FACT CHECK: Is ‘Empty Barrel’ A Racist Term?

dailycaller.com ^ | David Sivak

[RoosterRedux]

Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson claimed Friday that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly used a “racist term” when he described her as an “empty barrel.”

Kelly made the remark during a press briefing Thursday while defending a phone call that President Donald Trump made to the widow of a fallen soldier.

Verdict: False

The Daily Caller News Foundation could not find any instances where “empty barrel” has been used as a racial epithet.

Fact Check:

During an interview Friday on CNN, Wilson claimed she had looked up the term “empty barrel” in the dictionary and found it to be a racist term.

“That’s a racist term,” said Wilson. “We looked it up in the dictionary because I had never heard of an empty barrel. And I don’t like to be dragged into something like that.”

But TheDCNF found no evidence that the term has racial connotations. The phrase originated from the proverb “empty vessels make most noise” that dates back to at least the 15th century.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, the proverb means that “foolish people are always the most talkative.” Similarly, the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs defines it this way: “Shallow people with nothing valuable to say are the most talkative or noisy.”

TheDCNF also found no informal use of the term that would suggest a racial connotation. Even Urban Dictionary, a crowdsourcing website for slang terms, did not list any definitions of “empty barrel” or “empty vessel,” as of Friday morning.

[cyclotic]

Please reread my post and the one I responded to.

[Bryanw92]

>>Please reread my post and the one I responded to.

I did.

[Veto!]

Of course it’s racist.
Everything is racist.

[Political Junkie Too]

We have entered an era when anything that criticizes an African-American is deemed to be racist, because they are above reproach in all ways. Whether they say it's because of past grievances or for noble causes, they cannot be challenged for anything at anytime, anywhere.

To do so is now racist.

But you, on the other hand...

-PJ

[cyclotic]

Did you understand that to mean I agreed that empty barrel is a racist term or that some phantom dictionary defined it as such.

What I said was the Wilson certainly was not reading the Oxford English Dictionary.

[maxwellsmart_agent]

But if she does not claim it is a racist term, she has nothing to bitch about.

[bk1000]

“she believes all black people are just as stupid as she is.”

To a great percentage of her constituency she is a beacon of wisdom.

[MarkL]

A new definition of being racist and "white privilege." If you're more intelligent than a black person, and use a word they don't understand, that's racist!

She actually admitted that she didn't know what it meant, and only after looking it up, did she decide that it must have been a racist slur.

It actually goes back many years, to the DC City Councilman who was run out of office for the use of the word "niggardly," which stupid black people on the council, media, and DC, all believed was racist, because they were too stupid and didn't understand the meaning of a word.

Mark

[little jeremiah]

ROTFLOL.

Or spokesvessel, when waxing poetic.