From Madnews
In an article published in the latest issue of Dutch fashion magazine Jackie, the magazine offers a little advice on how to dress like Rihanna without looking like the “ultimate niggerbitch.” That’s right. No typo there. Check out the full English translation below:
“She has street cred, she has a ghetto ass and she has a golden throat. Rihanna, the good girl gone bad, is the ultimate niggabitch and displays that gladly, and for her that means: what’s on can come off. If that means she’ll be on stage half naked, then so be it. But Dutch winters aren’t like Jamaican ones, so pick a clothing style in which your daughter can resist minus ten. No to the big sunglasses and the pornheels, and yes to the tiger print, pink shizzle and everything that glitters. Now let’s hope she won’t beat anybody up at daycare.”
Two hours ago, Jackie Editor in Chief Eva Hoeke posted the below apology on the magazine’s Facebook page:
Dear readers,
First: thanks for all your responses. We are of course very fed up over this and especially very shocked. However I’m glad that we’re engaging in a dialogue on this page — not everybody does that. Thanks for this. Other than that I can be brief about this: this should have never happened. Period. While the author meant no harm — the title of the article was intended as a joke — it was a bad joke, to say the least. And that slipped through my, the editor-in-chief’s, fingers. Stupid, painful and sucks for all concerned. The author has been addressed on it, and now I can only ensure that these terms will no longer end up in the magazine. Furthermore I hope that you all believe there was absolutely no racist motive behind the choice of words. It was stupid, it was naive to think that this was an acceptable form of slang — you hear it all the time on tv and radio, then your idea of what is normal apparently shifts — but it was especially misguided: there was no malice behind it. We make our magazine with love, energy and enthusiasm, and it can sometimes happen that someone is out of line. And then you can only do one thing: apologize. And hope that others wish to accept it.
From the bottom of my heart I say it again: we never intended to offend anyone. And I mean that.
Regards,
Eva Hoeke
So, as editor in chief, Hoeke had no idea that this was offensive before running it and actually considered it a joke? In addition to being blatantly racist, calling Rihanna Jamaican (she’s from Barbados) and actually suggesting that mothers should dress their daughters like her, this article is just wrong from every angle.
According to our source in Holland, Jackie is a well known local fashion publication with a circulation of 57,700 copies per month. (Source Parlour website)
I don't think the Editor in Chief Eva Hoeke is really sorry about publishing the story. Being offensive is the Dutch norm these days, so this story was a perfect fit.
Wow. That's really all I can say.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree, with Rachel. Wow. Smh...
ReplyDelete....and we in America thought the Dutch were more 'civilized'
ReplyDeleteThat is one of the worst things I've heard in a very long time. This is the time when you forget about being "nice" and over-looking or excusing the person who "just doesn't know any better" and give them no mercy.
ReplyDeleteWill it ever end? Is this what my daughter has to look forward to? constant disrespect of black women?
ReplyDeleteComing from a black man in America, the fact that words carry apparently enough weight to ruin somebody's day from all the way across the world is one of the most mind boggling things in the world to me. Why are you offended honestly?
ReplyDeletethis is ridiculous yet so expected in todays society.. it shows that racism is alive and well if there were ever a better example of it.. here it is !
ReplyDeleteIf you're a black man and you don't understand why were offended, explaining it to you wouldn't help. Like most American black men, you think you're the only ones who suffer from racism because you have a dick.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised "nigga" has become so mainstream. Americans generally shy away from using it yet I hear Africans and Europeans using it like it has no meaning or history.
ReplyDeleteAt least the lady apologized. She might not have meant any harm by it but you have to blame blacks in the Americas for making this word popular and "cool." How many times does Rihanna, Chris Brown, Rick Ross and others use the "n word" with their millions of non-black followers on Twitter in Africa, Europe and Asia?
Black Americans have no one to blame but ourselves when we use the "N word" in front of Europeans, Asians and Africans. I used to be indifferent to the word, but I've changed my mind: I'm not tolerating that word in my presence.
is this for real? she doesnt even say "sorry" once! hope this is a wake up call to everyone that thinks racism is long forgotten.
