Rush Limbaugh has done it again. This time he has set off a firestorm about the word uppity, calling Michelle Obama "uppity" for occasionally taking a separate plane from her husband. Clarence Page says:

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Dictionaries define the word as "arrogant," "presumptuous" and "putting on airs of superiority." But it also has strong connotations in this country's cultural history as a description for blacks who, in the view of white society, don't know their place.

How did the racist connotation get started?

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How did the racist connotation get started?

Surely it was because the word was used by white folks to describe blacks?

The Online Etymology Dictionary says uppity was "originally used by blacks of other blacks felt to be too self-assertive (first recorded use is in "Uncle Remus"). The parallel British variant uppish (1670s) originally meant "lavish;" the sense of "conceited, arrogant" being first recorded 1734."

the OED Online says uppity means "Above oneself, self-important, ‘jumped-up’; arrogant, haughty, pert, putting on airs," and attests it from 1880:

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1880 J. C. Harris Uncle Remus: Songs & Sayings 86 Hit wuz wunner deze yer uppity little Jack Sparrers, I speck.

The word in itself is not racist, but when used by whites disparagingly against blacks it becomes racist, as in the following quote (from The OED Online):

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1952    F. L. Allen Big Change ii. viii. 130   The effect of the automobile revolution was especially noticeable in the South, where one began to hear whites complaining about ‘uppity niggers’ on the highways, where there was no Jim Crow.

It's similar to the word boy, a perfectly good word with no racial connotations; but when it is used in a demeaning manner by whites against blacks it becomes racist.

So, Tinman, would you say it started in the 1950s? Interestingly, the OED says it is "chiefly U.S.

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Interestingly, the OED says it is "chiefly U.S.

Yes, it's not used over here much, if at all. Uppish is possibly slightly more common, but more likely one of the "Above oneself, self-important, ‘jumped-up’, arrogant, haughty, pert, putting on airs" mentioned above would be used, particularly 'jumped-up'.

I don't think we use uppish...or at least I haven't heard of it.

I think uppity in th sense Rush used it was to convey a sense of "above one's station in life." Even though Michelle is the First Lady, there is still a feeling among folks such as Rush and his Dittoheads that, no matter how exalted the position they occupy, blacks can never achieve a state of equality with white people.