Have you ever heard an elder call someone, usually a girl or a woman, a wench?

Here's how an old English word became a racist, sexist slur used to attack black women.

I'm Len with Push Black, and this is two-minute black history.

What You Didn't Learn in School.

Back in the day, it was common to hear some elders hurling the word wench at black women and girls.

Once an old English word used to describe a servant of any gender, along the way, its meaning changed and was turned against us.

During the Middle Ages, the word evolved.

In addition to connoting gender, social status, sexual availability, and age, it had become racialized to designate an enslaved black woman. Not only was wench used as a verbal assault, it also connoted black women's inferior status to white women.

Black women were called nasty wenches because of the hard agricultural labor they performed

in their perceived hypersexuality. Newspaper advertisements for escaped enslaved women

often used a phrase to categorize them as legally

and culturally as productive, reproductive, and sexual property.

An ad in the February 1777 Independent Chronicle of Boston, Massachusetts stated, quote,

To sell a hardy, likely Negro wench about 12 or 15 years of age.

In 19th century minstrel shows, the wench was caricatured by white men in drag to mock

and demean black women and girls. These images still affect the way society views us. We must always recognize the true meanings of the words colonialism introduced.

Let's watch what we say and always choose to speak power and positivity into one another instead.

In order to move towards the future, you've got to look to the past.

This has been Two Minute Black History, a podcast by Push Black.

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Together, let's celebrate and honor the legacy of Black History.

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