Are there really people who don't know what the terms Oreo and Coconut mean?

[RB TexLa]

Coconut is used by Hispanics. Brown on the outside, white on the inside.




Oreo

noun, plural Oreos. Slang: Disparaging and Offensive.
a black person who is regarded as having adopted the attitudes, values, and behavior thought to be characteristic of middle-class white society, often at the expense of his or her own heritage.

[FreakinDJ]

1. And your point is

[RB TexLa]

3. There is a thread asking if it's offensive. The terms are intended to offend

[pipoman]

14. So you felt it necessary to start another

equally ridiculous thread?

[RB TexLa]

15. I was amazed that there are people who aren't familiar with these terms.

[dkf]

26. Oreo I've heard but if you asked I couldn't come up with the definition.

Coconut? Wha?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

33. Same here

[tavernier]

42. Ditto

[muriel_volestrangler]

71. If it's offensive, then some people will hear it less

if they don't hang around people who use offensive terms.

This, of course, also depends on what you mean by 'offensive' - "a word/meaning that no-one should ever use", or "a word that is designed to offend the person you say it about". Calling someone an idiot is designed to offend them, but people probably wouldn't call it an offensive word.

[femmocrat]

5. The OP refers to this post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023204198

[think]

2. Apple is the Native American slang term. Not that it comes into most conversations.

I've not heard of coconut before though. Might be I grew up in the midwest on the plains.

[pokerfan]

4. This is helpful

[customerserviceguy]

6. I haven't heard them used since the 1970's

and "coconut" was in an article that I read in the University of Washington student newspaper for an article about this subject. It also taught me about Banana and Apple, and I never, ever heard those terms mentioned again. Oreo was the only one I knew about before and after reading that article in the mid-1970's.

I would suppose that if you were in the racial communities that the terms pertained to, you would probably know them, but I can imagine a lot of Caucasians never encountering them.

[RB TexLa]

8. I guess if they are caucasians that only know caucasians

That would be kind of weird.

[customerserviceguy]

10. How often do those terms come up

between white folks and people of color? I would think they would be used as insults of others within an ethnic group, and not necessarily be shared with the dominant culture.

[RB TexLa]

11. I guess if they don't really trust the white people they won't speak openly. It comes up in normal

conversation.

[customerserviceguy]

12. I guess I've never been that trusted. n/t

[Igel]

34. I've only heard them used in-group.

Or have had their use recounted to me by somebody offended at being called that.

Never had somebody come up to me and describe somebody else using one of the terms. They're used to try to enforce in-group conformity and I'm not in their racial/ethnic groups. It's hard to be mistaken as a member, since they're usually based on skin color and I don't typically wear a burqa, being male and Xian.

The whites I knew who were concerned about such things and felt free to express their minds didn't have a nice plant-based name for whites who "liked" or "were like" blacks. Compound word, second word was "lover" and first word isn't used in polite white company these days.

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. You a U of W grad????

Class of '79, here.
Fun times there in the 70's...

[customerserviceguy]

22. Didn't graduate

Only spent from Fall, 1974 to Spring, 1976 there, but yeah, some real fun times.

Remember the Nazi who used to take up an entire stall wall in the men's room to spew his filth? He'd always entitle it "Attention White Men:..."

I guess that's where his thinking belonged, with everything else that stunk!

[KharmaTrain]

40. The Same Here...

...I had a black friend who joked about Gladys Knight appearing at the republican convention as a "reverse oreo"...

[TeeYiYi]

7. I thought oreo was a Ménage à trois...

Dunno about coconut.

TYY

[pipi_k]

49. I'm pretty sure...

that a Ménage à trois is a "sandwich".

[napi21]

9. Yes I've heard the term oreo, but coconut? Never heard of that before. n/t

[lawwolf]

13. never heard coconut

But I thought Oreo just meant someone with one black parent and one white parent.

[RB TexLa]

16. No. Ever hear the term "Swirl"?

Which is usually not used in an offensive manner but can be.

[lawwolf]

41. no

Never heard that one either.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

46. I must not get around much...

Never heard of coconut for swirl

[RB TexLa]

54. Swirl is half white half black like a chocolate vanilla ice cream cone

It's not usually used in an offensive manner. Really is only used offensivly when someone is trying to deny being a swirl.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

58. So if it's half Vanilla and half Orange Sherbet

Does that make someone half John Boehner?

Enquiring minds want to know....

[FarCenter]

62. So what would a Rocky Road or Moose Tracks be?

We've got another 30 or so flavors to go...

[snooper2]

48. Hillary used that on Barack...

about halfway into the video

&nofeather=True

[KamaAina]

63. No, that's a zebra

or so said the immortal George Jefferson.

[NRaleighLiberal]

18. this 57 year old hasn't heard of either uses as you describe. n/t

[MNBrewer]

19. I've heard Oreo, but never coconut.

[Art_from_Ark]

20. My grandfather used to use "coconut" to mean "head/brain"

"Use your coconut, for crying out loud!"

At my house, Oreos were never anything but black cookies with white creme inside.

[ileus]

21. didn't know coconut...

[uppityperson]

23. And Apple. All disparaging and meant to offend.

[petronius]

27. And egg and banana (both more common where I grew up in OC CA)... nt

[uppityperson]

30. Egg? Opposite of banana? I hadn't heard that one, or coconut before

[petronius]

32. Our demographics were largely white and Asian... nt

[Igel]

37. Haven't heard "banana" since UCLA in the '90s.

I was trying to remember "egg", which I was told was in use but never actually heard.

