White nigger
White nigger is a racially charged term, with somewhat different meanings in different parts of the English-speaking world.
United States
White nigger was a derogatory and offensive term, dating from the nineteenth century, 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 Democrat Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia in an interview on national television in 2001.[3]
Canada
In another use of the term, Pierre Vallières's work White Niggers of America refers to French Canadians.[4]
India
The White Nigger was a nickname given to the nineteenth-century English explorer Richard Burton by colleagues in the East India Company Army.[5]
Irish peoples
Northern Ireland
"White nigger" was a religious and ethnic slur used to refer to Irish Catholics, in the context of The Troubles in Northern Ireland.[6] An example of this can be found in the Elvis Costello song "Oliver's Army", which contains the lyric: "Only takes one itchy trigger. One more widow, one less white nigger."[7]
In May 2016, Gerry Adams, the Leader of Sinn Féin, was criticised after writing on Twitter account "Watching Django Unchained - A Ballymurphy Nigger!" Ballymurphy is an area of Belfast best known for an eponymous massacre. Adams deleted the comment, and subsequently wrote "[Anyone] who saw Django would know my tweets & N-word were ironic. Nationalists in [the North] were treated like African Americans."[8]
United States
The term was applied to Irish immigrants to the United States and their descendants. The Irish were also nicknamed "Negroes turned inside-out", while African Americans would be described as "smoked Irish".[9]
The status of the Irish became a topic of dark humour within the slave community of the United States. An anonymous quip attributed to an African-American said "My master is a great tyrant, he treats me like a common Irishman."[9] The White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) community within the United States believed that miscegenation would begin with the Irish and African-Americans, and in the 1850 United States Census, the term "mulatto" appeared for the first time to refer to mixed-race marriages between African-Americans and Irish. Despite WASP fears of an "alliance of the oppressed", most Irish-Americans supported slavery and refused to support the abolitionist movement.[9]
See also
Look up white nigger in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
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 (March 20, 2001).
- ↑ DePalma, Anthony (26 December 1998). "Pierre Vallieres, 60, Angry Voice of Quebec Separatism, Dies". New York Times. New York. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
- ↑ 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 2015-06-18.
- ↑ McDonald, Henry (2 May 2016). "Gerry Adams defends N-word tweet". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 May 2016.
- 1 2 3 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.