“Snow,” by contrast, meant white and referenced antiquated notions of pureness in an era that eroticized race. “Dinge” was slang for black homosexuals, reference to dirt-language now pejorative and offensive but then considered to be street-speak, a crude but commonplace descriptor. That was unspoken law in the gay subterranean of New Orleans in the 1970s. “Dinge” did not mix with “snow” openly, especially not on Bourbon Street.
