Colloquial Meanings For The Phrase "Fly In The Buttermilk"

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post presents several colloquial (informal) meanings of the phrase "fly (or "flies") in the buttermilk".

The content of this post is presented for historical, linguistic, and socio-cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

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WHAT " A FLY IN THE BUTTERMILK" MEANS
There are several meanings for the phrase "fly in the buttermilk". The intended meaning depends on the context in which that phrase is used. 
 
These online sources are quoted in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only. 

ONLINE SOURCE #1
From https://www.quora.com/Where-did-the-phrase-%E2%80%9Ca-fly-in-the-buttermilk%E2%80%9D-originate "Where did the phrase "a fly in the buttermilk" originate?
1. Robert Charles Lee, 2017
40+ years in editorial & publishing in 22 countries

["Fly In The Buttermilk" is] "A reworded adaption the traditional English idiom “a fly in the ointment” (a minor defect or irritation that spoils the success or enjoyment of something).

Since around 2013 on various Internet discussion and image boards, “a fly in the buttermilk” has been the racial version of the above idiom — a single dark-skinned person (i.e. the ‘fly’) surrounded by a group of light-skinned (read: white) people (i.e. the buttermilk).

My earliest source of the buttermilk expression is from 1993 — Cecil Reed and Priscilla Donovan, Fly in the Buttermilk: The life story of Cecil Reed, University of Iowa Press, 1993 (ISBN 978-0-87745-415-1).

This buttermilk expression can also mean a “token member” of an ethnic minority — e.g. a black person deliberately put in a movie for the sake of appearing culturally diverse.

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2. Ethan A. Hayes
Young, Educated, Catholic Man, 2019

"What’s the origin of the saying “a fly in the ointment”?

This is very old; for as it is written:

 “Dying flies spoil the sweetness of the ointment. Wisdom and glory is more precious than a small and shortlived folly.” (Ecclesiastes 10:1)" "
-Ecclesiastes" is a book in the Old Testament of the Bible.

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ONLINE SOURCE #2
The phrase "fly in the buttermilk" is found in the play party song/singing game "Skip To My Lou": "There's a fly in the butterrmilk/shoo fly shoo.../Skip to my lou my darling"

Here's some information about "play party" songs:
1. From https://www.musick8.com/html/current_tune.php?songorder=6&numbering=145
"Now mostly a children's song, this catchy nonsense tune started its history as a "play party" creation from the 1840s. It was an icebreaker of a game that continues to be popular to this day. As some of the lyrics imply, the game involves couples rhythmically walking around a single person (originally a male) who, at a certain point, grabs a partner as they pass by, leaving a new single player. The song continues as long as you want to play. These play party tunes were devised during a period when dancing was not considered a good thing, so these allowed recreation without official dancing."...

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2. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_party_(United_States) ..."Play parties began in the 1830s in the United States as a route around strict religious practices banning dancing and the playing of musical instruments. The areas most influenced by the practice were the Southern and Midwestern parts of the United States. Folk songs, many of European and English origin, were used as means to give the attendants choreographed movements for each phrase. No instruments were played at the events, as they were banned by the religious movements of the area. Singing and clapping were used to convey each song. Because dancing was banned, the movements took on the quality of children's games. Though the performance of play parties dwindled in the 1950s, music educators use them as ways to incorporate music and dance in their classrooms.[1]

Some traditional examples of play-parties are: Skip to My Lou, Buffalo Gals, Bingo, Pop Goes the Weasel, Old Dan Tucker, Coffee Grows on White Oak Trees, and Shoot the Buffalo.".. -snip- These play party songs/ singing games survive in the United States thanks to school music teachers. Children don't self-initiate playing these singing games. Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2024/11/skip-to-my-lou-singing-dance-game-video.html for the related pancocojams post entitled " "Skip To My Lou" (video, information, and lyrics)".

