High yellow
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
at the end of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century, and appears in many popular songs of the era, such as "The Yellow Rose of Texas".
Source of the name
"High" is a reference to a social class system in which skin color is a major factor, placing those of lighter skin at the top and those of darker skin at the bottom. High yellows, while still considered part of the African American class, were considered by many to be at the top of that class.Skin color
Many high yellows are as light skinned as Europeans, and even lighter than some Europeans. Their specific skin hue is generally caused by a mixture of EuropeanEuropean ethnic groups
The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
ancestry. In other cases, some African-descending individuals simply have naturally lighter-skinned genes than most other Africans, without biracial admixturing. One ethnic group for which this is the case are the Shinasha
Shinasha
The Shinasha, also known as Bworo or Boro, are an ethnic group of Ethiopia. Their language belongs to the North Omotic family . They live north of the Blue Nile in the Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumuz Region and number around 33,000 individuals. Their neighbors in the area include Gumuz and...
of western Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, which led one early explorer to theorize that they were evidence of a "yellow race" who were the original inhabitants of this part of Africa. Scientific studies conclude natural human skin color diversity is highest in black/sub-saharan African populations therefore many blacks/sub-saharan Africans or people of sub saharan African descent (blacks) are naturally light skinned.
Use as social class distinction
In an aspect of colorismColorism
Colorism is prejudice or discrimination in which human beings are accorded differing social treatment based on skin color. The preference often gets translated into economic status because of opportunities for work. Colorism can be found across the world...
, "high yellow" also had aspects of social class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
distinctions. In post-Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
, according to one account by historian Edward Ball
Edward Ball (American author)
Edward Ball is an American writer of non-fiction, best known for his book Slaves in the Family . The book tells the story of the author's family, slave-owners in South Carolina for 200 years, and recounts his search for and meetings with descendants of his family's slaves...
, "Members of the colored elite were called 'high yellow' for their shade of skin", as well as slang terms meaning snob
Snob
A snob is someone who believes that some people are inherently inferior to him or her for any one of a variety of reasons, including real or supposed intellect, wealth, education, ancestry, taste, beauty, nationality, et cetera. Often, the form of snobbery reflects the snob's personal attributes...
bish. In New Orleans, the term "high-yellow" was associated with Creole
Creole peoples
The term Creole and its cognates in other languages — such as crioulo, criollo, créole, kriolu, criol, kreyol, kreol, kriulo, kriol, krio, etc. — have been applied to people in different countries and epochs, with rather different meanings...
"brahmins". In the era of Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
, a native of Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
,
In some cases the confusion of color with class came about because some of the lighter-skinned blacks came from families of mixed heritage free before the Civil War, who had already begun to accumulate education and property. In addition, some wealthier white planters
Plantations in the American South
Plantations were an important aspect of the history of the American South, particularly the antebellum .-Planter :The owner of a plantation was called a planter...
made an effort to have their "natural" sons (the term for children outside marriage created with enslaved women) educated and some even passed property on to them.
These social distinctions made the cosmopolitan Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
more appealing. Nevertheless, the Cotton Club of the Prohibition era "had a segregated
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
, white-only audience policy and a color-conscious, 'high yellow' hiring policy for chorus girls". It was common for lighter-skinned African Americans to hold "paper bag parties
Paper Bag Party
Paper bag parties were 20th-century African-American social events at which only individuals with complexions at least as light as the color of a brown paper bag were admitted...
" which admitted only those whose complexion was lighter than that of a brown paper bag.
In her 1942 Glossary of Harlem Slang, Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance...
placed "high yaller" at the beginning of the entry for colorscale, which ran:
Applied to individuals
The French author Alexandre DumasAlexandre Dumas, père
Alexandre Dumas, , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
, who descended from a Haitian
Haitian
Haitian may refer to:* A person or thing of, from, or related to the country of Haiti* Haitian Creole language * Haitian cuisine* Haitian , minor character in the 2006 television series Heroes...
mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
, had skin "with a yellow so high it was almost white". In a 1929 review, TIME magazine called him a "High Yellow Fictioneer".
Art and popular culture
The terminology and its cultural aspects were explored in Dael OrlandersmithDael Orlandersmith
Dael Orlandersmith is an actress, poet and playwright who is best known for her Obie Award winning Beauty's Daughter and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama, Yellowman....
's play Yellowman, a 2002 Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
Finalist in drama. The play depicts a dark-skinned girl whose own mother "inadvertently teaches her the pain of rejection and the importance of being accepted by the 'high yellow' boys." One reviewer described the term as having "the inherent, unwieldy power to incite black Americans with such intense divisiveness and fervor" as few others.
The phrase survives in folk songs such as "The Yellow Rose of Texas," which originally referred to Emily West Morgan, a "mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
" indentured servant apocryphally associated with the Battle of San Jacinto
Battle of San Jacinto
The Battle of San Jacinto, fought on April 21, 1836, in present-day Harris County, Texas, was the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Sam Houston, the Texian Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican forces in a fight that lasted just eighteen...
, but was later bowdlerized. Blind Willie McTell
Blind Willie McTell
Blind Willie McTell , was an influential Piedmont and ragtime blues singer and guitarist. He played with a fluid, syncopated fingerstyle guitar technique, common among many exponents of Piedmont blues, although, unlike his contemporaries, he used exclusively a twelve-string guitar...
's song "Lord, Send Me an Angel" has its protagonist forced to choose between three women, described as "Atlanta yellow," "Macon
Macon, Georgia
Macon is a city located in central Georgia, US. Founded at the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is part of the Macon metropolitan area, and the county seat of Bibb County. A small portion of the city extends into Jones County. Macon is the biggest city in central Georgia...
brown," and a "Statesboro
Statesboro, Georgia
Statesboro is a city in southeast Georgia, United States, and is the county seat and most populous city of Bulloch County. Statesboro has a population of 28,422 and the Statesboro, GA Micropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 70,217...
blackskin". And Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...
's song "I've Got What It Takes", by Clarence Williams, refers to "a slick high yeller" boyfriend who "turned real pale" when she wouldn't wait for him to get out of jail. As recently as 2004, white R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
singer-songwriter Teena Marie
Teena Marie
Mary Christine Brockert, better known by her stage name Teena Marie, was an American singer, songwriter and producer...
released a song titled "High Yellow Girl," said to be about her daughter Alia Rose, who is biracial.
The related phrase "high brown" was used in Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
's original lyrics for Puttin' on the Ritz
Puttin' on the Ritz
"Puttin' on the Ritz" is a popular song written and published in 1929 by Irving Berlin and introduced by Harry Richman in the musical film Puttin' on the Ritz . The title derives from the slang expression "putting on the Ritz," meaning to dress very fashionably. The expression was inspired by the...
.
Rapper Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...
refers to his wife, singer Beyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles , often known simply as Beyoncé, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child...
, as "my high yellow broad," in his 2009 song "Off That," from the The Blueprint 3 album.
External links
- High Yaller, a 1936 painting by Reginald MarshReginald MarshReginald Marsh may refer to:* Reginald Marsh , American painter most notable for his detailed depictions of life in New York City in the 1920s* Reginald Marsh , actor in many British sitcoms...