Talk:Buckra

Use of term "Ras Buckra" ; origin of "Buckra".
In usage, the term "Buckra" in South Carolina is sometimes preceded by the term "Ras". According to the noted American Black Studies scholar Mary Jane Hewitt, the term "ras"  is Caribbean creole for "rags", used as a vulgar pejorative insult denoting menstrual rags. Throughout the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries, there existed a fluid cultural interchange between African slaves and free people of color in the  Caribbean and the Southern British colonies, and it is not inconceivable the term "ras" was introduced to South Carolina in this manner, especially as a descriptive term having to do with white people. There are various and competing theories regarding the descent of the word "buckra" from African languages. Considering that in the time period when black slavery flourished, a "buggerer" was one of the most grievous insults that could be offered to another, and the practice of sodomy was well known (the first execution in New England was the sixteen year old servant of Mayflower passenger Love Brewster, convicted of sodomizing an astonishing variety of farm animals, and who proffered the assurance that it was common practice in rural England, from which he hailed). Regardless of the mountains of research that have no doubt been compiled regarding African sources for the word "buckra", if the current writer were an African slave two hundred years ago, I'm sure I would have some choice terms for my oppressors, and a "rags buggerer" would seem to fill the bill in an expeditious manner. 69.209.0.179 (talk) 09:53, 17 October 2021 (UTC)