red nigger
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Noun edit
red nigger (plural red niggers)
- (ethnic slur, derogatory, slang, dated) A Native American person.
- 1852, Emerson Bennett, The Forest Rose; A Tale of the Frontier[1], Cincinnati: J. A. & U. P. James, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 66:
- His dark, sunburnt features flushed a deep red, as if all his blood had rushed to his face; while his eye wandered around the crowd, as if seeking a way to escape from so uncomfortable a situation. But finding himself completely hemmed in, and every eye fixed upon him, he said, as if with a desperate attempt at articulation: “My friends, I s'pose I'm to consider all you’ve said as meanin' complimentary, and so I’ll put up with't for onc't, but I gin ye the honor o' a white gintleman, I’d rayther hev a hull yellin' tribe o' the cussed red-nigger Wyandotts arter me, nor stand sich another white whoop on account of my own doin's. I'll fight Injens with the best feller amongst ye—but I can't stand to be made a show on.”
- 1988, James H. Schlender, quotee, “Written Testimony of James H. Schlender, Executive Administrator, Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, May 18, 1988”, in Anti-Indian Violence: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, second session, May 4 and 18, 1988[2], Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, published 1989, →OCLC, page 197:
- At Crescent Lake in Oneida County, Hubert Locke, who is black and serves as the Dean of the University of Washington's School of Public Affairs, was confronted with words to the effect of, "Now the Commission has a nigger working for them" and "I guess there are two kinds of niggers—red niggers and black niggers"[...] These blatant manifestations of racism directed toward Mr. Locke serve to illustrate the racist attitudes experienced daily by tribal members.
- (Caribbean, ethnic slur) A person of mixed Black and European descent.
- 1972, David Lowenthal, West Indian Societies, London: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 287:
- A Trinidadian notes that 'today there are fewer and fewer "red niggers" and more and more Black men of light complexion, who have healed the psychological and moral gaps in their consciousness, and understood that their salvation and identity lie in their self-identification with the Black masses'.
- 1979, Derek Walcott, “The Schooner Flight”, in The Star-Apple Kingdom, 1st American edition, New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, →LCCN, page 4:
- I'm just a red nigger who love the sea, / I had a sound colonial education, / I have Dutch, nigger, and English in me, / and either I'm nobody, or I'm a nation
- 1979, Earl Lovelace, The Dragon Can't Dance, reprint edition, Harlow: Longman, published 1984, →ISBN, page 21:
- You don't have eyes in your head to see that is because the woman skin lighter than yours and mine she feel she better than people on this Hill. […] And what make her precious so? That fading yellow red-nigger skin?
- 2012, G. Modele "Dale" Clarke, Up in Mahaica: Stories from the Market People, Xlibris, →ISBN, pages 139, 142:
- [page 139] "Go on, take it off," the first girl directed Celia. "We want to see your hair." […] "Oh look at that," the first girl shrieked. "She's a red nigger."
[page 142] "Ah knows wat she is. She's jess' ah red nigger tryin' to look white."
Synonyms edit
- (Native American): prairie nigger, redskin, timber nigger, tree nigger
- (person of mixed Black and European ancestry): chabin, mulatto