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White nigger, sometimes shortened to wigger , is an ethnic slur referring to a White American whose behaviors and mannerisms are similar to Black Americans. It was primarily used to refer to a lower-class White American by upper-class White Americans. The term nigger is a racial slur that refers to a Black American, typically one of low socio-economic status.
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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
"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]
"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'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]
The recorded history of Haiti began in 1492, when the European captain and explorer Christopher Columbus landed on a large island in the region of the western Atlantic Ocean that later came to be known as the Caribbean. The western portion of the island of Hispaniola, where Haiti is situated, was inhabited by the Taíno and Arawakan people, who called their island Ayiti. The island was promptly claimed for the Spanish Crown, where it was named La Isla Española, later Latinized to Hispaniola. By the early 17th century, the French had built a settlement on the west of Hispaniola and called it Saint-Domingue. Prior to the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), the economy of Saint-Domingue gradually expanded, with sugar and, later, coffee becoming important export crops. After the war which had disrupted maritime commerce, the colony underwent rapid expansion. In 1767, it exported indigo, cotton and 72 million pounds of raw sugar. By the end of the century, the colony encompassed a third of the entire Atlantic slave trade.
In the English language, nigger is a racial slur directed at black people. Starting in the 1990s, references to nigger have been increasingly replaced by the euphemism "the N-Word", notably in cases where nigger is mentioned but not directly used. In an instance of linguistic reappropriation, the term nigger is also used casually and fraternally among African Americans, most commonly in the form of nigga, whose spelling reflects the phonology of African-American English.
Colored is a racial descriptor historically used in the United States during the Jim Crow Era to refer to an African American. In many places, it may be considered a slur, though it has taken on a special meaning in Southern Africa referring to a person of mixed or Cape Coloured heritage.
The Haitian Revolution was a successful insurrection by self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti.
Honky is a derogatory term used to refer to white people, predominantly heard in the United States.
Kaffir, also spelled Cafri, is an exonym and an ethnic slur – the use of it in reference to black people being particularly common in South Africa. In Arabic, the word kāfir ("unbeliever") was originally applied to non-Muslims before becoming predominantly focused on pagan zanj who were increasingly used as slaves. During the Age of Exploration in early modern Europe, variants of the Latin term cafer were adopted in reference to non-Muslim Bantu peoples even when they were monotheistic. It was eventually used, particularly in Afrikaans, for any black person during the Apartheid and Post-Apartheid eras, closely associated with South African racism, it became a pejorative by the mid-20th century and is now considered extremely offensive hate speech. Punishing continuing use of the term was one of the concerns of the Promotion of Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act enacted by the South African parliament in the year 2000 and it is now euphemistically addressed as the K-word in South African English.
John Elliott Rankin was a Democratic politician from Mississippi who served sixteen terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1921 to 1953. He was co-author of the bill for the Tennessee Valley Authority and from 1933 to 1936 he supported the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which brought investment and jobs to the South.
Cracker, sometimes cracka or white cracker, is a racial epithet directed towards white people, used especially with regard to poor rural whites in the Southern United States. Although commonly a pejorative, it is also used in a neutral context, particularly in reference to a native of Florida or Georgia.
The First Empire of Haiti, officially known as the Empire of Haiti, was an elective monarchy in North America. Haiti was controlled by France before declaring independence on 1 January 1804. The Governor-General of Haiti, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, created the empire on 22 September 1804. After being proclaimed emperor by the Generals of the Haitian Revolution Army, he held his coronation ceremony on 6 October and took the name Jacques I. The constitution of 20 May 1805, set out the way the empire was to be governed, with the country split into six military divisions. The general of each division corresponded directly with the emperor or the general in chief appointed by the emperor. The constitution also set out the succession to the throne, with the crown being elective and the reigning emperor having the power to appoint his successor. The constitution also banned white people, with the exception of naturalised Germans and Poles, from owning property inside the empire.
A house slave was a slave who worked, and often lived, in the house of the slave-owner, performing domestic labor. House slaves performed essentially the same duties as all domestic workers throughout history, such as cooking, cleaning, serving meals, and caring for children; however, their slave status could expose them to more significant abuses, including physical punishments and use as a sexual slave.
The 1804 Haiti massacre, sometimes referred to as the Haitian genocide, was carried out by Afro-Haitian soldiers, mostly former slaves, under orders from Jean-Jacques Dessalines against much of the remaining European population in Haiti, which mainly included French people. The Haitian Revolution defeated the French army in November 1803 and the Haitian Declaration of Independence happened on 1 January 1804. From February 1804 until 22 April 1804, squads of soldiers moved from house to house throughout Haiti, torturing and killing entire families. Between 3,000 and 5,000 people were killed.
The history of Poles in the United States dates to the American Colonial era. Poles have lived in present-day United States territories for over 400 years—since 1608. There are 10 million Americans of Polish descent in the U.S. today. Polish Americans have always been the largest group of Slavic origin in the United States.
Polish Haitians are Haitian people of Polish ancestry dating to the early 19th century; a few may be Poles of more recent native birth who have gained Haitian citizenship. Cazale, a small village in the hills about 30 kilometres (19 mi) away from Port-au-Prince, is considered the main center of population of the ethnic Polish community in Haiti, but there are other villages as well. Cazale has descendants of surviving members of Napoleon's Polish Legionnaires which were forced into combat by Napoleon but later joined the Haitian slaves during the Haitian Revolution. Some 400 to 500 of these Poles are believed to have settled in Haiti after the war. They were given special status as Noir and full citizenship under the Haitian constitution by Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the first ruler of an independent Haiti.
Paki is a derogatory ethnic slur originating from the United Kingdom, directed towards people of Pakistani and by extension South Asian descent, as well as Muslims or perceived Muslims in general.
In the contemporary English language, the noun Polack is a derogatory, mainly North American, reference to a person of Polish origin. It is an anglicisation of the Polish masculine noun Polak, which denotes a person of Polish ethnicity and typically male gender. However, the English loanword is considered an ethnic slur.
The Indigenous Army, also known as the Army of Saint-Domingue was the name bestowed to the coalition of anti-slavery men and women who fought in the Haitian Revolution in Saint-Domingue. Encompassing both black slaves, maroons, and affranchis, the rebels were not officially titled the Armée indigène until January 1803, under the leadership of then-general Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Predated by insurrectionists such as François Mackandal, Vincent Ogé and Dutty Boukman, Toussaint Louverture, succeeded by Dessalines, led, organized, and consolidated the rebellion. The now full-fledged fighting force utilized its manpower advantage and strategic capacity to overwhelm French troops, ensuring the Haitian Revolution was the most successful of its kind.
This article treats the usage of the word nigger in reference to African Americans and others of African or mixed African and other ethnic origin in the art of Western culture and the English language.
The word nigger has historically been used in the names of products, colors, plants, as place names, and as people's nicknames, among others, but has fallen out of favor since the 20th century.
"Go back to where you came from" is a racist or xenophobic epithet which is used in many countries, and it is mainly used to target immigrants and/or ethnic groups whose members are falsely considered to be immigrants.