Dutch fashion magazine, “Jackie,” thought it was giving its readers a tongue-in-cheek guide on how to dress like Rihanna. Apparently though, the magazine’s editors must not know any black people, have any on the staff (including in the mail room) and don’t have access to these here innawebs to Google before they publish (or perhaps they couldn’t care less to poll any black people… I’m going with the latter). In it’s attempt to be “funny,” the magazine called Rihanna… wait for it…

Here’s the article’s English translation:

She has street cred, she has a ghetto ass and she has a golden throat. Rihanna, the good girl gone bad, is the ultimate n*ggab*tch 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 (Witch note: she’s from Barbados!) , 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.

After the internet erupted in an uproar, the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief issued this apology on Facebook (translated):

Dear readers,

First: thanks for all your responses. We are of course very fed up over this and especially very shocked. However I’m glad that we’re engaging in a dialogue on this page — not everybody does that. Thanks for this. Other than that I can be brief about this: this should have never happened. Period. 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. The author has been addressed on it, and now I can only ensure that these terms will no longer end up in the magazine. 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. We make our magazine with love, energy and enthusiasm, and it can sometimes happen that someone is out of line. And then you can only do one thing: apologize. And hope that others wish to accept it.

From the bottom of my heart I say it again: we never intended to offend anyone. And I mean that.

Regards,
Eva Hoeke

You have to wonder who thought it was cute to combine two offensive terms and think it was a “joke.” Is n*ggab*tch a hot term in the streets or something? Rihanna does push the envelope in her music, imagery and videos. And, yes, she keeps it a little too real on the twitters… but does any of that warrant this type of “joke.” And there is one nugget in that “apology” that really stands out: “you hear it all the time on tv and radio, then your idea of what is normal apparently shifts.” Is the use of these kinds of terms in pop culture and “our” music causing more harm than good, not only among our own people but in foreign lands as well? Discuss…

UPDATE: Editor Eva Hoeke quit her job today. Read her comments here.
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