Learn English – Where does the expression “to shine someone on” come from? And does it have racist origins

idiomsoffensive-languageverbs

Someone suggested to me that the idiom "to shine someone on" is racist in origin.

I'm not talking about shine on or shine or any of those other uses. What I'm referring to is shining someone on meaning in either of its meanings listed here, but mainly the first one:

shine (one) on

  1. To deceive one or to tell one a lie, especially in order to deflect or avoid responsibility for something.
    He told me he hadn't touched a drop of alcohol, but I think he was shining me on.
    Don't shine us on, Marty. We know you're the one who screwed up the accounts!
  2. To insult, provoke, or aggravate one.
    After the neighbors complained about my Christmas lights, I decided to shine them on a bit by adding even more to my house.
    If you really want to shine him on, you should bring his sister to the Christmas party as your date.
    Don't shine the immigration officer on, or you very well might get booted out of the country!
    TFD Online, Farlex Dictionary of Idioms

I can't find any etymology for this. I'd like to know when and how it came about because if its roots are racist (shine being an offensive term for a Black person), I want to avoid it.

Best Answer

It's a hard phrase to search for. A Google N-Gram search for "shine him on" offers a number of hits in accord with the definitions in the questions.

In the following, the phrase is described as an "old theatrical expression." In this case an actor says the script writer recognizes the script's weaknesses, and thus the actor doesn't have to "shine him on:"

https://www.google.com/books/edition/All_His_Jazz/5Vr0l7Ux2OAC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22shine+him+on%22&pg=PT191&printsec=frontcover

All His Jazz: The Life And Death Of Bob Fosse By Martin Gottfried (1990)

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