The+White+Nigger

'Did they say Christmas?' 'Christmas!' one of the men who held him cried back his face too strained, glaring. 'Christmas! That white nigger that did that killing up at Jefferson last week!' In calling him the white nigger, the Jefferson community releases the guilt of Ms. Burden's death to justify the doer's actions through him being 'a white nigger' which says it all. _____________________________
 * The White Nigger**

White nigger is a racially charged term, with somewhat different meanings in different parts of the English-speaking world. According to the Urban Dictionary, it is a  racist name used by the english to insult the Irish in the 1800 and early 1900's. Ironically enough, it is used by some Irish descendants in America to mark a person or a group which resembles 'niggers' in some respects. In his attempt to answer 'What is a 'White Nigger' Anyway?', Andrew D. Todd as a graduate student of history delves into the term's early usage.There seem to be two major bodies of early usage: first a white person who is conspicuously exploited, and second a member of the concubine class, intermediate between black and white.

Faulkner's //Light in August// depicts Joe Christmas as the white nigger, the in-between who doesn't fit to any societal norm and when offered the chance to fit in not only refuses it, but also marks his refusal by blood towards those who try to make him conform. His violent reaction towards His step father Mr. McEachern and his mistress Ms. Burden is but a way to state his rebellion towards the discriminating society and his affirmation that 'My name ain't McEachern. My name is Christmas. There was no need to bother about that yet. There was plenty of time.'(145)

His state of in-betweenness is always referred to in the novel ; all his bad actions are explained through the lens of having black blood that forces him to lean towards evil doing. Ever since the toothpaste incident, he is seen as 'Tell, then! You little nigger bastard! You nigger Bastard!'(125) 'I've known it all this time that he's part a nigger.'(129) This realization was brought to his attention with 'May be he found out from hearing the other children call him Nigger.'(133) The rebellious Joe Christmas was born with every McEachern strap 'He struck ten times. When he finished, the boy stood for a moment longer motionless.' 'Come,' Mr.McEachern said,'Sit down here.' 'No' The boy said.(151)

The binary state of Joe Christmas's identity as the white nigger is further linked to Avak Hasratian views in //The Death of Difference in Light in August// and his endeavor to understand the Agamben's anthropological accusation of reinforcing a nature-culture binary as the one thing all human communities have in common and of drawing comparisons among them. Moreover as Levi-Strauss puts it, 'culture can and must, under pain of not existing, firmly declare 'Me first', and tell nature, 'You go no further'. By this circular process, he calls on the animal to define the human.' No wonder, Faulkner portrays Joe Christmas turning Ms. McEachern's tray upside down and later ' he rose from the bed and went and knelt in the corner as he had not knelt on the rug, and above the outraged food kneeling, with is hands ate, like a savage, like a dog.'(155) This build up ape anger was carried by Joe Christmas everywhere he went. 'Sometimes he would remember how he teased white men into calling him negro in order to fight them, to beat them or be beaten; now he fought the negro who called him white.'(225) However, he failed to live with negroes and ' to expel from himself the white blood and the white thinking and being. And all the while his nostrils at the odor which he was trying to make his own would whiten and tauten, his whole being writhe and strain with physical outrage and spiritual denial'(226) On the other hand, Ms.Burden's offer to settle and take over everything was of a repulsive nature to trigger his inner scream 'This is not my life. I don't belong here.'(258) It is ironic that he only accepts his diabolical status after he is captured ' Aint your name Christasmas? and the nigger said that it was. He never denied it. He never did anything. He never acted like either a nigger of a white man. That was it.'(350) The White nigger finally accepts and affirms his in-betweenness and boldly faces society with his binary state.