darky
Darky is an offensive slur for a Black person, based on skin color.
The word was used casually by white speakers through the mid-twentieth century—The darky who tends the garden—but is now widely recognized as degrading and racist.
Some older texts preserve it without apparent malice, reflecting how normalized such language once was.
Art of traveling performers
- blackfaceRacist performance makeup tradition
- caricatureExaggerated comic depiction
- Jim CrowRacial separation laws
- Uncle TomPejorative for racial subservience
vaudeville · antebellum · plantation · Old South · minstrel show · pickaninny · exaggeration · buffoonery
Descriptive tag for someone
- pejorativeTerm expressing disapproval
- insultOffensive remark or action
- racial slurDerogatory ethnic term
- hate speechLanguage attacking protected characteristics
denigration · disparagement · derogation · taboo · offensiveness · prejudice · bigotry · discrimination
Forced separation by group
- apartheidRacial separation policy
- slaveryOwnership of people
- colonialismDomination through foreign settlement
- oppressionUnjust exercise of power
civil rights · racism · white supremacy · subjugation · exploitation · marginalization · injustice · inequality
minstrelsy
Art of traveling performers
- blackfaceRacist performance makeup tradition
- caricatureExaggerated comic depiction
- Jim CrowRacial separation laws
Uncle Tom · vaudeville · antebellum · plantation · Old South · minstrel show · pickaninny · exaggeration · buffoonery
epithet
Descriptive tag for someone
- pejorativeTerm expressing disapproval
- insultOffensive remark or action
- racial slurDerogatory ethnic term
hate speech · denigration · disparagement · derogation · taboo · offensiveness · prejudice · bigotry · discrimination · contempt
segregation
Forced separation by group
- apartheidRacial separation policy
- slaveryOwnership of people
- colonialismDomination through foreign settlement
oppression · civil rights · racism · white supremacy · subjugation · exploitation · marginalization · injustice · inequality · archaic
darkywhitey
Racial slang for Caucasian
honky · cracker · paleface · gringo · peckerwood
- in the darkUninformed about something
- after darkDuring nighttime hours
- dark chocolateCocoa-heavy candy variety
- shot in the darkAttempt lacking any basis
- dark sideHidden negative aspect
- dark blueDeep shade of azure