High yellow

High yellow, occasionally simply yellow (dialect: yaller, yeller), is a term used to describe persons classified as black according to the one-drop rule, despite having primarily white European ancestry. It is a color reference to the golden skin tone of some mixed-race people. The term was in common use in the United States at the end of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century, but is now considered obsolete and sometimes offensive. It is reflected in such popular songs of the era as "The Yellow Rose of Texas".

"High" is usually considered a reference to a social class system in which skin color (and associated ancestries) is a major factor, placing those of lighter skin (with more European ancestry) at the top and those of darker skin at the bottom. High yellows, while still considered part of the African-American ethnic group, were thought to gain privileges because of their skin and ancestry. "Yellow" is in reference to the usually very pale yellow undertone to the skin color of members of this group, often due to mixture with Europeans. Another reading of the etymology of the word "high" is that it is a slang word for "very", often used in Southern English, therefore "very yellow" (as opposed to brown).

In an aspect of colorism, "high yellow" was also related to social class distinctions among people of color. In post-Civil War South Carolina, according to one account by historian Edward Ball, "Members of the colored elite were called 'high yellow' for their shade of skin", as well as slang terms meaning snobbish. In New Orleans, the term "high-yellow" was associated with Creoles of colour "". In his biography of Duke Ellington, a native of Washington, D.C., David Bradbury wrote that Washington's:

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