Monday, September 22, 2008

"Uppity"

Following up on a previous post, there was a good explanation of the racial connotations of "uppity" in the Times yesterday:
The term “uppity” was applied to affluent black people, who sometimes paid a horrific price for owning nicer homes, cars or more successful businesses than whites. Race-based wealth envy was a common trigger for burnings, lynchings and cataclysmic episodes of violence like the Tulsa race riot of 1921, in which a white mob nearly eradicated the prosperous black community of Greenwood.
Thanks, Marian, for pointing this out to me.

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