Smear the Queer – Childhood Games and the Meaning of Words We Say
I remember when we were young, a game of Smear the Queer could break out on the playground at any time.
One moment you were playing a friendly game of catch, and suddenly someone would throw the ball at you and scream out, “Smear the Queer,” which immediately made you the target of a tackling mob.
You’d run as hard as your pride would take you, until you were either smothered or managed to toss the ball off onto some other sucker who was feeling a brief sense of invincibility.
It was a game of boyhood bravery with no winners and no losers, where the sides were simple to see, and you could easily choose which to stand on, to either get or get gotten.
But it was mostly just stupidity and boys being boys, something that we thought might separate us momentarily as men.
The rules of Smear the Queer were simple: one person was it, either by chance if the ball was tossed to them or by choice if they grabbed the ball from another or off the ground, and everybody else tried to tackle them to get the ball.
However, not once when I heard that primal call to action shouted out, “Smear the Queer,” did I look around for a homosexual to harass, nor can I even remember understanding the true nature of the name of our game.
It could be argued that the word queer is not being used in the derogatory sense in this instance, that it is simply used to signify the person who is “it”, who represents the unusual or different person in the less sinister sense of the word, the person who is suspect, and therefore, outside of the mob.
And it could also be argued that smear is not meant to indicate an attack on the character of someone or a slanderous defamation of their good name, but rather to cover and smudge a person as some friendly tackling will do.
But then why use the more vicious term Smear the Queer and not some more appropriate name with the same meaning like Smother the Other, and where did the name of this game develop?
I don’t have the answers to these questions, but like many terms that have been used over the years in American society, the name of this children’s game is likely rooted in hatred and bigotry, not from the children who play the game, but passed along by adults and somehow coined into the name of a playground pastime.
There are many examples of these terms in our lexicon, including “Indian Giver” (one who gives something only to take it back with obvious negative implications against Native Americans), and “Yellow” (a coward or traitor with suspect origins in the early American hatred of asian immigrants).
These terms get used at first in hatred, but then get adapted over generations until they end up being accepted terms that are used in everyday English by children that don’t know any better, who are taught by ignorant adults.
Of course, we hope that one day these children mature and realize that words have meaning, and that they will decide to no longer use them for communication, but culturally ingrained hatred isn’t good for our development as a community.
I’m reminded that this game still exists by my cousin, whose two boys were recently playing Smear the Queer with their team after a football practice, as the coach had literally told her.
When she told the other parents who were waiting for their kids that they were just playing a quick game of “Smear the Queer,” her words were met with outrage at the use of such vulgar language.
Funny enough though, none of them stopped the game until the boys were good and tired, and they really didn’t object to their boys either being tackled by a mob or joining a mob to tackle a single child, but just thought it was an inappropriate name for a game.
Even so, I can’t imagine too many parents explained the meaning of the name Smear the Queer to their children on the way home, but it’s probably better that they allow their children to live in innocence a little longer.
God forbid one of them might think they were actually being attacked for who they are and feel that they were no longer just part of the group playing the game.
The game wasn’t quite played how you claim. The first person with the ball punted it into the air, a scrum followed, someone would grab the ball and run. Others pursued until the runner tackled or chose to punt. From there, game play repeated.
Such playing develops both open field tackling skills as well as evasive running skills.
The name Smear the Queer is a fine name. Your beef over it and other names such as “yellow”, “Indian giver” and the like makes you, well, a retard. Oops. Should you have been called an r-tard instead? Is that equally as bad?
Community is a word of rhetoric taught to ghetto dwellers by their local leaders who make it rain with money doled to them by politicians and bureaucrats who first get that money when they take it with threat of force taxpayers.
Queer means odd, and on a field where only one person has the ball, they are queer by definition.
Who knows the origins of the name, but it’s possible that it was called “smear the queer” before queer became a synonym for homosexual.
