We've all "heard from the peanut gallery", a once-popular term used playfully to describe someone offering unsolicited advice. In the late 19th and early 20th century vaudeville era, the “peanut gallery” referred to the cheapest seats in a theater. Somewhere, the expression soured.
What was once a class insult became a racial one. In the segregated South, theater seats in the back or upper balcony levels were reserved for Black people. The peanut gallery became a synonym for ni**er gallery.
The first documented usage of the expression in 1867 in a New Orleans Times-Picayune review of a variety show said: "It is useless for us to repeat our praises of Johnny Thompson, Billy Reeves, and others of the company, as negro delineators; they 'out Herod Herod' and put the darkies in the 'peanut gallery' fairly to the blush." The racism is clear.
Our ancestors have long believed in the power of words, many believing that words are spiritual spells. English is a language that our people forcibly inherited from colonizers, and that cannot be overlooked, especially when the language we speak every day is imbued with hatred for us.
Part of ridding ourselves of colonial teachings is interrogating how everyday things impact and shape our minds. We don't have to continue passing on heirlooms that were never ours.