White nigger, sometimes shortened to wigger, is an ethnic slur with different meanings in different parts of the English-speaking world. Generally, it refers to a white person. The term nigger is a racial slur that refers to a black person (especially an African American).

United States

Dating from the nineteenth-century United States, "white nigger" was a derogatory and offensive term for a "black person who defers to white people or accepts a role prescribed by them," or "a white person who does menial work."[1] It was later used as a slur against white activists involved in the civil rights movement such as Viola Liuzzo,[2] James Groppi,[3] Bill Baxley,[4] and Jonathan Daniels.[5]

The term "white niggers" was uttered twice by Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia in an interview on national television in 2001.[6] Byrd was a former member of the Ku Klux Klan.[7]

Italian immigrants

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".[8]

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").[9]

Polish immigrants

Texas blacks referred to Polish immigrants as dem white niggahs or dem white niggas whom they hold in undisguised contempt but were apparently stunned by their high literacy rates.[10] Polish farmers commonly worked directly with southern blacks in east Texas, and they were commonly in direct competition for agricultural jobs. Blacks frequently picked up a few words of Polish, and Poles picked up some of the black English dialect in these areas during the late 19th century. R. L. Daniels in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine wrote a piece on "Polanders" in Texas in 1888, praising their industriousness and hard work ethic. He cited instances where Polish farmers called their landlords massa,[11] denoting a subordinate position on level with slavery, and, when asking a woman why she left Poland, she replied "Mudder haf much childs and 'Nough not to eat all".[12] Daniels found that Poles were efficient farmers and planted corn and cotton so close to their homes as not to leave even elbow room to the nearby buildings.[13]

Canada

In another use of the term, Pierre Vallières's work White Niggers of America refers to French Canadians. Vallières used the phrase to highlight a feeling among French-speaking Québécois people of being treated as second-class citizens under an English-speaking ruling class in Quebec.[14]

England

"White Nigger" was a nickname given to the nineteenth-century English explorer Richard Burton by colleagues in the East India Company Army, who ostracized him because he immersed himself so completely into Indian culture, including language, dress, and relationships with locals.[15][16]

Northern Ireland

"White nigger" was sometimes used to refer to Irish Catholics, in the context of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.[17] An example of this term is found in the lyrics of the Elvis Costello song Oliver's Army (1979): "Only takes one itchy trigger. / One more widow, one less white nigger."[18] In 1969, the longest-serving editor of The Irish Times, Douglas Gageby, was allegedly called a "white nigger" by company chairman Thomas Bleakley McDowell, because of his support for the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement.[19][20]

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."[21]

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 Polish Legionnaires joined the black Haitian slaves during the Haitian Revolution, contributing to the establishment of the world's first free black republic and the first independent Caribbean state.[22] Dessalines also gave the Poles a special status as Noir (legally considered to be black) and full citizenship under the Haitian constitution.[23]

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.[24]

See also

Look up white nigger in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References

  1. ↑ Ayto, John; Simpson, John (2008). Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 357. ISBN 978-0-19-954370-0.
  2. ↑ https://www.eastvillagemagazine.org/2023/04/10/remembering-viola-liuzzo-murdered-58-years-ago-in-the-cause-of-voting-rights-a-personal-reflection/
  3. ↑ Frank A. Aukofer, City with a Chance: A Case History of Civil Rights Revolution, 2nd edn (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2007), 114.
  4. ↑ https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/young_paige_e_200308_ma.pdf
  5. ↑ https://www.salon.com/2015/08/23/something_happened_to_me_in_selma_50_years_ago_a_young_white_seminary_student_risked_everything_for_the_call_of_civil_rights/
  6. ↑ Andrew D. Todd, What Is a "White Nigger" Anyway?, History News Network (20 March 2001).
  7. ↑ Pianin, Eric (19 June 2005). "A Senator's Shame". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
  8. ↑ How Italians Became ‘White’, New York Times
  9. ↑ 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.
  10. ↑ Daniels, R. L. (March 1883). " 'Polanders' in Texas". Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott. new series 5: 299. OCLC 656599432. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
  11. ↑ Daniels 1883, p. 299.
  12. ↑ Daniels 1883, p. 297.
  13. ↑ Baker, T. Lindsay (1982). The Polish Texans. San Antonio: The University of Texas Institute of Texas Cultures-San Antonio. p. 86.
  14. ↑ DePalma, Anthony (26 December 1998). "Pierre Vallieres, 60, Angry Voice of Quebec Separatism, Dies". New York Times. New York. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
  15. ↑ David Shribman, "'That Devil Burton,' the Great Adventurer", The Wall Street Journal (6 June 1990), A14.
  16. ↑ Newman, James L. (2010). Paths without Glory: Richard Francis Burton in Africa. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-59797-287-1.
  17. ↑ The IRA 12th impression, Tim Pat Coogan, page 448, William Collins, Sons & Co., Glasgow, 1987
  18. ↑ "The Elvis Costello Home Page". Elviscostello.info. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  19. ↑ Mallon, Charlie (26 January 2003). "Irish Times' Major McDowell called his editor a 'white nigger'". Irish Independent. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  20. ↑ Fanning, Ronan (2 February 2003). "'White nigger' denial poses a real dilemma". Irish Independent. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  21. ↑ McDonald, Henry (2 May 2016). "Gerry Adams defends N-word tweet". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 May 2016.
  22. ↑ Susan Buck-Morss (2009). Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History. University of Pittsburgh Pre. pp. 75–. ISBN 978-0-8229-7334-8.
  23. ↑ Abbott, Elizabeth (2011). Haiti: A Shattered Nation. ISBN 9781468301601. Retrieved 1 January 2015.
  24. ↑ 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.
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