Honky , Honkey or Honkie is a predominantly American derogatory racial slur for white people. Honky is a corruption of hungy or hunky , a term which originated in the stockyards and slaughterhouses of Chicago. The term may derive from "Bohunk" (Bohemian-Hungarian), which was used to refer to central Europeans. Black and Hungarian workers were two of the largest ethnic groups in the Chicago meat industry. Racial and ethnic tension between the two groups led Black workers to begin calling Hungarian workers, and those perceived as Hungarians, hunky . The corruption 'honky' emerged shortly thereafter.

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Alternate meanings and uses

Honkey was later adopted as a pejorative in 1967 by black militants within SNCC seeking a rebuttal for the term nigger . National Chairman of the SNCC, H. Rap Brown, on June 24, 1967, told an audience of blacks in Cambridge, "You should burn that school down and then go take over the honkey's school." Brown went on to say: "If America don't come round, we got to burn it down. You better get some guns, brother. The only thing the honkey respects is a gun. You give me a gun and tell me to shoot my enemy, I might shoot Ladybird." ^[1]

Honky may also refer to the term "honk nopp" which, in the west African language Wolof means, literally, red-eared person, white person. The term may have originated with Wolof-speaking slaves brought to the U.S. Other words in African American English, such as hippy and dig, also derive from the language ^[2].

Honky was also used as a general term for white people, not always in a negative meaning. For example, during the 1968 trial of Black Panther Party member Huey Newton, fellow Panther Eldridge Cleaver created pins for Newton's white supporters stating "Honkies for Huey." ^[3]

Television

In a popular sketch on SNL , Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor used both "nigger" (Chase) and "honky" (Pryor) in reference to one another during a "racist word association interview." ^[4]

On the TV show The Jeffersons , George Jefferson regularly referred to white people as honkies. This word would later be popularized in episodes of Mork & Mindy by Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters.

Music

The word honky may refer to a particular type of country music, called honky tonk. ^[5]

See also

• Cracker

Footnotes

1. Full text of US Army Intelligence report on SNCC at "African-American Involvement in the Vietnam War" website.
2. African roots/American cultures
3. "Radical Saul Alinsky: Prophet of Power to the People," ''Time Magazine''
4. Racist Word Association Interview
5. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that the origin of the term ''honky tonk'' is unknown. The earliest source explaining the derivation of the term was an article published in 1900 by the ''New York Sun'' and widely reprinted in other newspapers, such as the ''Reno Evening Gazette'' (Nevada), 3 February 1900, pg. 2, col. 5. "Every child of the range can tell what honkatonk means and where it came from. Away, away back in the very early days, so the story goes, a party of cow punchers rode out from camp at sundown in search of recreation after a day of toil. They headed for a place of amusement, but lost the trail. From far out in the distance there finally came to their ears a 'honk-a-tonk-a-tonk-a-tonk-a,' which they mistook for the bass viol. They turned toward the sound, to find alas! a dock [1] of wild geese. So honkatonk was named. ''N. Y. Sun''.