Bill is on target about yellow girls. Light skin and straight hair have been problematic with African Americans and there is often an approach-avoidance issue. On the flip side, European Americans held similar values and associating with the yellow women was more acceptable than with women of a darker color.

Because of their lighter color, yellow women could be shunned by their peers and became prostitutes to survive. Throw in the idea that these women were more exotic and you have much emotion tied up in the subject.

Yellow Rose of Texas was about a woman of mixed heritage, but that fact is lost on most who sing the song and the image of yellow women pops up in many blues tunes. One of the less sung versions of Lead Belly's "Good Mornin' Blues" is "A brown skin woman makes a moon-eyed man go blind, but a chestnut woman will make you change your mind". That's brown as a lighter shade of color, moon-eyed as drunk, and chestnut as a still lighter shade of color.

Perhaps someday these lyrics will truly reflect history and not current concerns.

Roger in Baltimore