Osborne Ink

Osborne Ink

Picking Cotton Is Not Racist

Only a racist would claim that it is

May 14, 2026
∙ Paid
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White sharecroppers in Hale County, Alabama in 1936

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the term ‘cotton-picking’ has been used as an intensifier since at least 1917. The entry also lists the word as “damned” due to its supposed racial connotations, but this is a modern projection on the past, because slavery had disappeared for two generations.…

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