As with anything to do with upper class oppression of the lower in American history, the guilt and blame has been shifted from upper class to white and all of the hurt shifted from the white slave and lain on the shoulders of the suffering blacks. However, as shown below, the term boy entered the English language before English-speaking people held any black slaves and was coined to specifically denote a servant boy, where a free child or youth of the male sex might be referred to as a kid, laddie or lad. Blacks are right to resent this term, and whites are wrong for willfully forgetting that it was first used to describe English, male slave children. To be labeled a boy was to be called a dog.

boy.

[boi]

NOUN

1.a male child or young man:

synonyms: lad · schoolboy · male child · youth · young man · laddie · stripling

-a son:

-a male child or young man who does a specified job such as "a stock boy" reflecting the evolution of such menial tasks from slave labor to wage labor, making wage slavery an accurate term for such occupations

-dated, an older man addressing a younger man as "my boy" reflecting the fact that the term denoting servile status was retained to reflect junior status in the male hierarchy

-offensive (often used as a form of address) a black male servant or worker.

-used as a form of address to a male dog, such as "down boy, down!"

ORIGIN

Middle English (denoting a male servant): of unknown origin.