jiggaboo

n

American

a black person. This was originally a rac-ist epithet used by whites since the early years of the 20th century and later adopted in a gesture of defiance, like nig-ger, by blacks to refer to themselves. The black American author and academic Clarence Major derives the expression from the Bantu word tshikabo, meaning 'servile', and dates its adoption to the 17th century. In School Daze, a 1988 film by the black director Spike Lee, a fic-tional all-black southern US campus is riven between the 'jigaboo' faction who want the college authorities to sever links with South Africa, and the wannabes who are ambitious and apolitical and ape white pastimes and rituals.