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

• black gang

Further reading

• 黑帮 (文革) on the Chinese Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^zh