Your so stupid and your article sucks. Smear the Queer is called such because the person wth the ball is different because they have a ball, not to mention they are trying not to get tackled. Queer in this case is both an Adjective and a Verb. Queer eventually came to become a Noun, as in “Your a queer.” aka homosexual, but this was much later and it comes from the the fact queer as an adjective means differnt and homosexuals are different then people who are heterosexual. The childs game was never rooted in any kind of hate.
Yellow if you knew anything comes from a very ancient meaning of coward, and the meaning is that cowards piss themselves, hence they are yellow from pissing themselves. It never came from being Chinese. The fact you would think Chinese are “yellow” says far more about you then anyone else.
The term Indian Giver comes from the fact that when Native Americans would “give” stuff to the settlers, they most likely were “loaning” or “looking to trade” and never meant to just be giving away goods for nothing in return. Native Americans came from a pure barter system and the settlers didn’t get this and naturaly when the Native Americans took things back, this most likely pissed the settlers off. Is the term is somewhat offinsive to say, but ironicly it comes from simply a misunderstanding on both sides.
Wow…..I know way more then you on all of this. I should have wrote this article, and you should have STFU.
Hello Ryan,
You make some interesting points, especially about the article sucking and me being stupid.
As far as Smear the Queer goes, I already conceded within the above article that the word queer could be used in its literal sense in this case, and not necessarily be derogative, but even if that’s the case, I don’t see any sense in the name still being used to this day, when the word queer is now strongly associated with homosexuality. There are plenty of words that don’t originate from hate, but have been converted as such, so people with a conscience don’t use them anymore. Yet, some people still want to defend the term Smear the Queer, even when it has outgrown its original use.
I would also like to correct your statement that “homosexuals are different then people who are heterosexual.”
Homosexuals are not different than heterosexuals in the way that the adjective queer implies (“differing in some odd way from what is usual or normal” – Merriam-Webster). They’re only different in the sense that we are all unique as individual human beings, but they’re not outsiders, odd, or queer in any sense, so that is not a proper use of the word queer, even in its literal sense.
As far as “yellow” goes, please expound on the ancient meaning of this word, I would love to hear more about its origins and where this comes from. It’s kind of silly though that you claim it is a fact that I think “Chinese” are yellow. I actually didn’t say the word “Chinese” at all in my article, as all asian people are not Chinese, and I was just discussing the possible origins of this derogatory word usage.
As far as “indian giver” goes, whether it was a misunderstanding or not, it’s still offensive to say, so I’m glad we can at least agree on that.
You may very well know more about the history of these terms than I do, as I don’t claim to be an expert on anything, but was merely making some observations on the use of language.
Hello Morghan,
Thank you for your comment. I definitely agree that the name of the game Smear the Queer might have preceded the use of the term queer for homosexuals. However, I would still argue that the name should no longer be used for a children’s game, given the current controversy around the word queer.
Here is some interesting information from Wikipedia about alternative names for the game Smear the Queer:
Muckle
Muckle (sometimes called ‘muckle the man with the ball’, ‘kill-the-guy-with-the-ball’, ‘kill the carrier’, or ‘smear the queer’ among other names) is the reverse of regular tag; all of the other players chase ‘it’. This player is denoted by carrying a ball (usually a football). When they are caught, they are tackled, or ‘muckled’. Whoever retrieves the ball first or whoever attacks the one who is it then becomes it. Sometimes the last player arriving to tackle the former ball carrier is the next person to be it; in other variations the player with the ball throws the ball up in the air, where it is caught by another player who becomes it.
Hello Teachu Alesson (you sure did),
I don’t know the official rules of the Smear the Queer league, but I’m sure it varies greatly among school children and groups of friends. I guess we played a pretty crazy version of it without too many rules.
If you want to call me a retard, because I don’t think it’s an appropriate name for kids to use these days, that’s fine, but I just hope you won’t teach kids to call people retards when they don’t agree with them.
I’m not really sure what your rant about “community” is trying to say at the end of your comment, but good luck to you.