“I apologise for any offence caused.”
Gerry Adams has followed up his earlier statement by formally apologising for this use of the N-word in a tweet on Sunday night.
The Sinn Féin President was referring to a tweet he’d written, and deleted, in which he referred to Jamie Foxx’s central character as a ‘Ballymurphy n****r.”
“Django Unchained is a powerful film which highlights the injustices suffered by African Americans through its main character Django,” he said on Monday afternoon.
“In my tweets I described him as a ‘Ballymurphy n……‘ and ‘an uppity Fenian.’
“I have acknowledged that the use of the n-word was inappropriate. That is why I deleted the tweet.
“I apologise for any offence caused.
“I stand over the context and main point of my tweet about the Django which were the parallels between people in struggle.
“Like African Americans Irish nationalists were denied basic rights.
“The penal laws, Cromwell’s regime, and partition are evidence of that.
“In our own time, like African Americans nationalists in the north, including those from Ballymurphy and west Belfast, were denied the right to vote; the right to work; the right to a home; and were subject to draconian laws.
“This changed because we stood up for ourselves. We need to continue to do that.
“The civil rights movement here, of which I was a founding member, was inspired and based its approach on the civil rights campaign in the USA.
“I have long been inspired by Harriet Tubman; Frederick Douglas; Rosa Parks; Martin Luther King and Malcolm X who stood up for themselves and for justice.”
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