White Blacks (UPDATED: Director of 'War Room' Calls BS)

Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey has posted a video of a 1992 presidential election War Room meeting between long-time Clinton associates, George Stephanopulous, James Carville and Mickey Kantor during which the latter allegedly uses the phrase “white nigger"* in reference to working-class whites in Indiana. The video is producing the intended fallout for Hillary Clinton on both sides of the political divide. But Kantor and others say that the video has been altered. Here's the part that's clear:

Wait, wait, look at Indiana — 42-40. It doesn’t matter if we win. Those people are sh*t. Oh, excuse me …

Now here’s the disputed part. In the video at Hot Air, it sounds as though Kantor says

How would you like to be a worthless white n****r?

But the in the video at You Tube (start at 4:40) he says "how would you like to be :::mumble, mumble:::"--IOW I can’t decipher what Kantor says to Stephanopulous after that.

Kantor says that he wasn’t even talking about Indiana and, from the evidence, I’m inclined to believe him.

Kantor, on Friday, insisted that the latter part of his statement never took place and that it made no sense for him to use such language.

"Indiana was not even on our radar screen," he said, "And I was talking about the polling and not the people... If you look at The War Room, this is not the way Carville or George interpreted my statement. This is frankly libelous."

Kantor said he was in the process of contacting "the best" libel lawyers to approach YouTube.com about the process of removing the video from its site. He suggested that The Huffington Post, too, should not print even his defense, as it would be an advancement of a non-story.

"I don't need to be defended," he wrote. "When you write it, what you are doing is extended the libel."

Kantor also says that he would never say the n-word.

My parents would come from the grave and kill me if I used that word.

Is someone trying to deflect ire from the debacle of Barack Obama's Clinging-to-guns, etc. statement--Ed has another name for that gaffe which will get me in trouble--and from the fallout produced by Jeremiah Wright’s close-ups? Doctoring a video by putting words in the mouth of a loyal Clinton associate who is Jewish to boot would be a good way to do it.

But there’s something about this little tempest that’s stuck in my craw.

I’m not going to get into a row about black and non-black usage of “n****r." But in this specific instance, it is clear that the word is meant to be an insult to Indiana’s white population. Whether Kantor actually used the term or whether someone inserted those words in his mouth, the term's implications and the reaction to it require some fleshing out.

Every time I hear the term “white n****r” used, I always marvel at the lack of insight demonstrated by the user—and sometimes by the targets of the epithet. The user always tries to pretend that it isn’t a racial slur against blacks, because he/she is talking about white people, you see. He always forgets—if he ever knew—that even when the word used with a modifier, it is always about blacks.

Hey, my white brothers and sisters! Don’t you want to be a n****r or even called one? Why not? Because for some of you, as “low” as you may perceive yourselves to be, there’s always a group that’s “lower” than you: we actual n****rs, Version 1.0. The phrase, the insult, is intended to put working-class whites and blacks on the same "social level." And some of the former, the ones who still subconsciously buy into the notion that whites are on a higher social level than blacks and, therefore, who say in their heart-of-hearts “at least I’m not a n****r” will object to this phrase most strenuously.

Conversely, here’s a perceptive and humorous response to being called a “white n****r”:

A worthless white n****r? Hey mister…that’s worthless white African American, and don’t you forget it.

Hah! Exactly.

*I’m spelling out the word only in this instance. Reason it’s not usually done here: search engines.

UPDATE: (Via Ed again) Bravo Sierra says War Room director D.A. Pennebaker.

"He does not say that," said Pennebaker, after viewing the clip.

He said the initial expletive referred to the anticipated reaction in the Bush White House to the fact that Ross Perot's polling numbers were holding strong.

"What he says is he’s surprised Perot’s numbers are holding," said Pennebaker in a brief phone interview. "He says they must be shi**ing in the White House."

The second expletive, he said, appeared to have been entirely fabricated, with new audio dubbed onto the original movie.

Pennebaker appeared surprised and amused by the video.

"A thousand people saw that film in theaters and didn't think" the second expletive had been used, he said. "It's very clearly understandable. It's not like it was in Bulgarian."

Sounds far more logical than the opposite.

I still find it fascinating to contemplate the psyche that would conjure the notion of "white n****rs" and then put the words into someone's mouth.

Oh and Hot Air readers are always welcome here. Well, most of you. :-)

Comments

[Phelps]

Actually, when I was White Mike working at a hip-hop label, it felt pretty good to be referred to as "my N" by many of the people working there.

I didn't really buy it when they called me an honorary N, though. I'm pretty sure they still would have kicked my ass if I started using the word.

[baldilocks]

But you didn't object because a) you didn't care about being on the same level as blacks and b)it wasn't meant as an insult. This makes sense.

I'm pretty sure they still would have kicked my ass if I started using the word.

So am I. I'm going to have to think about that for a bit. Or see what other people have said about it.

[Keith_Indy]

I've heard the term thrown around Indiana before. Exclusively by people trying to justify their own use of the N* word. Whigger is another popular one, although that is usually a derisive term for a white punk trying to act black.

Personally I find all such bigotry offensive, and my wife and I do try to verbally correct the people who say such things in our presence. There's no justification for it.

What I want to know is what kind of lightweight operative uses the word "Indianan" to describe a Hoosier? Probably some elitist who doesn't know any better. ;)

[tom swift]

What puzzles me is the assumption that "n****r" and "black" are synonyms.