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QUOTE #3
From https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fly%20in%20the%20buttermilk

1. fly-in-the-buttermilk

a black guy with low self-esteem who dates or marries a white woman in a poor attempt to raise his own social-class status.

I hate how a project ni--a* comes into some cake, and then next thing ya know, it's all bling, Benz and a wind-sprint to be another fly-in-the-buttermilk.
by vudu priestess June 6, 2010"
-snip-
This is the earliest entry for this phrase that is found on urbandictionary.com (All urbandictionary.com entries are submitted by readers and are ranked by other readers.)

This is the 2nd highest ranked entry for this phrase as of Nov. 8, 2024 at 7:47 AM ET  (There are only two entries as of that date for that phrase.) 

number of up votes (by urbandictionary.com readers as of ) =13 
number of down vote = 21 
-snip-
*This is a four letter spelling form of the derogatory racial referent that is commonly given as "the n word". That word is fully spelled out in this urbandictionay.com entry

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2. A single dark skinned person surrounded by a group of light skinned people. Possibly, but not necessarily a token black. A racial variation of fly in the ointment.

Jackson: This is my school picture from the early days of desegregation.

Williams: You look like a fly in the buttermilk.

Aaron did not realize that he had only been hired to make the company seem as if it promoted racial diversity. He became discouraged on the first day of work at the firm when he realized that he was the fly in the buttermilk.

by gr8rt1 November 13, 2014
-snip-
This is the 1st ranked entry for this phrase as of Nov. 8, 2024 at 7:51 AM ET 

The number of up votes (by urbandictionary.com readers)   = 19 

The number of down votes (by urbandictionary.com readers) =4

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QUOTE #4
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Price_of_the_Ticket
"The Price of the Ticket" is an anthology collecting nonfiction essays by James Baldwin. Spanning the years 1948 to 1985, the essays offer Baldwin's reflections on race in America."
-snip-
"A Fly In Buttermilk" is listed as the 17th essay in this anthology. Online sources indicate that this is a revised title for this essay.

Here are three excerpts about that essay
1. from https://lithub.com/on-james-baldwins-dispatches-from-the-heart-of-the-civil-rights-movement/
...."At age 33, Baldwin had never been to the American South. His reasons for going were deeply personal and fiercely political, a combination he lacked a vocabulary to describe. Part two, below, traces Baldwin’s historic journey through essays published soon after he returned from the trip, accounts from memory later on, and letters he wrote to friends and family while he was there.

 [...]

James Baldwin began his trip to the South by flying from New York to Washington, D.C., on September 9, 1957. On assignment for Partisan Review, Baldwin made stops over the next six weeks in Charlotte, Atlanta, Montgomery, Tuskegee, Birmingham, Nashville, Little Rock, and Arlington, Virginia.

[...]

Reprinted as “A Fly in Buttermilk” in Nobody Knows My Name, Baldwin’s first piece from his tour was published as “The Hard Kind of Courage” in Harper’s. Baldwin focused on Gus Roberts’s first days at Central High School. Sitting in the quiet of the family’s living room while Gus sat on the sofa exhibiting a “nearly fanatical concentration on his school work,” Baldwin encountered for the first time what it meant to cease playing it safe. In his letter, he told Painter he didn’t have words to describe the scene; to the readers of Harper’s, he reported a situation doused in an almost mineral quiet. For Baldwin, who not long ago had been living in Corsica and in Paris, trapped in “the prison of [his] egocentricity,” struggling with an amorphous pain and spending nights on “the underside of Paris, drinking, screwing, fighting,” the scene with the Roberts family was unspeakably ordinary. Gus himself, Baldwin wrote, “seemed extraordinary at first mainly by his silence.” “‘Good evening, sir,’” Gus had said when Baldwin entered the room, “and then left all the rest to his mother.”...
-snip-
James Baldwin's book Nobody Knows My Name" was first published in 1961.

