Slang racist term origins?

[McStarsky]

Why do black people call white people honkeys? What is the origin of this?

[WaldoMcFroog]

Honky comes from 'bohunk' and 'hunky', derogatory terms for Bohemian, Hungarian, and Polish immigrants that came into use around the turn of the 19th century. According to Robert Hendrickson, author of the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, black workers in Chicago meat-packing plants picked up the term from white workers and began applying it indiscriminately to all Caucasians.

Another candidate according to an accademic called David Dalby in his "African Element in American English" is the Wolof term honq, "red, pink," a term frequently used in to describe white men in African languages.

[Quizmonster]

Click http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19961003 for a web-page with the answer.

[Quizmonster]

A bit of synchrography for us there, Waldo!

[McStarsky]

Thanks guys!

[Dagman]

Hold up there! I've asked a few buddies and 70% suggested (without prompt) that honky is derived from a pig honking, referring to colour of skin being the same. I'm in the UK and it was/is used here where there are no connections with Chicago etc!! so how would people know?

[jocook17]

Dagman - perhaps your mates were just trying to think of a logical answer and, without the knowledge of QM's answer, thats what they arrived at -and its a good one. But 200 years is a long time and facts get mutated - a bit like chinese whispers. And in this country, for years the tv has been full of people using the word, so thats how they'd know. Of course the pig theory could be correct - it certainly make more logical sense than QM's answer, it's just that his sounded more learned.