burn the coal, pay the toll

English dictionary entry

Meanings

phrase
  1. Used to admonish white women who have sexual relationships with black men.

Word forms

burn the coal, pay the toll

Etymology

From burn coal, of a nonblack woman, to seek sexual relationships with black men, and pay the toll, to incur the consequences.

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.