Pancocojams Editor's Note: This is the earliest printed reference I have found for this racial use of  the phrase "fly in the buttermilk", but that meaning of that phrase may have predated James Baldwin's use of it. 
-snip-
I used bold font to highlight this sentence.

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2. from https://www.bartleby.com/essay/A-Fly-In-Buttermilk-By-James-Baldwin-FY3AXD2NUQR
"At the start of his essay, "A fly in Buttermilk", renowned author James Baldwin describes the struggle of people going from one place to another without losing one's identity.  This is the plight of a young African-American boy, that Baldwin refers to as G., who courageously accepts the challenge to integrate into an all-white southern school.  Leaving a school that doesn't care about him and attending a school that doesn’t want him puts an unimaginable burden upon G. and pushes him into a state of perpetual isolation.  The boy works hard to keep up with his studies to make sure he gets an education, and his quiet mild-mannered temperament allows him to say he doesn't mind the name calling or all the trouble this switch causes.  By not giving us any names, Baldwin uses the boy's story to represent the African-American struggle for inclusion during this time of sweeping transformation. Before he visited his family, Baldwin heard about G.'s first day of school and the problems that his being there caused, such as the name calling."...

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3 from https://lithub.com/on-james-baldwins-dispatches-from-the-heart-of-the-civil-rights-movement/ "On James Baldwin’s Dispatches from the Heart of the Civil Rights Movement: The Making of an Iconic Essayist" by Ed Pavlić, December 10, 2018

"The Price of the Ticket is an anthology collecting nonfiction essays by James Baldwin. Spanning the years 1948 to 1985, the essays offer Baldwin's reflections on race in America.

At the start of his essay, "A fly in Buttermilk", renowned author James Baldwin describes the struggle of people going from one place to another without losing one's identity.  This is the plight of a young African-American boy, that Baldwin refers to as G., who courageously accepts the challenge to integrate into an all-white southern school.  Leaving a school that doesn't care about him and attending a school that doesn’t want him puts an unimaginable burden upon G. and pushes him into a state of perpetual isolation.  The boy works hard to keep up with his studies to make sure he gets an education, and his quiet mild-mannered temperament allows him to say he doesn't mind the name calling or all the trouble this switch causes.  By not giving us any names, Baldwin uses the boy's story to represent the African-American struggle for inclusion during this time of sweeping transformation. Before he visited his family, Baldwin heard about G.'s first day of school and the problems that his being there caused, such as the name calling."...

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ONLINE SOURCE #5
"There's A Fly In The Buttermilk" is the title of a November  6, 2024 YouTube podcast by by Joyce All Knowing Tarot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Eb_Me0W_AM

The podcaster whose screen name is Joyce All Knowing tarot uses the saying "There's A Fly In The Buttermilk" as the title of her podcast and says it toward the end of that particular podcast.
  
..."we going to get through this together cuz it's some..., it's some "flies in the buttermilk." (If you know, you know. You got to be a certain age to know that "there some flies in the buttermilk".)"...

My guess is that in the context of this podcast, "flies in the buttermilk" means that something and/or some people is/are purposely polluting (ruining/negatively interfering with) something - in this case the 2024 United States election.

I don't think that Joyce All Knowing tarot meant the old colloquial racial meaning of "flies in the buttermilk". That racial meaning refers to Black people who are surrounded by a group of White people.

Notice that that podcaster uses the plural word "flies" and not the singular word "fly". Also, Joyce All Knowing Tarot uses the saying "There's some flies in the buttermilk" as something negative. Since Joyce All Knowing tarot is a supporter of Kamala Harris who is of Black/South Asian ancestry, she wouldn't be alluding to Harris' involvement in that election as something negative.
 
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2024/11/theres-fly-in-buttermilk-black-woman.html for the pancocojams post entitled " "There's A Fly In The Buttermilk": A Black Woman Tarot Card Reader's Podcast About Trump Being Declared The Winner Of The United States 2024 Presidential Election". 

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