If you think the n-word is an American tradition/phenomenon/slur, think again. A British lawmaker has been suspended after a recording surfaced of her using the racial slur to describe the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union without a deal.
Anne Marie Morris, the ruling Conservative Party’s chief whip, made the remark Monday during a public meeting, HuffPost UK reports.
Morris noted that only 7 percent of financial services in the U.K. would be affected by its departure from the union.
“Now, I am sure there will be many people who’ll challenge that, but my response and my request is, look at the detail,” Morris was recorded as saying. “It isn’t all doom and gloom.
“Now we get to the real nigger in the woodpile, which is in two years—what happens if there is no deal?” she added.
Well.
After the remark was made public, Morris apologized, saying, “The comment was totally unintentional and I apologize unreservedly for any offense caused.”
Yet that was too little, too late, because Morris is out, and there has been no update on the timetable for the investigation, which will be carried out by the Conservative Party.
Atlanta Black Star reports that this is the second time a British member of Parliament has used the word. In 2008, Robert Dixon-Smith apologized for letting it “slip out” during a session in the House of Lords, adding that “it was a common parlance when I was younger.”
According to The Atlantic, the phrase dates back to 1843, during the era of the Underground Railroad in the U.S. It was often used in song lyrics to refer to enslaved blacks who concealed themselves in piles of wood during their escape to the North.
Today the phrase is used to describe a hidden problem.
In a statement, Prime Minister Theresa May said: “I was shocked to hear of these remarks, which are completely unacceptable. I immediately asked the chief whip to suspend the party whip. Language like this has absolutely no place in politics or in today’s society.”
I got nothing.