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If this makes folks mad, sorry. It’s been bugging me since there was a conversation about it…

Someone wanted to know why, since some black people use the "n-word", everyone can’t without being identified as a racist. The short answer is easy: racists are [b]still[/b] using it.

But I don’t understand why anyone who isn’t black and doesn’t see him or herself as a racist would [b]want[/b] to use a word with such an ugly history attached to it ?

As to why some black people use it among themselves (I don’t), I know the reasoning. I don’t [b]agree[/b] with it, but I know what it is: supposedly using the word takes the "power" out of it. Newsflash: it [b]doesn’t[/b]. And that’s why the popular wisdom is, you can’t use it if you’ve never been [b]called[/b] it (in a disparaging way) yourself.

Personally, I [b]hate[/b] the word, and I wish everyone would delete it from their vocabularies. It will never mean what some people want to make it mean—not [b]any[/b] form of it.
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I think its about the tone and sentiment.. because basically the word just means black or was slang for someone from Nigeria.. but if someone is using the word in a derogatory, condescending and or hateful way then it’s offensive and not appreciated ..
@SStarfish I knew someone would come up with an “etymological” excuse for the word. No disrespect meant, but the people who were using it in the U.S. from the slave days through Jim Crow through today’s KKK and Stormfront couldn’t have cared [b]less[/b] what part of Africa our forbears were originally from. So, no, it is [b]not[/b] about "tone & sentiment". Speaking for myself and many whom I know, there no tone with which you could use that word to address me without causing offense.