black gangster

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Chinese 黑幫／黑帮 (hēibāng, “gangsters, gang”). The first character, 黑, translates as "black" on its own.

Noun

black gangster (plural black gangsters)

  1. (politics, historical, derogatory) propaganda term used by Mao Zedong against opponents
    • 1968, Survey of China Mainland Press: Supplement, page 14:
      […] and branded more than one-third of the people in the Agriculture Ministry as "rightists" or "black gangsters."
    • 1970, Jan S. Prybyla, The Political Economy of Communist China, page 539:
      It was not always clear who was a counterrevolutionary or a black gangster for that matter. Former landlords, capitalists, and rich peasants were more readily spotted, but even here there was some difficulty […]
    • 2016, Philip Short, Mao: The Man Who Made China, page 534:
      The radicals held that Liu's men were 'black gangsters' in league with the ousted Party committees.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see black,‎ gangster. (i.e. one with black skin)

See also

Further reading
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