Many years ago someone described to me an incident he had just witnessed on a bus in Cambridge, in which a band of kids, who happened to be black (at that time, "coloreds" was passe, but "African-American" was not yet in fashion) were harassing other passengers, grabbing the girls' pocketbooks, etc. He said at the time, "these weren't blacks, these were n****rs." The distinction was clear; "blacks" can reasonably be expected to act like normal human beings; "n****rs" are vandals and hooligans. My friend was, at that time, not criticizing the general population of "blacks" at all, but he was certainly piling on "n****rs" - and justifiably, too.

That was thirty years ago. Since then, of course, the "n word" has grown in stature to the point that it routinely causes national hysteria. The useful distinction between the words has apparently been irretrievably lost. I don't believe that this shift has been accidental. The advantage to America's well-developed victimhood industry is that any sharp criticism of those behaving like "n****rs" can be confused with blanket criticism of blacks in general, and that turns an innocuous and commonplace statement into blatant racism. It's a tactic to keep casual racism alive and well in America.

[Rustmeister]

Ah, the old insider/outsider rule. Kinda like the old "FTA" attitude the Army had.

We could talk bad about the Army all we wanted, but if some squid Navy or wingnut Air Force person said something, we'd start "aggressive negotiations" forthwith. =)

[Old Mike]

I remember a young man I met in basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood in 1965 saying he didn't like the term black. He said quite pointedly that he was a Negro. To him that was a term of respect. I could understand that as the term Black was used derogatively in Africa at that time and may still be for all I know. N***r will always be a derogatory term when coming out of the mouth of a "melanin challenged person". I can mix pigments for furniture touch-up that match Baldilock's skin tone and then add a drop or two of that mixture to several drops of clear lacquer and get my skin tone. Race is an invention of man and a very destructive one.

[superflunky]

Back when I lived in Chicago, I recall an incident that occured at the Burger King in Evanston, IL. The BK was the only place to get food late at nite so people often when there for a late nite snack to help them sober up before bed. I know that's why I was usually there. Anyway, one nite while waiting for my food a young black man (who had also been partying that nite) enthusiastically informed me and everyone else at the BK that n****r simply means ignorant person and has nothing to do with race. I responded skeptically saying that I wasn't aware of that distinction. He then said, "see ... that's because you a n****r." We had a good chuckle but not everyone at the BK was amused...

[aengus]

That phrase "white n****r" is in a great Elvis Costello song "Oliver's Army". I always wondered what it meant if anything. When the song was released in the US that bit was bleeped out so you might not have heard of it.

[Paul A'Barge]

I have never heard the term and I've been around some folks with some very very nasty vocabulary.

In my part of the world (central Texas) we do hear white people using the N word but frankly when that happens you've pretty much already beforehand figured out that these folks are, well trash frankly.

[SDN]

In my high school in the late 70s, being referred to as a "chrome-plated spade" or "nigger in a white-man suit" was absolutely an insult. This phrase wouldn't be any different.

That said, I'd look at who's claiming what was said and who has an interest in getting that out now.

[porkopolitan]

aengus: In "Oliver's Army," the phrase means "Irishman." The titular Oliver is Oliver Cromwell, and his Army is the (protestant) British forces in Northern Ireland. The so-called "Murder Mile" was a section of North Belfast where non-partisans of both side of the conflict were killed by paras of the opposite side. Pray we never see the like in this country.

[Ken]

Whenever my friends and I used the term "Whigger", a shortened version of the epithet in question, we always used it to describe fellow white classmates who were trying to dress, speak, and act like the hard-ass, gangsta-wanna-be, rap artists who have really popularized the original word, n****r. We always meant it in a derogatory manner when we spoke it, but we were degrading the rap artists themselves and the fools who want to emulate them, not black people in general.

[Potosi Joel]

Senator Robert Byrd used the term on a 60Minutes interview sometime within the last four years, but I can't remember when.
It is/was quite common in suburban DC and used just as Byrd explained it-- n-- are uneducated, unemployed, macho, troublemakers, whether white or black, but white was added for clarity when talking about shanty Irish lowlifes. White n-- are called crackers these days.

[DarkStar]

I have a related question.

Is there a difference between the use of "sellout" by Blacks and the use of "guilty white liberal"?

[baldilocks]

Potosi Joel: Yes I'm familiar with the Byrd usage and his explanation. The point is that I reject the latter.

DS: yes. The former is seen to be a traitor to an allegiance which he/she was born to or has sworn some oath to. The latter is merely trying to make self feel not-guilty or absolve the "crimes of the group."

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Every verbal insult means the same thing: "I don't like you and I want you to know it", if spoken to the person insulted. If spoken about someone, insults encourage listeners to harm or reject the insulted people. Whether any word or phrase is an insult, therefore, involves an assumption of intent. We call our friends dirty names to prove friendship, since only a friend could get away with calling you ..., well, supply your own.

It's not at all racist to use "nigger" when talking --about-- speech. My friend Damon Williams worked as a high-tech temp. He described an incident at work where someone asked him to make coffee and he said: "Homie don't do that", then, to me he said: "That's a saying among my people; it means...". I finished: "Get yourself another nigger", and he said: "Exactly."

I got it right, right?

[DarkStar]

The former is seen to be a traitor to an allegiance which he/she was born to or has sworn some oath to. The latter is merely trying to make self feel not-guilty or absolve the "crimes of the group."

I STRONGLY disagree because it is generally followed up whites with a statement saying the person is ashamed of being white.

I can take a statement made by a Black person calling another Black person a sellout and do a word substitution with "guilty white liberal" and chances are the sting is still the same.

I bring up Tim Wise as the lead example.