Huh. You learn something new every day.

[hazliya]

So, as I was researching a few things for the play I'm working on, I stumbled across a bit of info that sheds new light for me.

You know the song "The Yellow Rose of Texas?" Popular folk song, dates back to "Oh, Susanna" and all that? It's catchy. I'd heard it here and there since I was little.

Come to find out, "Yellow Rose" was a civil war-era racial slur.

It's fallen out of usage since oh, say... 1890? But still.

Changes the song quite a bit. At least, from the way I saw it when I was eight.

-Haz

Comments

[laurion]

Can you cite your source?

[hazliya.livejournal.com]

I first got a hint of it when I looked up the song on Wikipedia, but since it's... you know, wikipedia... I searched around. Turns out the person who was the original "yellow rose of texas" was mixed race, and as her fame grew, people started referring to mixed races (specifically, black with obvious white parentage) as "yellow rose." I'm still not 100% sure on it, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Here's the wiki page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Rose_of_Texas) that started me looking. Here (http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=979052), under the song lyrics, there's another little tidbit, This (http://www.afrigeneas.com/forum-west/index.cgi?noframes;read=227) looks a little at the racial tones of the song that got leached away over time, and this seems to have some history on the woman herself, and what "yellow rose" came to mean. (http://www.mcall.com/entertainment/all-yardsmart.6199072dec28,0,4784281.story)

[dncingmalkavian.livejournal.com]

Shit for colloquial definitions. I'm a yellow rose. And yellow roses mean friendship.

Maybe we can redefine the phrase?