicians tried to enforce a “single drop” definiton. Would that be a nanoroon?
Damn. This post brings back memories. I was brought up colorblind, and blissfully enjoyed childhood relationships with people of all races and cultures, many of which continue strongly today. I got my first exposure to prejudice when I was 8 years old, when grandma (who was visiting from up North) was driving us to lunch one day.
There’s a little boy on the corner, holding his bicycle and waiting for the light to change so he can cross the street. Grandma points him out to me, saying: “See that? That’s what we call a half-breed, when they’re half black and half white.”
My jaw drops. The first thing that runs through my head is: how does grandma know what color his parents are? Is she psychic? And then the horror of the words “half-breed” strike me: the way she says it, the little boy doesn’t even sound human! And then I realize that this is prejudice: grandma sees a little boy whom she doesn’t even know, but because of his lightly brown skin, she makes assumptions about his parentage and more than likely his education and socio-economic status as well.
When the full impact of her words finally settled in, I was so upset that I almost stepped out of the moving car. This incident has never left me, and I’m pissed at every single person in my life who has ever felt the need to “point out” another person’s race or culture to me. Since this is the pit: FUCK YOU ALL FOR KILLING MY INNOCENCE!!!
That is all.
Yamir
Deadly Nightlight, stereotyping sucks, no matter what form it comes in. I’m white (and not American), but I’ll see if I can give you a hand with the rap-difficulties.
I’ve only heard one Twista song, but it’s damn good. Incidentally, because of my accent, there is no difference between the way I say “Twista” and the way I say “Twister.”
Hip hop tends to have choruses rather than hooks. I think this is because in rock/pop, the song is seen to culminate in the chorus, but in hip hop, the rapping is the focus of the song, and the hook is the icing on the cake. I.e., when you listen to Copa Cobana, the whole song is building up to when he sings that Copa Cobana bit, but, in yr average hip hop song, the hook attracts you to it, but the real business of the song is the rapping in the verses.
Of course, in spite of this, you’ll find that the hook makes or breaks much modern pop-rap, and the rap is so dismal that it isn’t worth mentioning. Still, the tradition persists.
And Ice is diamonds. Because they look like it, I guess.
How about “Blandy”?
Nightlight & Co, as a fellow sista what folks continually mistake for being white when I talk on the phone–sometimes to my complete surprise they don’t think I’m Southern neither–and as someone whose black friends just put up with my occasional misunderstandings of slang–I had to get someone to explain “bling-bling” to me too–I feel your pain. I don’t believe anyone’s ever called me a brainiac to my face, and usually my friends just shake their heads and laugh with me over my otherworldliness. However, you just got to stop worrying about all this nonsense. You are what you decide to be. I’ve personally decided to be a sista from anotha planet, and I’m perfectly happy with it.
Rhymes with “Junk in the trunk”.
Even better, listen to Joe Cocker.
I remember the one-drop rule, because it was mentioned in a long-ago history class and later, was a pivotal point in a (really dumb) 1930’s mystery novel. I still find it a bizarre concept. I mean, I look perfectly white, but by that standard I’m either Latino or Navajo, and I’m pretty sure neither group really wants me.
Thanks for the Badunkadunk, emacularius. I haven’t had so much fun with a word since ass-gasket.
“hemidemisemiroon” Which Terry Pratchett Discworld novel was it that one of the girls at Susan’s school was claiming to be a hemi-demi-something goddess? The more vocabulary I get, the funnier those books become.
Probably “Soul Music” if it was when she was in school, “Hogfather” or “Thief of Time” if she was teaching. It’s been a long time since I read any of those three, so I don’t remember the particular scene.
And hemidemisemi-whatever is actually taken from a musical term, hemidemisemiquaver, which is a 64th note (a quaver is an eighth note, a semiquaver is a 16th note, a demisemiquaver is a 32nd note, and thus a hemidemisemiquaver is a 64th note). Needless to say, it’s rarely used except in the more obnoxious pieces that are designed to allow the soloist to show off.
Chris Rock [paraphrased from memory]: “Brother goes to jail, comes back to his old neighborhood, he’s a hero, man! You go to college, they’re all, ‘Sellout! Get away from me with that reading shit!’”
Oh, please. I haven’t been black for about twenty-five years now.
I’ve given up on trying to placate people who buy into stereotypes. Fuck 'em.