Peckerwood
Encyclopedia
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
African Americans
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
and upper class whites used to describe poor rural whites
White American
White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...
. It is roughly synonymous with "cracker
Cracker (pejorative)
Cracker, sometimes white cracker, is a pejorative term for white people. It is an ethnic slur that is especially used for the white inhabitants of the U.S. states of Georgia and Florida , but it is also used throughout the United States.-Etymology:One theory holds that the term comes from the...
" and "redneck
Redneck
Redneck is a historically derogatory slang term used in reference to poor, uneducated white farmers, especially from the southern United States...
", more prevalent in the southeast, and "White trash", although the last implies a degree of moral turpitude. Blacks saw blackbird
New World blackbird
The New World blackbirds consist of 26 species of icterid birds that share the name blackbird but do not correspond with a formal taxon...
s as a symbol of themselves, and the redheaded woodpecker
Woodpecker
Woodpeckers are near passerine birds of the order Piciformes. They are one subfamily in the family Picidae, which also includes the piculets and wrynecks. They are found worldwide and include about 180 species....
as a representation of working class whites. They considered them loud and troublesome like the bird, and sometimes with red hair
Red hair
Red hair occurs on approximately 1–2% of the human population. It occurs more frequently in people of northern or western European ancestry, and less frequently in other populations...
like the woodpecker's head plumes. This word is still widely used by southern blacks to refer to southern whites. Pecker-wood, (a.k.a. Peck-a-wood), is also a mentality in which white people deem themselves superior to African-Americans, look down on them, and justify ill and inhumane treatment of them, and as a basis of discrimination and separation. Where as the word Pecker-wood may refer to, but is not limited to, southern whites, the Pecker-wood mentality is prevalent in all regions in the United States, and throughout the world.
In the 1940s
1940s
File:1940s decade montage.png|Above title bar: events which happened during World War II : From left to right: Troops in an LCVP landing craft approaching "Omaha" Beach on "D-Day"; Adolf Hitler visits Paris, soon after the Battle of France; The Holocaust occurred during the war as Nazi Germany...
, the abbreviated version "wood" entered California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
prison slang, originally meaning an Okie
Okie
Okie is a term dating from as early as 1907, originally denoting a resident or native of Oklahoma. It is derived from the name of the state, similar to Texan or Tex for someone from Texas, or Arkie or Arkansawyer for a native of Arkansas....
mainly from the San Joaquin Valley
San Joaquin Valley
The San Joaquin Valley is the area of the Central Valley of California that lies south of the Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta in Stockton...
. This has caused the symbol of the woodpecker to be used by white power skinheads
Nazi-Skinheads
White power skinheads are a white supremacist and antisemitic offshoot of the skinhead subculture. Many of them are affiliated with white nationalist organizations....
and other pro-white groups.
Some white supremacist groups call male members "peckerwoods" and female members "featherwoods". It is usually drawn with a long beak, sometimes drawn to resemble Woody Woodpecker
Woody Woodpecker
Woody Woodpecker is an animated cartoon character, an anthropomorphic acorn woodpecker who appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz animation studio and distributed by Universal Pictures...
or Mr. Horsepower
Mr. Horsepower
Mr. Horsepower is the cartoon mascot and logo of Clay Smith Cams, an auto shop established in 1931. He is a sneering, cigar-smoking caricature of legendary hotrod guru Clay Smith. Mr. Horsepower is rarely without a cigar, but when he is, he has a "cigar replacement" - such as a candy cane for the...
. Sometimes the letters "PW" or "APW" (Peckerwood and American Peckerwood) are used. The peckerwood gangs are concentrated in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, where some trade in methamphetamine
Methamphetamine
Methamphetamine is a psychostimulant of the phenethylamine and amphetamine class of psychoactive drugs...
.
In the East Bay Area of California (Contra Costa County, Martinez, Richmond, Pittsburg, Antioch) the peckerwood gang members are identified by the CO. CO. (contra costa county tattoo, usually in but not limited to the abdominal/stomach region).
The tattoo and Co. Co. County "WhiteBoy" gang trails to the prison California gang F.A.M.E affiliates of the Aryan Brotherhood.
"Peckerwood" is used in a 1975 Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live (Season 1)
The first season of Saturday Night Live, the weekly late-night 90-minute American sketch comedy/variety show on NBC, aired during the 1975–1976 television season...
skit in which Richard Pryor
Richard Pryor
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets...
must complete a word association test
Word Association
Word Association is a common word game involving an exchange of words that are associated together. The game is based on the noun phrase word association, meaning "stimulation of an associative pattern by a word" or "the connection and production of other words in response to a given word, done...
as part of a job interview, with interviewer Chevy Chase
Chevy Chase
Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase is an American comedian, writer, and television and film actor, born into a prominent entertainment industry family. Chase worked a plethora of odd jobs before moving into comedy acting with National Lampoon...
giving increasingly inflammatory words as prompts. The term is also used in the 1985 Robert Zemeckis
Robert Zemeckis
Robert Lee Zemeckis is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Zemeckis first came to public attention in the 1980s as the director of the comedic time-travel Back to the Future film series, as well as the Academy Award-winning live-action/animation epic Who Framed Roger Rabbit ,...
film Back to the Future
Back to the Future
Back to the Future is a 1985 American science-fiction adventure film. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, produced by Steven Spielberg, and starred Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. The film tells the story of...
as a rebuttal to the opposing epithet "spook
Spook
Spook is another word for a ghost or apparition. It may also refer to:* A term used to describe espionage agents or spies, originating in the United States of America* Spook Jacobs, a Major League Baseball player in the 1950s...
."
Sometimes "peckerwood" is used in combination with redneck
Redneck
Redneck is a historically derogatory slang term used in reference to poor, uneducated white farmers, especially from the southern United States...
as "redneck peckerwood", for example in Sam Peckinpah
Sam Peckinpah
David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch...
's classic Western Ride the High Country
Ride the High Country
Ride the High Country is a noted 1962 American Western film. It stars Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, Ron Starr, Edgar Buchanan and Mariette Hartley. It was written by N.B...
.