Whilst they were dancing, Emily Parr commented to Charley “Are you pushing it out, you n1g*3r?” in the Big Brother household, immediately a couple of fellow house mates noted she was in deep trouble. Emily was permanently taken out of the house in the early morning, and the eviction process this week has been suspended. (Emily was already a nominee for eviction.)
Although I have only read reports of the incident, rather than seen the video, it sounds, from the given context, that she may have meant the term in the same way as it is used in rap videos – sometimes seen as nigga, rather than the ~er variant. Whilst rappers can call other people nig*3rs without too much protest (there was in fact a call for self-censorship on this term earlier in the year), it is very unusual to see or hear a white person use the term in the media… I don’t know, but I imagine someone like Tim Westwood could probably use the term without protest, as he is in the same sort of scene that is often used, but other than that, people just don’t use the term unless they have a tendance to extreme right wing politics.
Whether this would have occurred in last year’s BB is difficult to say, but following the well publicised incident betwixt Jade Goody’s mother and the Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty in Celebrity BB, and Channel 4&Endermol’s prescribed public apologies at their handling of the case, it is of no great surprise that Emily has been chucked out.
The following is the reaction of the house mates to the news of Emily being removed…