In American English, "guinea" is an ethnic slur for an Italian American, typically a male. It derives from the earlier phrase "Guinea Negro," originally used to describe a slave brought from the Guinea coast of Africa, and later used more broadly to describe any newly-arrived slave or to describe a particularly dark-skinned person of African descent. Even later still, the single word "guinea" came to be used exclusively to describe Italian Americans in a derogatory sense. The implication is that like African Americans, Italian Americans (most of whom originally immigrated from sunny southern Italy) are swarthy or darker-skinned, and therefore inferior to lighter-skinned people.