ReplyDelete>Being offensive is the Dutch norm these days, so this story was a perfect fit.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry but I'm Dutch and I don't agree with this at all.
I'm half black so yes, I know what I'm talking about.
I agree that this article was way over the line and yet I can't blame them. In our country nigger isn't considered as offensive because it translates to just negro or african-american. The word has no offensive meaning to it when translated.
I also think it's kind of hypocritical to say that because they're white they can't say it. Black people wanted equal rights, then be treated equally. How many times do you see black people call white people cracker, faggot and more insults? Just as much!
We should stop making an issue out of it.
Also, I'd like to know your source.
Being offensive is the norm these days?
I've lived here all my life and you can keep your biased opinion to yourself.
The actual translation for nigger to dutch is nikker. And nikker is very offensive. It has the exact same meaning as the word nigger.
ReplyDeleteNegro however translates to neger or negro and is not offensive.
You should get your facts straight too...
To the mixed race woman who made the above comment you are looking at this from both sides of the racial fence however it's still racism and the editor has apologised because she like everyone else knows it's wrong. Until that woman resigns from her post as editor I will spread this story far and wide. It's simply not acceptable to me as a British born woman with African heritage. Black people should not be blamed in this instance the editor allowed this hot mess to be published.
ReplyDeleteThis article is way over the line, I totally agree. But in a non-English speaking context bad English words are used much more easely. First we don't 'feel' the words as a mother tongue speakers does and second we get so much used to it through films and music that many think it's the normal way of talking.
ReplyDeleteOne other example is the F-word, For many non-English speaking Westerners the censoring -beep- sound we can hear every time someone says the f-word in a reality tv-show is exagerated.
But what many fail to understand is that the f-word is pretty harsh in a British or American context while it can be said in presence of your grandmother or boss in a Dutch speaking context. It's because it's a foreign word that it doens't feel as hard is it would be in our own language.
The N-word is so much used in exported music performed by African-Americans that many people don't even know the sensitivies it entails in the American society or for black people in general. They think that talking dirty is just 'cool'. They think wrong, but I just felt the need to explain the difference of perspective involved in this.
Truth2010, you are right, let's just stop tolerating this word, from a black, brown or white person. It saddens me that even Common felt the need to use it to make his point ...
I'm dutch too.. and I think they used 'niggabitch' because they thought it was populair street 'slang'. I dont think black people in Holland would be upset after reading that article. We hear a lot of 'nigga' in american hiphop records.. so we're used to it.
ReplyDeleteI really think that they thought 'niggabitch' was a sort of a cool and 'street' way for tough ghetto girls way to describe themself..
But.. If you want to use popular street slang from other countries then you better do some research to check if you can use that slang too...
at different points in time and in different cultures, the words 'nigger' and 'black' have had different levels of acceptability. this magazine article is meant for Dutch readers, not English...-speaking readers, and the context is not at all the same then. For example, in Dutch, people casually use the term 'halfbloed' (halfblood) which does not have such a positive connotation in english but apparently only means mixed blood in Dutch. No point in taking an article in one language and culture and interpreting it according to the context of another language and culture.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sibo, I used to use the N-word like it was water albeit almost never around white people. Now I live in a place where most people don't speak English and Black folks are not as numerous as they are south of the border and I hear little white kids calling each other nigga all the time as if they had a clue. Now for sure this term has been popularized by the media and the talented folks that these pip squeaks are mimmicing. So yeah, let's stop encouraging the use of the term and just don't tolerate it at all.
ReplyDeleteTo Anonymous who said: "I've lived here all my life and you can keep your biased opinion to yourself."
ReplyDeleteI was also born and raised in The Netherlands, in Amsterdam to be exact.
Why is nobody talking about the fact that they called Rihanna a bitch?
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that's offensive, regardless of language/culture.
Le Blanc:
ReplyDeleteWho cares what the Africans in Holland think about the "N word." They're not black Americans. We, black Americans, have a history with that word, not them.
