White nigger
"White nigger" is a slur with somewhat different meanings in different parts of the English-speaking world.
United States
Dating from the nineteenth century, white nigger was a derogatory and offensive term for a black person who deferred to white people or a white person who did menial work.[1]
It was later used as a slur against white activists involved in the civil rights movement such as James Groppi of Milwaukee.[2]
The term "white niggers" was uttered twice by Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia in an interview on national television in 2001.[3]
Italian Americans
During all the 19th century until the early part of the 20th, Italian immigrants in the United States were often referred to as "white niggers".[4]
French Canadians
In another use of the term, Pierre Vallières's work White Niggers of America refers to French Canadians.[5]
Irish immigrants
The term was applied to Irish immigrants and their descendants. Irish were also nicknamed "Negroes turned inside-out" (while African Americans would be referred to as "smoked Irish").[6]
England
White Nigger was a nickname given to the nineteenth-century English explorer Richard Burton by colleagues in the East India Company Army.[7]
Northern Ireland
"White nigger" was sometimes used to refer to Irish Catholics, in the context of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.[8] An example of this term is found in the lyrics of the Elvis Costello song Oliver's Army: "Only takes one itchy trigger. / One more widow, one less white nigger."[9]
In May 2016, Irish politician Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Féin, attracted controversy after tweeting: "Watching Django Unchained — A Ballymurphy Nigger!" After criticism for the use of a racial slur, Adams deleted the tweet and, from a Belfast press conference, he issued a statement saying, "I have acknowledged that the use of the N-word was inappropriate. That is why I deleted the tweet. I apologise for any offence caused." Adams added, "I stand over the context and main point of my tweet, which were the parallels between people in struggle. Like African Americans, Irish nationalists were denied basic rights. I have long been inspired by Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, who stood up for themselves and for justice."[10]
Haiti
Haiti's first head of state Jean-Jacques Dessalines called Polish people "the White Negroes of Europe", which was then regarded a great honour as it meant brotherhood between Poles and Haitians after Napoleon's Polish Legionnaires joined them during the Haitian Revolution.
About 160 years later, in the mid-20th century, François Duvalier — the president of Haiti who was known for his black nationalist and Pan-African views — used the same concept of "European white Negroes" while referring to Polish people and glorifying their patriotism.[11][12]
See also
- Cultural appropriation
- Nigger
- Wigger
- Woman Is the Nigger of the World (John Lennon song)
- White ethnic
- White trash
References
- ^ The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang, 2nd edn, ed. John Ayto and John Simpson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
- ^ Frank A. Aukofer, City with a Chance: A Case History of Civil Rights Revolution, 2nd edn (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2007), 114.
- ^ Andrew D. Todd, What Is a "White Nigger" Anyway?, History News Network (20 March 2001).
- ^ How Italians Became ‘White’, New York Times
- ^ DePalma, Anthony (26 December 1998). "Pierre Vallieres, 60, Angry Voice of Quebec Separatism, Dies". New York Times. New York. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
- ^ McKenna, Patrick (12 February 2013). "When the Irish became white: immigrants in mid-19th century US". Generation Emigration. The Irish Times. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
- ^ David Shribman, "'That Devil Burton,' the Great Adventurer", The Wall Street Journal (6 June 1990), A14.
- ^ The IRA 12th impression, Tim Pat Coogan, page 448, William Collins, Sons & Co., Glasgow, 1987
- ^ "The Elvis Costello Home Page". Elviscostello.info. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
- ^ McDonald, Henry (2 May 2016). "Gerry Adams defends N-word tweet". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 May 2016.
- ^ Susan Buck-Morss (2009). Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History. University of Pittsburgh Pre. pp. 75–. ISBN 978-0-8229-7334-8.
- ^ Riccardo Orizio (2000). Lost White Tribes: The End of Privilege and the Last Colonials in Sri Lanka, Jamaica, Brazil, Haiti, Namibia, and Guadeloupe. Simon and Schuster. pp. 159–. ISBN 978-0-7432-1197-0.