Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a derog. term for a white person who does menial labour [note Ward (1700) ‘[The Irishman is] a Valuable Slave in our Western-Plantations, where they are distinguish’d by the Ignominious Epithet of White-Negroes’].

1836		T. Haliburton Clockmaker I 243: We deal only in blacks; but blue-nose approbates no distinction in colours, and when reduced to poverty, is reduced to slavery, and is sold — a White Nigger.
1837		R.M. Bird Nick of the Woods I 170: Hanging too good for him, white niggah t’ief, hah!
1855		C.G. Parsons Inside View of Slavery 182: Well, then, can that white nigger do more work than one of your black niggers, that you ask so much more for her?
1871		E. Eggleston Hoosier School-Master (1892) 87: ‘Ole Miss Meanses’ white nigger,’ as some of them called her, in allusion to her slavish life.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 Oct. 14/1: The paper referred to doesn’t favour the employment of Mongolians [...] while ‘white niggers’ can be had for a sov. a week.
1895		Truth (Sydney) 24 Feb. 8/1: [of freed transportees used as servants] In Australia the white nigger driver had no such initiative. [...] he got the white nigger assigned to him for nothing and only had to feed and clothe him in regulation convict style .
1970		L. Sanders Anderson Tapes 146: INGRID: [...] Perhaps that is why we are so simpatico. You were poor also . . . nein? ANDERSON: Yes. My family was white niggers.
1992		R. Price Clockers 496: You think the Irish had it easy? We were hated [...] We were the white niggers.

2. a black person who is regarded as deferring to white people or accepting a role prescribed by them.

1867		Courier-Jrnl (Louisville, KY) 24 July 4/3: Old darkey — ‘Brudderin, it seems like dat smellin part is a siniwation on us. You white niggas may stink, but i no de brack uns don’t’.
1873		S.W. Payne Behind the Bars 145: ‘But say, George, wouldn’t you rather be a slave than to be free?’ ‘Now see heah, you white nigger, I spects you tryin’ ter stuff dis darkey.’.
1876		B. Harte Gabriel Conroy III 116: Thar aren’t a whiter nigger livin’ than that ole man.
2000		W.T. Vollmann Royal Family 484: The black man kicked the drunk’s head again [...] You fucking white nigger!
2003		Carmen Journal 16 Aug. on Scandelous.net 🌐 What would you think if your folks told you a story of how some old ignorant hunkie woman told someone, ‘Ross and Nellie M have the prettiest little white nigger you ever saw.’.

3. (Sierra Leone) a European.

1883

Daily News 20 June in Ware (1909) 264/2: The emancipated blacks of Sierra Leone not only address each other as ‘niggers’, but salute as ‘white niggers’ all Europeans with whom they are not on friendly terms.

4. (US) a white person who campaigns against racial inequality.

1904		Independant (Honolulu, HI) 10 Sept. 2/4: Mr Stewart eing a negro [...] is a white man compared to the white man compared to the white man who is nothing more tha a white nigger — white only in color but black of heart and inwardly.
1919		Cayton’s Weekly (Seattle, WA) 27 Sept. 2/1: The South is a ‘white-man’s country’ [...] and the best thing the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People with its white-nigger secretary can do for the betterment of the negroes [...] is to shut its filthy mouthpiece and organs of racial equality and die.

5. (US) a Jew.

1935

J. Conroy World to Win 145: The farmers around here don’t have any use for Jews; call ’em white niggers.

6. a Mediterranean and thus relatively dark-skinned immigrant to the US, e.g. a Greek or Italian.

1996

(con. 1946) G. Pelecanos Big Blowdown (1999) 47: [of a Greek] Some American boys on the corner were making fun of her, calling her a ‘wop’ and a ‘white nigger.’.

7. (Can.) self-description by embittered French Canadians who see themselves as second-class citizens in a primarily British country.

1979

Maledicta III:2 182: White Niggers. French Canadians have described themselves with particular relish as ‘the White Niggers of America’ since the appearance of Pierre Vallière’s autobiography Nègres blancs d’Amérique (1968).