So, basically, you only partially understand several explanations that have been provided–meaning you partially fail to understand those same arguments. (You have certainly not demonstrated that you actually read them, much less understood them.) Then you sum up with the declaration:
So, your whole argument boils down to “I have no idea what anyone has said, but if it differs from my gut feeling, it is nonsense.”
I would be more amenable to accepting your views if I was aware that you had never (in 70 years!), been part of an in-group/out-group situation that allowed an insult on one side of that line and prohibited that insult on the other side of that line. Since in my nearly as lengthy life, I have never encountered anyone who had never been part of such a dynamic, (typically several, sometimes concurrently), I am going to conclude that you simply feel the need to look at the situation through “racial” glasses and are unwilling to actually consider reality.
I’ll go with hypocritical rather than racist as a previous poster suggested. It is a better, more descriptive word and doesn’t raise so many red flags.
So using hypocritical rather than racist in the OP,…how many would be more agreeable with the basic concept?
When I’m 70, nobody’s gonna tell me that time travel is possible, because when I was growing up, it wasn’t and those time-travel booths on every streetcorner in 2039… they’re just a bunch of hypocrites!
Are most of you saying the bigots I grew up with we’re right in wanting to restrict blacks usage of words, and accents? And I was wrong in thinking it was a bullshit cover up for racism? (Am using racism instead of stereotyping in this context, because I think it was racist.)
ombre12, answer my question. What do you think should happen, if life were fair and this a just world, assuming you are absolutely 100% correct? What should happen now in recognition of this startling development?
I can answer this: no one would use the word or any of its variants. I do not use the word and I do not appreciate it when anyone else uses it. I don’t see why one should use it in preference to the perfectly good term “brother” if you must make a group distinction reference. The only difference between the two is that the n-word also reminds everyone of a time when people used the term in a disparaging way much more than they do now. Being something other than an omnipotent man with a time machine I cannot correct this.
Continuing to use the term does no good and may cause the perpetuation of racial divides. Still, if it were used just for the cohesion of group identities (like “brother”) it would be a bit grating but acceptable. But all too often* the n-word also, in context, carries a strong implication that white people surrounding the speakers like to use that word themselves, and that is when it gets taken to a third level of totally unacceptable.
*too often being “twice” in my life. I have never been around black people and used white disparaging terms for myself so that is twice more than I have done. Of course, the few other times I have heard it said by black people around me, it may also have been used in the same way but I wasn’t sure about those other times.
I doubt you even understood the two instances you are talking about correctly, unless you live in a particularly egregiously racist part of the deep south. Most likely, they were not saying white people like to call people niggers, but rather, were saying some white people display attitudes towards black people such that they may as well be calling them niggers.
You don’t see a difference between a majority group saying minority group shouldn’t use certain language because they are inferior, and a minority group basically asking a majority group (and majority group reluctantly agreeing) to not use a certain word because it is demeaning and insulting?
Either way, that’s not really what you are suggesting. You want to use language however you want, but not be subject to judgment or imputations of your motives. That is not gonna happen. As others have said repeatedly, you can use nigger as much as you want. The only think likely to happen is that people will judge you choosing to use it.
Now as to why you are judged by a difference standard than most Black people and culturally Black people, it’s because our in-group norms are likely different than yours, so the assumptions made by the listener will be different. Same reason you’d likely be offended if a stranger called your SO by a pet name.
But that’s a non sequitur, I think. You’re entitiled to hold this position, but it doesn’t proceed from the OP’s premise, I don’t believe, which is that this is not distasteful or counter-productive–it’s racist, and it’s racist because blacks can use it without the same social sanctions that whites would receive.
Secondly, it doesn’t answer the question. When I say, “what should happen?” I don’t mean in some magical, “you get whatever you want” alternate universe. I mean in this one. Your wish will not come true, people will continue to use the word. So, what should happen? Should the OP get to say the N word? What? He has endured some injury, apparently, and it needs to be rectified by something or other. I just don’t understand what he thinks should be enacted or installed or legislated or whatever, once the world recognizes him for the great thinker he is.
No, it simply isn’t. Language and culture is different everywhere, so concepts of what is and is not acceptable vary from place to place, consider:
The hand gesture comprising index finger and thumb making a circle, the other three fingers fanned out - in the UK and USA, this means ‘OK’, in Latin America, it means ‘go fuck yourself’
The thumbs up gesture means OK/cool/well done in the west, but in the middle east, it’s equivalent to giving the (middle) finger
And (most analogous to your question), in this thread, I started out trying to admonish someone that the term ‘Paki’ (racist term in the UK for Pakistani people, often misapplied to anyone of mid-brown colour), should be considered offensive everywhere. Turns out I was arguing with a Pakistani who informs us it’s a common, inoffensive term in Pakistan.
The OP can use the word. No one should physically attack him for doing so. Whether or not it is racist is dependent on context. Much of the time when whites say it it is racist, much of the time when blacks say it it is racist. It is always distasteful.
Although I do concede that when black people use it they are not always thinking about the racial implications of it and use it exactly like the aforementioned “brother”. Then it is not racist. But you still shouldn’t use it because it’s difficult (read: impossible) to always tell the difference between the two, so in my ideal world we would always use other words in preference to it in the interest of better communications. The word is overloaded at best, a deliberate pointer to racism at worst when it is often irrelevant to the situation at hand.
Do you not see the difference in the scenario you are describing and the question you asked in the OP?
In the situation from your youth, one group of people was dictating how another group should speak in a common exchange.
In the situation of your OP, one group is choosing how they will use a word within their own group.
Nigger has a history that has made it an insult across the spectrum of society. That is not one group imposing its meaning on another group. That is all of society agreeing on its usage. Within that framework, however, members of the group against whom it is a slur have been reclaiming the word for their own purpose. They are not imposing an insulting meaning on the larger community; the insult was recognized in common by the whole of society. Just as words commonly accepted by society as insults have been reclaimed by any number of groups in ways that make remove their insult within the group: Poles calling each other “Polack,” marines calling each other “Jarhead,” homosexuals calling each other “Fag,” Wisconsinites calling each other “Cheesehead,” lower income, (generally rural), whites calling each other “Redneck,” and so on. It is not Poles, marines, homosexuals, Wisconsinites, or lower income whites declaring that the words are insults; society, at large, has agreed to those usages. They are only using the words within the community to remove the sting. In exactly the same way, blacks have not dictated that nigger is an insult; society, at large, has acknowledged that it is. Some blacks are simply using the word within their community to remove the sting of the insult through re-appropriation or reclaiming.
There is no hypocrisy in humans doing rather human things with language. It is a very common psychological or sociological phenomenon employed by all groups.
In some ways, all forms of politeness & consideration could be considered hypocritical. Why not just use any words you’ve heard others use without considering the context? (Do you know what “context” means?) Don’t limit yourself to racist, xenophobic or homophobic slurs. Why not address any women as “cunt” or “bitch”? Why not call someone “scrawny”, “tub of lard” or “short stuff” if you find his physique less than perfect?
Next project: Why limit urination or defecation to those rooms society sets aside for these totally natural functions? Just let loose wherever you are…