Where’s the School Spirit in “Wigger Day” at Red Wing High School?
Back in 1090, a few weeks after moving to southern Indiana, I was floored when I learned that there was a celebration called Nigger Day. Being new to the area, I was told that i should travel to a small town in Kentucky where Black folks celebrated the emancipation from slavery, commonly known and widely accepted as Nigger Day. A cause for celebration that I encourage, but Black folks accepting and calling it by such a derogatory name itself? Yeah, something tells me that it wasn’t Black people who came up with that one. But we as a people with our perpetual internalized oppression, see it as no big deal accepting such a self-degrading name; a name ironically incorporated in the emancipation celebration. Hell, why don’t we tar and feather ourselves while we’re at it.
That was my thought back then
Enter 2011, and look at what’s acceptable at a Red Wing, Minnesota high school. That is, acceptable for all but a handful of minority students lead by one brave young lady, Quera Pruitt. She has filed a lawsuit to redress grievance with the schools spirit day event known as “Wigger Day“. And what is “Wigger Day” you might ask? Well it’s the one day that white kids get to dress like the stereotypical nigger Black person. You know, it’s the one day that white kids find pleasure in dressing in saggy jeans, doo rags, and sporting gold fronts pretty much like all Black people do? It’s the one day in the school year that these kids can be, well, niggers. And of course given it’s a practice on school property, it’s school sanctioned racism. But let some tell it, it was all in fun, and there’s no racism Yep, and it was this very thinking that reduced hanging nooses to a prank.
For some, this is just yet another example of how political correctness is ruining our society. But if you ask me, someone taking a stanlegally against this sort of spectacle is what makes this country great. The way I see it surely the kids in this case may not have seen the error in participating in Wigger Day, but you better believe the adults charged with running that particular school knew better. The question is: did they care? Certainly they didn’t having allowed this activity for the past three years. But miss me with the anti-political correctness argument. If you’re Black and you think this behavior is innocent and “all in good fun,” then my friend, you are truly lost. But then again maybe you’re right. Maybe this is no big deal and maybe at next years Wigger Day you’d advise them to paint their faces Black. Better yet, instead of a bonfire, maybe they can burn a cross. I mean hell, forget not-so-subtle racism shrouded by political correctness, right?
Self-Hating White Dude?
Like the folks I encountered when I went to the Nigger Day celebration in Kentucky twenty one years ago. Like them, you’ve internalized your oppression to the point where none of this bothers you, nor matters. Thankfully there are a few of us who refuse to let this shit slide. I did attend the Nigger Day celebration that August 8th day in Kentucky in 1990. There was no parade, but instead I saw hundreds of black folks getting drunk and acting like fools celebrating our emancipation all in fun. I never again attended the celebration after that year because I wasn’t interested in being “nigger” any more than I already was in our society. Until “Cracker Day” carries the sting of centuries racial oppression, you can’t have “Wigger Day”. Now if you spelled Wigger with an “a” at the end instead of an “r” it would be different. OK, I’m jokin; but seriously, the truth is as Paul Mooney put it: “Everybody wanna be a nigger, but don’t nobody wanna be a nigger. So yeah, cut tha check.
