Where did Honky come from?
Origin Honky, when used as a pejorative meaning white, was first used in 1967 by black militants within SNCC seeking a rebuttal for the term ******. They settled on a familiar word they felt was disparaging to certain Americans of European descent; hunkie meaning an American of Slavic or Hungarian descent.[1][2] The word “honky” as a pejorative for caucasians comes from “bohunk” and “hunky”. In the early 1900’s, these were derogatory terms for Bohemian, Hungarian, and Polish immigrants. According to Robert Hendrickson, author of the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, African-American workers in Chicago meat-packing plants picked up the term from white workers and began applying it indiscriminately to all Caucasians.
