Definately race specific. The word is used for the express purpose (as I know it, at least) of mocking white kids who pretend to be, wish they were, and try to emulate certain black styles of speech, dress, what have you. I understand your point & your question and even see the validity in pointing out that, say, if an upper middle class suburban black kid does the same things that it’s equally invalid, but you just couldn’t use the word, as it just doesn’t apply.
The term originated within the gangsta and hip-hop community. I first heard it back in the mid- to late-90s while listening to Skip Murphy & the Morning Gang at K104 in Dallas. The producer on that show was a white guy they all called “Whig” or “Wigger”, short for “wannabe nigga”. It was used jocularly and not derisive. So I’d say it depends on context.
Heh, that basically describes my thirteen year old sister. I think it’s more funny than sad (especially when she uses really old slang that she thinks her generation made up, or when she claims to only like hip hop when we all know she still watches CMT videos*). I guess every kid ends up in a subculture of some sort at that age though.
*Now thats sad imo ;). To each his or her own though.
I take your point but I guess it just seems more obnoxious to me when suburban white kids do it. Affecting “black” speech just strikes me as viscerally more offensive when it’s being done by white kids who have never actually been around the culture they’re trying to imitate. I’m aware that middle and upper class black kids aren’t immune to this either but for some reason it doesn’t bother me as much when they do it. I don’t know why.
I also recognize that there are some communities and neighborhoods where the street culture is multi-racial and the adoption of the attendant speech, dress and mannerisms by non-blacks is basically unaffected and all but unconscious. Context is everything.
Huh. Maybe it’s just where I grew up. I know that my neighborhood had Bloods - real Bloods - in 90/91, and they were virtually all white. I briefly hung out with some of their little brothers, until I figured out how to take the bus across town and find other pubescent skate hoodlums to raise hell with.
I imagine your reaction to them is similar to mine when I run across some teenager wearing half a grand worth of leather and bondage gear bumming change with the gutter punks. Slumming is the official sport of the middle class.
“Those Doc Martens could buy you a lot of dope, sonny!”
Exactly, exactly, exactly. We have those kids all over Haight Street, in addition to the actual gutter punks, guys that forgot the '60s were 4 decades ago, and your run of the mill SF homeless dudes. Someone needs to remind them that being homeless with your mangy dog is definately not a good thing.
But of course, it’s oh so fuckin’ punk.
When I think of of ‘wigger’, I think of that completely lame movie Malibu’s Most Wanted. (horrible, stupid movie) Rich white kid doing everything he can to act like a gangsta, thug, what have you.
Ooh, good one! Although I think it would be more appropriately spelled “wankstaz”.
Although “wigger” derives from a racial slur, I think Eonwe’s point is well-taken, that it is meant to refer to the “internal” rather than "external version of the word.
And its targets are not victims of judgments about their inherent qualities, they are victims of opinions about behavior over which they have full control.
Let’s just call them “Eminems” instead.
Am I a bad person for liking that movie a little bit? It was hilarious.
said with shame
This seems somewhat ridiculous to me. The ‘natural’ way for all of us to act is to run around hunting things and having sex. Anything else is learned. A black kid and a white kid both had to learn hip-hop culture. I find troubling the idea that adopting characteristics traditionally associated with another race is offensive-- if our academic culture was traditionally associated with white people, what does it say about black people’s potential to be included if white people can’t be involved in hip-hop culture?
I agree that it sucks that white people have a greater ability to ditch the ‘ghetto’ image for social mobility, but that’s not something that sucks about those people; it’s something that sucks about white privilege.
Pretty much. What about white kids who live in predominantly black neighborhoods? What about mixed race kids?
Again, it’s like telling black kids who DON’T act like that that they’re “oreos” or “race traitors.” God, just act however the fuck you feel like acting. And quite frankly, what teenage boys DON’T act like idiots at one time or another?
I’m curious: I’ve always seen the word itself as very tongue in cheek; a mocking name less than one that’s meant to be cruelly offensive. Is this, yet again, a contextual and personal thing or do others see it that way?
What was Elvis Costello referring to in “Oliver’s Army”?
<<There was a checkpoint Charlie
He didn’t crack a smile
But it’s no laughing party
When you’ve been on the murder mile
Only takes one itchy trigger
One more widow, one less white nigger>>
Same here, with some subgroups of the kids here in rural VT/NH. The population is overwhlemingly white but the hard core lower-income kids wear slouchy jeans, big shirts, boots,…etc., “urban” style which may mean black or Spanish elsewhere.
:eek:
I haven’t seen anything that surprised me this much in a loooong time. “Wigger” RACIST? Where I come from it isn’t even in the same ballpark. I just looked at my husband, (who grew up in Southern California as well) and asked him what he thought that word meant. Same as me.
We use it to mean people that are “wiggin’ out” ie., crazy, hopped up on something, cokeheads, freakouts.
I am agog. I had no idea that the rest of the country thinks it’s a racist remark.
And who the heck is Mrs. Hathaway, and why should I know that she’s a lesbian?
He’s talking about the Irish. They were thought of as the niggers of Europe by the British. The song - “oliver’s army” - is in reference to Oliver Cromwell, who oppressed the Irish. It’s about British imperialism.
More importantly, why should you go around resurrecting year-old threads?
“Miss (Jane) Hathaway” was a character played by Nancy Culp, from the great early 60s sitcom “The Beverley Hillbillies”. She was a rather homely middle-aged
desperately single and VERY heterosexual secretary to the buffoonish greedy banker Milton Drysdale whose bank held the account of the Clampett family (the titular characters who gained their fortune when the patriarch Jed, played by Buddy Ebsen, struck oil while hunting “critters” for their “vittles”. A running joke was how Miss Hathaway had a mad unrequited crush on Jed’s nephew Jethro Boldine, a big dumb handsome good-natured oaf, played by Max Baer Jr.
I don’t know if the late Nancy Culp herself was of the sapphic persuasion. Some did get those vibes off her. But her character of Miss H was quite straight.
I agree, although I think it is bit more complicated. I think context is key as to whether or not the term is racist. Consider these examples (meant to be illustrative, not exhaustive):
White guy calls another White guy a “wigger”, in the sense of “why on earth would a White guy want to act like a nigger”. Racist.
Black guy calls a White guy a “wigger”, in the sense of “this is our culture, and Whites need not apply”. Racist
Black guy calls his White buddy a “wigger”, in the sense of “wigger, please” (to borrow a phrase from Askia) as a way of kidding him (in the good-natured way friends rib each other all the time). Not Racist.
Now, we can argue if it is as offensive and hurtful as calling a Black person a “nigger” (I think it isn’t), but that’s a different issue. Ultimately, though, it’s racist to think that there is something uniquely wrong with a White kid trying on African American culture (of whatever stripe) for size. As **Guinn **noted, it’s very common for people (especially teenagers) to reinvent themselves from time to time.
Only if a black guy says it…
…but my homeys and I call each other “wiggas” all the time.