I see Gerry Adams, the President of Sinn fein has got himself into some bother and was forced to make his apologies . Apparently he was watching the Tarantino film “Django Unchained “and it occurred to him to equate the lot of the negro slaves with the history of he Irish and their relationship with their neighbouring britons who had some years back decided to take the island of Ireland as one of their possessions.There has obviously been some residual animosity stretching down through the years because of this neat piece of shoplifting.It resulted in some 800 years of aggravation , including eventually absentee landlords mismanaging the land, the Great Famine of the 19th century ,the Rising of 1916, mass immigration to America, the Irish Civil War, Bloody Friday, Bloody Sunday and any number of calumnies that followed throughout the island of Ireland. There’s 800 years of historical musings to study there. Mr Adams obviously saw his localised nationalist community as being somewhat enslaved on some level , by his neighbouring britons.
I was watching one of the “Antiques Roadshow” television programmes over the weekend and a lady was getting a valuation on an old map of the world which she owned . There it was , a odd cartological drawing of the known world some centuries back and what was assumed to be the shape of several countries . Greenland was excluded , for example , because no one knew it existed . On the map of Africa there was an area neatly named “Negroland” in italicised copperplate script. That one made me stop and think for a while.That is obviously how the map -maker perceived the known part of the African continent of his day .
Mr Adams used the word “nigger” in the context of slavery ; it being a corruption of the word “negro” which was in common parlance at the time .Some people are overly sensitive to language , of course, seeing old Anglo Saxon words such as “fuck” as being obscene , but they are in essence no more than human sounds emoted to describe normal common acts or things. One local word which developed around the 1970’s in relation to Norneverland’s native Roman Catholics of a Irish nationalist persuasion was the word “taig”. I grew up to my teens without having really heard the word used socially , but apparently it is an anglicised version of “Teague”, itself an Irish name “Tadhg” , which had been used since the 17th century as a derogatory racist nickname for an Irishman. The word “taig” soon came into vogue as the Troubles progressed and became common parlance hurled in anger or painted on gable walls …sucha s the epithet “Taigs Out”. A stranger would have little idea what that was all about.
The word “nigger” was similarly used as a derogatory slang term for black Americans ,who had obviously initially been the result of the slave trade in America, especially since those days of their ancestors’ theft from Africa, by slavers , to finish in the cotton fields of the southern states of America where the Django film is set . Many now claim that the ancestors of those original slaves have now taken command of the word and their own destinies by casually referring to each other ribaldly as “nigger” in conversation . You can hear that in a lot of the current popular rap music which has succeeded rock and roll , blues and soul music within current black communities.
The underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, in the 1960’s , satirised the term and white America’s perceptions of black America with his comic strip “Angelfood McSpade” which the above illustration refers to . Many people would rather that their fears were left unsaid , of course, so underground comix were banned .The fears were still every bit as real , of course.
Over forty years ago John Lennon of Beatles fame also wrote and recorded his song “Woman Is The Nigger Of The World” as a feminist statement in his sloganising period . Whether or not his comparison is valid or not , people still get hung up on the language rather than what is being said.
Maybe Mr Adams was thinking along those same kinds of lines or maybe he shouldn’t bother tweeting when he’s relaxing with a few beers while watching a movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtY5bv-oxLE
“Woman Is The Nigger Of The World”(John Lennon)
Woman is the nigger of the world
Yes she is…think about it
Woman is the nigger of the world
Think about it…do something about it
We make her paint her face and dance
If she won’t be slave, we say that she don’t love us
If she’s real, we say she’s trying to be a man
While putting her down we pretend that she is above us
Woman is the nigger of the world…yes she is
If you don’t belive me take a look to the one you’re with
Woman is the slaves of the slaves
Ah yeah…better scream about it
We make her bear and raise our children
And then we leave her flat for being a fat old mother hen
We tell her home is the only place she would be
Then we complain that she’s too unworldly to be our friend
Woman is the nigger of the world…yes she is
If you don’t belive me take a look to the one you’re with
Woman is the slaves of the slaves
We insult her everyday on TV
And wonder why she has no guts or confidence
When she’s young we kill her will to be free
While telling her not to be so smart we put her down for being so dumb
Woman is the nigger of the world…yes she is
If you don’t belive me take a look to the one you’re with
Woman is the slaves of the slaves
Yes she is…if you belive me, you better screem about it.
[Repeat:]
We make her paint her face and dance
We make her paint her face and dance
We make her paint her face and dance
As a prod from the Shankill, as a child I accompanied my father who was an overseer in the plantations on the Falls. Daily floggings, selling families, attacking the girls. So similar was life as a Catholic to the experience of Black slaves in any country.
I think dear old Gerry was channelling the Commitments which said the Irish were the Blacks of Europe, a contention the Poles, Romanians et al might take issue with. Self-pity is never edifying and in this case suggests that the Sunny Heights retirement home for old politicians beckons. Ken is keeping his seat warm and the Robinsons do a good Ulster Fry I hear.
Now you’re talking JohnH……Maybe Gerry was channelling his inner Wilson Pickett or Otis Redding when that second glass kicked in..I find it ‘s never the best time to respond or write anything when the first bottle of Malbec o has just slipped down nicely of an evening…… .
If Adams had specified an analogy between the experience of the African slaves with say the catholics in penal times then there may have been a case.
But he did not he made an analogy between the experience of slaves and the experience of people in ballymurphy in the 1960’s. That’s nonsense.
White people aren’t allowed to use the N word in any context. That is the way it is. Everybody knows this. Everybody! Except Gerry apparently. I’m still waiting for another member of Sinn fein to publicly criticize Adams. I’m not talking about some sort of public flogging as desired by the Indo or the bel tel. Just McGuiness or someone else to say in an interview ‘ Gerry got this one wrong.