Probably a friend in grad school could have been described that way: Only dated Asian girls, studied Japanese, preferred Japanese food, etc., etc. Except that it was used contemptuously by Asians to insult whites who acted too Asian.

Again, your skin tone must determine your cultural affinity. Silly racists. Or perhaps "racialist" is better in this case.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

47. I get it!!!

It took me three reads to understand.

I must not be a visually-oriented person.

[bunnies]

68. apple, egg and banana are all insults?

Along with oreo and coconut?

No snark: Is this a serious thread? Ive never heard of any of this.

[petronius]

74. They're real terms - sometimes meant jokingly and sometimes meant as insults

('Egg' is probably the jokiest of the list.) The insult-use is based on the idea that one's racial/ethnic background should influence tastes, behaviors, affiliations - and is meant to show disdain for people who have abandoned their own culture and/or coopted another. So I guess they can only be insults to the degree that one thinks that makes any sense at all...

[bunnies]

75. Well thankfully, Im pretty sure Ive never

accidentally called someone an egg. Or apple or banana or any other such thing. I dont think I would have ever known they were insults until this thread. I love eggs!

[galileoreloaded]

24. sounds racist and self hating. nt

[Igel]

35. Not so much self-hating.

Just disparaging of diversity in a community that must be monolithic. Or something like that.

[dmr]

25. I never heard of it, and in fact

up until a couple years ago, I thought a Beaner was someone from Boston.

[Igel]

38. I was in my 30s when somebody explained it to me.

Heard it in Oregon, couldn't figure out the referent.

We didn't have Latino slurs where I grew up. Or Asian slurs. No Latinos, no Asians, nobody to slur. The slurs in fashion were against blacks and Italians and Poles. Mostly the latter two. Oddly enough "Jew" was a slur, said with a proper sneer. There were no Jewish people for miles around. Still don't like saying the word, it smacks of racism to me even though it's the accepted, neutral term.

[notadmblnd]

76. it's what I call my neice Sabrina

I've always called her "Beaner".

[HolyMoley]

28. So, if one is called a Hydrox

does that make them adopting the attitudes, values, and behavior thought to be characteristic of lower -class white society?

We couldn't afford Oreos when I was growing up; only fucking Hydrox.

[Inkfreak]

39. I feel your pain. Hydrox sux. n/t

[pipi_k]

45. We couldn't afford

Oreo or Hydrox.

In our house, it was circles of cardboard with library paste in the middle.

[dawg]

60. Did you know that Hydrox came first?

Oreo was a copycat.

[muriel_volestrangler]

72. 'Hydrox' sounds like a brand name for bleach

I'm amazed they sold any at all.

[KamaAina]

64. No, it would mean someone adopting the attitudes, values and behavior of Baltimore white society

for some reason, Hydrox have always been more popular than Oreos in Charm City (where I grew up). There was a Twinkie-like panic there when the original maker closed down som years ago.

[nessa]

29. Never heard of coconut but Oreo is not that rare ...

http://detroit.jalopnik.com/protesters-now-using-oreos-to-protest-detroits-emergen-464877329

More than one black conservative has claimed the term was used against them. Some claimed that oreos were thrown at Michael Steele in 2005.

[Douglas Carpenter]

31. I heard the term Coconut used by some Filipinos the same way it appears to be used by some Hispanics

Of course - I have heard the term Oreo - but I don't think I have heard it in at least 30 years.

[Igel]

36. I haven't heard "coconut" used recently.

'90s, Los Angeles, mostly by Filipinos.

Most Latinos know that their unified "ethnicity" is really, really diverse.

I told off a student for using "oreo" just a couple of months ago. Shortly after being accepted at a historically black college and having her consciousness raised by her Afro-centric new BFF and future roommate suddenly she was the arbiter and enforcer of all things African-American. If a black student was going to a mostly white college, well, that student had to be an oreo because *real* African-Americans respected their roots and went to historically black colleges.

[Lizzie Poppet]

44. I've heard "biscuit" before, but not "coconut."

Offensive, regardless...

[KamaAina]

65. Native Hawaiians, too

presumably other Pacific islanders as well.

[pipi_k]

43. Never

heard of the term "coconut" as it applies to race.

[byeya]

50. Watermelon used to disparage environmentalists: Green on the outside; red on the inside.

[NoPasaran]

51. Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?

[Iggo]

52. Trash racist thread.

[Sheepshank]

53. nope...never heard of those terms

but then I don't live to look for offense nor do I cultivate the "lingo" to give offense.

[WinkyDink]

55. Never heard "Coconut" in my 63 years.

[truebrit71]

56. I hadn't heard Coconut before...

...but Oreo I had...

[sakabatou]

57. Never heard of Coconut, Oreo I know.

[LWolf]

59. If I were asked to relate them

to racial terms, I could have come up with them.

I don't automatically think in those terms. To me, a coconut and an oreo are both delicious.

I also don't go around calling neo-liberals "DINOs."

[sibelian]

61. Never heard of either of them. nt

[bunnies]

66. Ive never heard either one of those terms.

Until this post, that is.

[KamaAina]

67. I once worked with a white guy who called himself a Fig Newton

whitish on the outside, brown on the inside. He grew up in Chicago around lots of African American people and culture.

[Islandurp]

69. I've heard of oreo but not coconut.

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[krispos42]

70. I've heard "oreo" before

Not "coconut" in that respect, although it's easy enough to see where it came from.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

73. never heard coconut used that way... n/t