Lester Bangs and The Last Of The White Niggers

Lester Bangs:
Notorious for applying the term "white nigger" (which originated in Norman Mailer's 1957 essay "The White Negro") as a euphemism for a punk, or more specifically a white social miscreant with questionable or objectionable outward idiosyncrasies, and radical beliefs deemed unacceptable by the status quo. (Conversely, the term now has a different connotation, as "wigger" is used to describe a white individual infatuated with the hip-hop lifestyle). He often referred to himself as the "last of the white niggers", and a famous photograph of Bangs shows him wearing a t-shirt bearing this title.

©Robert Sloon