A Dutch magazine has drawn fire for calling Rihanna "the ultimate niggabitch." And yes, it's just as offensive in context.


Parlour has a screenshot of the article in Dutch fashion magazine Jackie, and the English translation, which is both racist and extremely dumb:

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.


Some readers were understandably upset about Jackie's use of a racial slur, so editor-in-chief Eva Hoeke issued an unsatisfying apology. On Facebook, she wrote,

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.

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Then she added,

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.


I'm not sure if the word "niggabitch" appears routinely on Dutch TV and radio, but this is an especially racist time of year for the Netherlands — it's the time when people put on blackface to imitate Zwarte Piet, Santa's "servant." Maybe Jackie was just infected with the racist-Christmas spirit. Hoeke's apology kind of misses the point, though. As Parlour points out, Rihanna isn't Jamaican. And if tossing around racial slurs is the Jackie staff's "idea of what is normal," they might want to look into some new hires.

Dutch Mag Jackie Calls Rihanna ‘Ultimate Niggabitch' [Parlour]