Oreo cookie

English

Etymology

By analogy with the proprietary "Oreo Cookie" that is black on the outside and white on the inside, implying that certain black people are white at heart.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

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Noun

Oreo cookie (plural Oreo cookies)

1. (slang, idiomatic, mildly pejorative) A black person that appears to the community to embody the social and cultural features of a white person
   • 1997, Philip Herbst, The Color of Words‎^[1], page 172:

     oreo cookie, derogatory term from the 1960s, from the trade name for the cookies consisting of two chocolate biscuits sandwiching a white creamy center. Oreo is used for a black person — black on the outside white on the inside.

   • 1998, Susan T. Fiske, Daniel Todd Gilbert, Gardner Lindzey, The handbook of social psychology, volume 2, page 379:

     other subtypes (Uncle Tom, Oreo cookie) might be salient in other contexts.

   • 2009, James Sullivan, The Hardest Working Man: How James Brown Saved the Soul of America, link:

     You don't have to be like an Oreo cookie, brother

2. (slang, sexual) A threeway involving two black participants and one white participant between them
   • 2011, Wade Wright, Jay, Jake and Jimmy‎^[2], page 59:

     Jake and I did not know if it was going to be a white guy or a black guy, and I kind of think it might have turned out, to be a white guy. Jake, I think maybe we just completed the ole Oreo cookie thing! Don't you?”

Synonyms

• Oreo

See also

• Uncle Tom