Word Watch: 'Spook'

Facts from the original

• The article is part of NPR's Code Switch 'Word Watch' series and was published October 24, 2017, written by Leah Donnella.
• An Ask Code Switch reader wrote in asking about the etiquette of using words like 'spook' and 'spooky.'
• 'Spook' comes from the Dutch word for apparition, or specter.
• The noun was first used in English around the turn of the nineteenth century.
• Over the following decades it developed other forms, including spooky, spookish, and the verb 'to spook.'
• For many years the word lived a relatively innocuous life, existing between surprise and mild fear.
• It was not until World War II that 'spook' started to refer to black people.
• The black Army pilots who trained at the Tuskegee Institute were referred to as the 'Spookwaffe' — 'waffe' being the German word for weapon or gun (Luftwaffe was the name of the German air force).
• Once 'spook' was linked to blackness, it soon became a recognizable — if second-tier — slur.
• The word had a bit of a renaissance in the 1970s with the release of the novel and classic film 'The Spook Who Sat By The Door' by Sam Greenlee.
• Both the book and movie tell the fictional story of the first black man recruited and trained by the CIA, who finishes training, works briefly, quits, and moves back to Chicago, where he secretly trains a group of young black 'freedom fighters.'
• The movie's title refers both to 'spook' meaning black person and 'spook' meaning spy.
• As a satirical work by an African-American author in the years after the civil rights movement, its use of 'spook' carried an extra dose of irony.
• Renee Blake is a sociolinguist who studies how language is used in society, whether based on race, class, gender or the like.
• Blake says she doesn't hear the word spook all that often, but has two salient reference points for it.
• Her first reference point is 'The Spook Who Sat By The Door,' and her second is the 2000 book and 2003 movie 'The Human Stain' by Phillip Roth.
• 'The Human Stain' tells the story of a professor at a New England college forced to resign after he calls two African-American students spooks.
• In 2010, Target apologized for selling a Halloween toy called 'Spook Drop Parachuters' — miniature black figurines with orange parachutes.
• Blake said that although spook clearly has multiple, distinct meanings, it is still important to think about context.
• Blake said to be thoughtful about the fact that spook now might carry the connotation of referring to a black person in a disparaging way.
• Blake said that if someone asks 'Did you get spooked?' with no black people present, it is fine and just means scared or frightened.
• Blake said that once black people are part of the situation, it is important to be more tactful.
• Blake compared it to the word 'niggardly,' which does not mean a black person, yet she argues you would not use it in front of a group of young students in a classroom.
• The article advises being cautious when describing your surroundings this Halloween, and not being afraid to reach into the thesaurus for a synonym.
• The author says it is more fun to be aghast, bloodcurdled, or spine-chilled than 'spooked.'
• The way certain words get attached to particular racial groups is described as incredibly complicated, with 'thug' given as another example.