“White on Rice” Doesn’t Come from a Racist Idea

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Rachel.

Hi, Rachel, where are you calling from?

I’m calling from Encinitas, California.

All right, we are glad to have you on the show. What’s up?

Welcome.

Thank you so much for having me.

Sure thing.

So, me and one of my coworkers got in a pretty funny argument the other day about the term white on rice.

And she was asking me to do something, and I’m like, oh yeah, I’m all over it, just like white on rice.

And she’s like, what does that even mean? I think it’s racist.

And I’m like, it’s not racist at all.

It just means like you’re covering something, just like white covers rice.

And then she’s like, but white doesn’t always cover rice.

It can be multigrain and it can be brown.

Exactly.

And I was like, I think you’re reading too much into it.

I think this just means you’re handling something completely.

So then we started doing some research and we couldn’t find anything definitive explaining whether or not it’s racist or not.

So we came to you guys for a…

Why would it be racist?

I think her thinking was just that it had white in it, the terminology white immediately made it racial.

Interesting.

And are both of you from California?

Yes, yes.

I’m originally from Maryland, and she is originally from Ohio, though.

Everyone’s transplanted.

Oh, really?

Okay, so you heard white on rice as you were growing up all the time?

All the time, yeah, just like it’s handled, it’s taken care of.

And we actually asked another co-worker here who happens to be married to an Asian man, and she said, no, it’s fine.

Right.

We really run it through the office here.

So we need help because we don’t want to be saying it if it does actually have some kind of racial connotation in there.

There’s nothing racial whatsoever about white on rice.

Thank you.

But it’s interesting to me that you use it to mean you say I’m on it like white on rice,

Where traditionally you would say something is as close or as stuck to something like white on rice.

Oh, I’ve always used it as I’m all over that like white on rice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I’m on it.

I’m stuck on it like white on rice.

Over history, it pops up frequently in African-American speech and not white American speech, which is really interesting to me.

Oh, that’s interesting.

I think because of the whole rice thing, too, I think she then thought it had more to do with Asian-Americans.

And she was like, I think that’s also why she also did that.

No, there’s nothing racial.

It’s just about traditionally the rice that we’ve eaten in the United States has been white for a very long time.

And still most people eat white rice.

White rice is very sticky, usually.

And so the sticking to something like white on rice is about that.

Not only the color, but like the quality of rice of being a sticky thing itself.

Yeah.

I mean, I can.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In these sensitive times, I can see why it would catch her ear, but it’s fine.

There’s no history of it.

There’s no story of it.

Yeah.

And it’s part of a tradition of saying things like I’m all over that, like green on grass.

Right, right, right.

Wet on a whale.

Yeah.

Or like green.

That’s exactly what I said to her.

Then I said something like it means like you’re covering something like how germs cover babies.

I gave her that analogy.

I like that.

Yeah, and she’s like, okay, that I understand.

I’ve seen like lint on Blue Surge as well.

Oh, that’s good.

Well, and you know President George W. Bush used like ugly on ape.

Like ugly on an ape.

Yeah, or ugly on ape, I think it was.

That’s nice.

Okay.

Well, I’m glad to hear that I’m right and this is not right.

You’re all over it, aren’t you?

I’m all over it.

Thanks for calling.

It’s handled.

Thank you.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

There is a great quote that uses this expression in a book by Geneva Smitherman.

It’s called Talking and Testifying.

So it’s about African-American English.

And she quotes an introduction to a 1969 music album by Frankie Crocker.

I’ve never heard of him.

But the quote is exquisite.

And it goes, closer than whites on rice, closer than colds on ice, closer than the collars on a dog, closer than ham is on a country hog.

I love that.

Oh, my gosh.

So that’s close.

I like cold on ice.

And he’s using it, as you’ll often find, at least in the 60s and 70s,

You were talking about personal relationships.

So you might say, instead of saying they’re as thick as thieves,

They’re sticking to each other like white on rice.

Of course, you wonder why it’s rice.

Why isn’t it, you know, like red on apple?

Don’t know.

How about orange on orange?

Never mind.

If you got in trouble with a friend for saying something that they didn’t think you should say,

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