An actual test, along with the so-called ruler test in common use in the the early 1900s among upper class Black American societies and families to determine if a Black person was sufficiently white to gain admittance or acceptance. If your skin was darker than a brown paper bag, you did not merit inclusion. Thousands of Black institutions including the nation's most eminent Black fraternity -- Phi Alpha Phi, Howard Univiersity, and numerous church and civic groups all practiced this discriminiation. The practice has 19th Century antecedants with the Blue Blood Society and has not totally died out.
Zora Neal Hurston was the first well known writer to air this strange practice in a public. The practice is now nearly universally condemned (at least in public) as being an example of "colorism". Particularly cogent modern day critiques can be found in Kathy Russell's "The Color Complex", Tony Morrion's "The Bluest Eye" (an Ophrey Book Club choice) and Marita Golden's "Don't Play in the Sun." The best known send-up of the pactice, however, is Spike Lee's scathing and hilarious 1988 movie, "School Daze."
Zora Neal Hurston was the first well known writer to air this strange practice in a public. The practice is now nearly universally condemned (at least in public) as being an example of "colorism". Particularly cogent modern day critiques can be found in Kathy Russell's "The Color Complex", Tony Morrion's "The Bluest Eye" (an Ophrey Book Club choice) and Marita Golden's "Don't Play in the Sun." The best known send-up of the pactice, however, is Spike Lee's scathing and hilarious 1988 movie, "School Daze."
"Though the brown paper bag test is antiquated and frowned upon as a shameful moment in African-American history, the ideals behind the practice still lingers in the African-American community" -- Rivea Ruff, BlackCollegeView.Com
by Bill Peters August 19, 2006
Get the brown paper bag testmug. Medicine -- legal, illicit (usually pot), traditional or otherwise. This word appears in many Nigerian languages and means variously, an amulet, a treatment, and yes -- medicine. Juju is also the name of Nigeria's most popular musical genre.
by Bill Peters August 10, 2006
Get the jujumug. (1) To one-up someone in an argument or in a put down
(2) To illegally scam by adding charges to a person’s phone bill without their permission (Slamming senior citizens is a big business in Florida)
(3) Poetry slams are highly charged get-togethers or contests in which poets and rappers exchange their works with inspired verbal presentations.
(4) Slam dancing involves wild dancing (slamming bodies and thrashing limbs) among a large group of tightly packed participants
(2) To illegally scam by adding charges to a person’s phone bill without their permission (Slamming senior citizens is a big business in Florida)
(3) Poetry slams are highly charged get-togethers or contests in which poets and rappers exchange their works with inspired verbal presentations.
(4) Slam dancing involves wild dancing (slamming bodies and thrashing limbs) among a large group of tightly packed participants
(1) Every night John Stewart manages to slam someone in the White House
(2) Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington Redskins, made millions of dollars slamming senior citizens on the East Coast.
(3) Poetry slams attended by young people, have been a boon for the petry market.
(4) My 14-year-old daughter has been forbidden to enter mosh pits at concerts for fear that either she will get hurt by all the slamming or even ber groped.
(2) Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington Redskins, made millions of dollars slamming senior citizens on the East Coast.
(3) Poetry slams attended by young people, have been a boon for the petry market.
(4) My 14-year-old daughter has been forbidden to enter mosh pits at concerts for fear that either she will get hurt by all the slamming or even ber groped.
by Bill Peters October 11, 2006
Get the slammug. Among gay people there is an implicit Code of Honor: no matter how badly someone offends you, it is absolutely forbidden to expose or “out” fellow gays to their family, straight friends, or work colleagues.
by Bill Peters November 06, 2006
Get the absolute codemug. by Bill Peters October 07, 2006
Get the pantymug. Restaurant lingo meaning "take an item off the menu." By extension it can also mean to get rid of almost anything (including doing away with somebody). The Urbandictionary entry attributing the term to the 1980s is erroneous. I worked as a short order cook in the late 1960s and it was in use in a half dozen NewYork city joints where I worked. Oldtimers say the term was around in the 1940s and that the derivation is Article 86 of the New York Liquor Code which describes the circumstances under which liquor should be withheld from a customer.
by Bill Peters August 21, 2006
Get the eighty-sixmug. (n) A wide-spread and long-lived ridiculous scare during the 1980s and 1990s about LSD laced tattoos using a blue star design. Supposedly temporary tattoos were handed out to unsuspecting middle school students during recess. The tattoos were said to leach LSD through the skin. Dozens of law enforcement agencies and health departments, starting with the New Jersey Police Department Narcotics Bureau in 1980, have issued warnings about this “blotter acid” -- none of which is remotely true. Over the years scores of different flyers have been handed out to local PTAs throughout the country, often produced at home by scared but well-meaning and clueless parents, asserting that LSD tattoos bearing the designs of Mickey Mouse (as Sorcerers Apprentice), butterflies, clowns, red pyramids, colored microdots, and even Bart Simpson, were making the rounds of local school yards. Law enforcement and health agencies now know the information was untrue, but the hoax still is recycled on use-net groups.
Ironic blow-back:
Many professional tatoo artists report that a favorite request is for blue star tattoos.
Many professional tatoo artists report that a favorite request is for blue star tattoos.
by Bill Peters November 11, 2006
Get the blue starmug.