Dictionary

Oreo cookie en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

By analogy with the proprietary "Oreo Cookie" that is black on the outside and white on the inside, implying that certain black people are white at heart.

Meanings

1. (idiomatic, mildly, pejorative, slang) A black person that appears to the community to embody the social and cultural features of a white person
   • oreo cookie, derogatory term from the 1960s, from the trade name for the cookies consisting of two chocolate biscuits sandwiching a white creamy center. Oreo is used for a black person — black on the outside white on the inside. 1997, Philip Herbst, The Color of Words, page 172:
   • other subtypes (Uncle Tom, Oreo cookie) might be salient in other contexts. 1998, Susan T. Fiske, Daniel Todd Gilbert, Gardner Lindzey, The handbook of social psychology, volume 2, page 379:
   • You don't have to be like an Oreo cookie, brother 2009, James Sullivan, The Hardest Working Man: How James Brown Saved the Soul of America, link:
2. (qualifier:sexual, slang) A threeway involving two black participants and one white participant between them
   • Jake and I did not know if it was going to be a white guy or a black guy, and I kind of think it might have turned out, to be a white guy. Jake, I think maybe we just completed the ole Oreo cookie thing! Don't you?” 2011, Wade Wright, Jay, Jake and Jimmy, page 59:

Forms

Relateds

Uncle Tom

Synonyms

Oreo