When is it Okay to Call Someone "Nigger"?

Who was the instigator?

There are two sides that Judge Peter Dorothy has to take into consideration. Adam Huber’s account where she said David White yelled out “There’s a nigger” and that Jay over heard it and threw a water bottle; and Jay’s side, where he said that they were going to lynch him and his family. Lynching in the context where it was done in the Deep South and had black people put on impromptu trails in front of a mob and killed by hanging from a tree with a noose.

Did Jay overreact to being called a Nigger?

In a police interview, Adam Huber’s account started with David White yelling “There's a nigger” to the passengers in the truck from the bed. Now put yourself in Jay Philips’ shoes for a minute; the action police will want you to take is not to escalate the situation and to call the police and report it. As with anything when rage and adrenalin gets involve, judgement on what the right thing to do is hampered, and you only have a split second to decide your action.

Now, can you blame Jay for throwing a water bottle at the truck and calling them back to fight? If I was in his shoes, it would be hard for me to let something like that go without reacting to their words.

Or Should we Blame David White for the Racially Motivated Verbal Attack?

Can you blame David White for yelling out “Hey there’s a nigger” within ear shot of Jay wrong? I will go out and say yes, it is wrong. In countries like Germany, Austria, and some European countries, just drawing a swastika can land you in jail. Here in the Comox Valley, acts such as when David White hung himself from a tree with a noose and burning a cross were met with amusement and enjoyment among his peers. I also want to add, those acts are illegal in some American States, so those pictures of David White will have him in trouble if they were taken on US soil, something law makers here should think about.

This attitude is definitely sickening to me. In Canada, we like to think of ourselves as people with progressive ideals, but really, its countries like the United States, Germany, and Austria that are doing more to curb racial motivated violence by making sure people don’t celebrate racist culture. As I said in past blog posts, encouraging people to fly confederate flags, say racist jokes, and burning crosses will only reinforce racism into the people of the Comox Valley. And the result will be more verbal and physical attacks on people who are trying live life here in the beautiful Comox Valley.

Pussy vs Nigger?

David White claimed Jay called them "pussies" in reaction to his racist slurs. In the police interview, David White said, "he called us pussies — he wanted to take us all ... we called him some racial slurs."

When is it okay to call someone Nigger?

The trio had said in the interview with CHEK6 that they only used the word "Nigger" because Jay Phillips made them mad. Dean Slotz, in the interview asked “why the language,” the accused stated they weren’t racists but pissed off. They then defended their use of the N-word by saying it was used to make “him mad because he made [them] mad.” Huber also acknowledged that “it shouldn’t have been said.”

Their Account of the Events Leading to the fight

In the Dean Slotz interview, Adam said:

“we were driving the truck through the McDonalds drive-thru when we turned the corner, I guess Jay is his name is – is with a buddy of his on the corner, drove by, something may have been said, and I see a cheese burger flying through the air. That’s when we turned around -- we turned the truck around, and when we did, I preceded out of the truck to ask him ‘why, what are you throwing at my truck.’ He proceeded to throw his hands in the air and call us all names, slander, say he wanted to fight all 3 of us, he’ll take us all on. I don’t want to say the words that he used but that’s pretty much the gist of it.”

When the Stolz wanted to make clear which side the initial insult came from, one male answered:

“we’re not really sure, we seen the cheeseburger flying through the air. We turned around [the truck] and asked him what the deal was. He wouldn’t even answer us why he threw the cheese burger. He just kind of threw his hands in the air calling us all out… you know.”

Then the other male said, laughing afterwards:

“I just actually seen a cheese burger lying in the back of the truck.”