Meaning
What does mean?
The offensive slang term mulignan is an ethic slur for a black particular person.
It at first manner eggplant, and as the vegetable has a gloomy red, virtually blackish colour, “mulignan” means that black other folks appear to be an eggplant.
This can be a derogatory insult continuously utilized by Italian American citizens – Italians that migrated to the US a couple of generations in the past.
The term is identical to different racist slurs about black other folks, together with the “N-word”. It’s due to this fact thought to be hate speech and must no longer be used.
Seek Pastime
Origin of the term
Whilst the Italian term for eggplant is formally “melanzana”, Italy’s districts have vary very much in its dialects.
In Sicily, the term is pronounced “mulignan”, and it used to be first Sicilian that began the usage of it as an offensive term.
Italians began migrating to the US in 1820, and over 5 tens of millions have traveled ever since. As there used to be considerably extra black other folks in the US than in Italy, the utilization of the slur larger very much among Italian American citizens, and has been used ever since.
Unfold of the term
There are smaller Italian American communities unfold out in all states of the US, and as person Danny boy shared on City Dictionary in 2004:
‘That is the term for “African American citizens” utilized by maximum Italian-American men, myself integrated. I grew up listening to my father and grandfather the usage of all of it of the time, so it’s handiest herbal.’
We will be able to see that the term remains to be getting used nowadays.
In 2018, Miami-Dade Circuit Pass judgement on Stephen Millan used a shortened model of the term, “moolie”, to describe an African-American defendant and confronted suspension.
