A controversial old saying about a woodpile may have originated in Virginia during slavery

The early Looney Tunes used racist images

I was watching the Looney Tunes short Porky's Railroad (1937) which has a scene where Toots the train zooms by a pile of wood. When it implodes there is a character that looks like a monkey who emerges from beneath it. The subliminal racist message of this scene is one I heard not from whites but from Black people of my grandmother's generation.

Whenever there was a situation where something seemed suspicious, they would say "There's a nig**er in the woodpile." Wikipedia suggests this wording may have come from Virginia slaves trying to escape through the Underground Railroad hiding beneath a pile of wood.

Looney Toons capitalizes on the racial slur

History.com reveals that the Underground Railroad may have had its beginnings in Virginia as in 1786 George Washington is said to have complained about Quakers trying to "liberate" his slaves. It's likely that the phrase There's a nig**er" in the woodpile may have originated in the Commonwealth considering this was the first slave state and its usage among African Americans of the Greatest Generation (1901-1924).

My great-grandmother Florence was born in 1900 and she said her mother Lizzie was a child when slaves were set free. I find it interesting that African Americans of that generation including my grandma who was born in 1918 used self-deprecating language yet younger generations are offended to the point of boycotting Looney Tunes. There are episodes called the censored 11 but Porky's Railroad is not one of them.