I'm not too sure she should have been fired. She's been given the green light to use that word by rappers. It's racist to then tell her she can't use it.
@truth:
ReplyDeleteIf that's the case, then who cares what Rihanna thinks about the "N word"? She's Caribbean, like many of us black Dutch are. It could be said that she shares more cultural history with us Curaçao, Arubans, Bonaireans etc., than with the average African American.
Yes, we have our own history here in the Netherlands and the Antilles and Suriname. But it runs parallel to African American history. We often look at America for our icons and role models, even though we have our own right here in our communities. We follow the news.
And we have our own slurs and stereotypes to deal with here.
As for the meat of the matter, Jacky is the type of magazine that mainly consists of advertisements interjected with shallow articles on fashion and lifestyle; the type of mag that are 10ct a dozen. I sincerely doubt that its readers would adopt the word "N****b*tch" as a term of address to be used. Even before Rihanna responded to this, their editorial office already received lots of mail criticizing their use of the N-word; even if Rihanna had not paid any mind to it, the outrage might very well still have led to the resignation of Hoeke as EIC, as it has now.
@truth2011
ReplyDeleteI believe 'nigga' isnt a positive word and you should avoid using it.
But...the article was aimed at dutch readers.. we know 'nigga' as a popular word black people use from 'the states'. 'Like I said 'Niggabitch' sonds just like the other filthy stuff American rappers say on their records..
We ust recognize it as street slang, without thinking about it that much..
"And end a nigga end a niggas life so soon"
ReplyDeleteMan Down - Rihanna. If you are offended by nigga you shouldn't it be using it yourself. Or is it only racist when white people use it? That in itself is racist because she only feels offended when it is said by white people and not if she was called niggabitch by blacks.
Bottomline, if Rihanna thinks this is racist, she is a racist herself.
http://www.buffalonews.com/city/columns/rod-watson/article673499.ece
ReplyDeleteFor all people who think that blacks can and whites cannot use the nigga word: please read the article. This (black) man is spot on!
YAD:
ReplyDeleteThat's what I have said all along. Surinamese have similar histories to black Americans. That's indisputable.
But the "N word" is specifically a word that was geared towards black Americans. It really isn't a "Caribbean black" word. Our histories are different in this regard.
And to act as if Surinamese black and a black American should react the same to this word is ignorance. It's what a lot of prejudiced people do when they don't make a distinction between Jamaicans and black Americans. We're DIFFERENT. Similar histories but we're still different.
I'm a "black American" and I see so much ignorance in these comments coming from everyone who wasn't born or raised here.
ReplyDeleteDo you all think "nigga" has ALWAYS been said by Black Americans? Do you know the ORIGIN of that word? How it was USED and still IS used? Who came up with it ORIGINALLY? Learn these things before you say it's racist to be offended by it's use by a white person or that "all black Americans use it", because I do not and know many others who do not.
Nigga/nigger is the same... doesn't matter if it ends in -er or -a. The MEANING is the same: a disparaging word used by racists/bigots attributed to people of African descent. The word started being used by black American slaves, not as a term of endearment, but as a rebuttal by the House Negros against the Field Negros. It started to be used as a term those in the projects/ghettos of which black Americans were the majority around the turn of the 20th century. Please be advised, there were MORE black Americans who didn't use the word than there were/are who do.
You don't hear Luther Vandross saying it in his songs, do you? Or what about Boyz II Men? Or even Will Smith as part of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince? Did you ever hear Michael Jackson say it? Or Jennifer Hudson? Or anyone who ISN'T a modern rapper in their songs?
THINK, LEARN and multiply the knowledge. I'm out.
I'm an African American and not only are the terms "nigga" and "bitch" derogatory terms, but to place them together as ONE word to describe a popular female artist of African descent is just unheard of. So who made THAT one up and thought it was cool? That sure didn't come from any American Rapper.
ReplyDeleteFirst....God didn't make niggas/nuggets, the white man did. Second, doesn't matter where you go on the planet, a Devil is just that, a Devil.
ReplyDeleteNiggas/niggers, pardon the typo.
Delete