Peckerwood (or simply Wood) is a racial slur 19th century southern Black Americans used to describe poor whites. Blacks saw blackbirds as a symbol of themselves, and the redheaded woodpecker as a representation of working class whites. They considered them loud and troublesome like the bird, and sometimes with red hair like the woodpecker's head plumes. This word is still widely used by southern blacks to refer to southern whites.

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  • Peckerwood (or simply Wood) is a racial slur 19th century southern Black Americans used to describe poor whites. Blacks saw blackbirds as a symbol of themselves, and the redheaded woodpecker as a representation of working class whites. They considered them loud and troublesome like the bird, and sometimes with red hair like the woodpecker's head plumes. This word is still widely used by southern blacks to refer to southern whites. In the 1940s, the abbreviated version "wood" entered California prison slang, originally meaning an Okie mainly from the San Joaquin Valley. This has caused the symbol of the woodpecker to be used by white power skinheads 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. Sometimes the letters "PW" or "APW" (Peckerwood and American Peckerwood) is used. The peckerwood gangs are concentrated in California, where some trade in methamphetamine. The exact etymological relationship between "peckerwood" and "woodpecker" is unclear. It is reported that in some Appalachian dialects, "peckerwood" is the normal word for "woodpecker" (possibly as part of a larger grammatical pattern); from this, it is speculated that speakers of other dialects may have applied this word to speakers of that dialect as a form of metonymic derision.
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  • Peckerwood (or simply Wood) is a racial slur 19th century southern Black Americans used to describe poor whites. Blacks saw blackbirds as a symbol of themselves, and the redheaded woodpecker as a representation of working class whites. They considered them loud and troublesome like the bird, and sometimes with red hair like the woodpecker's head plumes. This word is still widely used by southern blacks to refer to southern whites.
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  • Peckerwood
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