Nothing so far.
“an analogy between the experience of slaves and the experience of people in ballymurphy in the 1960’s. That’s nonsense”. I beg to differ, Antonio. If he’d claimed an equal balance of suffering he’d have been wrong. But the comparison of two peoples who were (and in some quarters are) considered inferior has clearly got matching points. Terrible things were done to African-Americans, terrible things were done to Irish people. If you doubt the latter, ask the people of Derry or the people of Ballymurphy. Certainly the scale of suffering and continuing intensity aren’t the same on both sides, but that doesn’t mean a comparison can’t be drawn.
Certainly the scale of suffering and continuing intensity aren’t the same on both sides, but that doesn’t mean a comparison can’t be drawn.
That is what Adams should have said! Except he did not! Leaving himself wide open to accusations that he is he is saying the experience of Northern Nationalists was identical to african americans.
Why could the man have not simply said ‘overall conditions for african americans were worse than northern nationalists but there are similarities in the sense that one section of the population dominated another section of the population?
I don’t need to go to Derry to find people who had terrible things done to them. I grew up in West Belfast surrounded by people who’ve had family murdered, shot, interned, discriminated against. Even with all that i’m very uncomfortable with analogies with african americans because they had things worse overall.
If Adams wanted to make the point of similarities in the general sense of people being oppressed on account of race or religion he has done a poor job of it.
And as for using the N word. Unbelievably poor judgement.
Well, Antonio, that’s exactly my point – any reasonable person would ask themselves ‘IS GA being intentionally racist? Is he a racist’. But the Morality Head-hunters find it much easier to jump on him and/or KL. Finally, since I’ve left kindergarten and the word is at the heart of this discussion, I’m not ever going to say ‘N- word’ again…
maybe it’s a generational thing. Yourself & Gerry are (how do I put this delicately) a fair wee bit older than me.
Now it is a bit silly that the word nigger can never be said by a non black person no matter what the context.. But that is the reality of how things are. Only black people are allowed to use the word (usually in an ironic sense)
I understand where people are coming from that it is political correctness gone mad. Obama actually touched on this just last week when he said there is more to combating racism than polite company no longer using the word nigger in any context.
This is just how things are. Any non black person using that word leave themselves wide open to an avalanche of accusations they are racist and they must repent before the gods of political correctness.
Gerry needs to get one of his children or grandchildren to proof read his tweets before he hits the send button.
That sounds fair, Antonio. Intelligent and thoughtful commentary.
Amidst all the clamour and faux outrage, I think this piece by Lucy Michael most eloquently sums up my feelings on the matter –
https://againstracismsinireland.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/the-complicated-racial-position-of-the-irish/
Is it still ok to use ‘Keady’?
It depends on how you might prononce it Fiosrach.They’re very sensitive about details like that.
ooops ..that’d be “pronounce”…too!
I’m just reminding myself that the patron saint of Ireland, one Patrick by name ,was at one time a slave , brought to Ireland by slavers. I wonder what the detrimental term would have been for him back in the day?
This conversation is really about political correctness and the use of words and language during specific time frames and in different countries We are not living ina still racially tense America, after all.. This is not about racism per se…
In the famous war film film “The Dambusters”,the may have changed many details of the action for reasons of filmic storytelling but they didn’t change the name of the famous dog.The dog was affectionately known as Nigger. “Nigger” was a male black labrador retriever belonging to Wing Commander Guy Gibson, V.C., D.S.O., D.F.C. of the Royal Air Force, and the mascot of No. 617 Squadron. Gibson owned the dog when he was previously a member of 106 Squadron. Nigger often accompanied Gibson on training flights and was a great favourite of the members of both 106 and 617 Squadrons. He was noted for his liking of beer, which he drank greedily from his own bowl in the Officers’ Mess.
The much-loved Nigger died on 16 May 1943, the day before the famous “Dam Busters” raid, when he was hit by a car. He was buried at midnight as Gibson was leading the raid. “Nigger” (Morse code: -. .. –. –. . .-. ) was the codeword Gibson used to confirm the breach of the Möhne Dam. Nigger’s grave is at Royal Air Force station Scampton, Lincolnshire.he word nigger was used as a dog’s name during the early part of the 20th century. A black explosive sniffer dog named Nigger served with a Royal Engineers mine clearance unit in 1944 during the Normandy Campaign… The dog leading a sledge dog team on the Terra Nova Expedition to the Antarctic (1910-1912) was also named Nigger
However, because of its usage as an ethnic slur, the word became increasingly taboo during the latter part of the 20th century, especially in America.
In 1999, British television network ITV broadcast a censored version of the film, with all instances of the name removed. ITV blamed regional broadcaster London Weekend Television, which in turn alleged that a junior staff member had been responsible for the unauthorised cuts. When ITV again showed a censored version in June 2001, it was criticised by Index on Censorship as “unnecessary and ridiculous” and because the edits introduced continuity errors…..The code word “nigger” transmitted in Morse Code upon the successful completion of the central mission was not censored. I suppose they reckoned that most people wouldn’t know the coding and they’d miss the reference anyway.More recently, in 2012, ITV3 have shown the film uncut a few times, but with a warning at the start that it contains racial terms from the period which some people may find offensive. However, in 2013 the film has been shown a few times by Channel 5 uncut and without any warning.
Some edited American versions of the film use dubbing to change Nigger’s name to Trigger…but we all know that Trigger was really Roy rogers ‘ horse don’t we ….keep up!