I love you, will you marry me…:D:D:D
It needs a new forum. DD [Dumbass Debates]. Let’s ask the moderators for that one.
I am so thankful that before my daddy died when I was a kid, I had plenty of time to do things like watch and discuss Richard Pryor, and especially, watch and discuss George Carlin. He really did prepare me to live a life where I understood the power of words enough to know how to disarm them when I need to. No way could someone say anything that would cause me to ever hit that report button. No way. Words honestly have the power that you give them, and you can render them impotent if you so choose…just like magic. Which brings me to the word ‘nigger/nigga’
SoulFrost, white men call eachother nigga all the time. Really. And black people call black people nigga, and black people call white people nigga, all the time. We do it so much (a lot of blacks I know, not speaking for all blacks) that it doesn’t even register, and is not even meant as an insult at all.
The reason that it is used so much and so flippantly is because we really did take the word back, rather people want to accept that or not. We decided it is not going to cut us to our hearts every time someone hurls it at us. They are not backing it up with a fire hose or a K9 at our old grandmothers, they are trying to hurt us with the word alone, now. That aint gonna cut it. So we decided conciously not to be offended by it, completely took the bullets out of the word, now we toss it around like a nerf.
So yeah, a lot of women should probably consider getting over the whole ‘cunt’ is so offensive thing. Cause if you think about it, just like posters have pointed out, it really is insulting to think that the most offensive thing a person can say is actually just a natural part of our physical being. I mean, WTF.
[bold by me, to emphasize what I [CH] am referring to]
Hear! Hear! Gay is useless, now, too, as an insult, for the same reason. Don’t like the word? Kill it’s power. Then it’s just a spoken sound. Words are nothing but sounds. They have no intrinsic meaning. Meaning is assigned by the speakers (and listeners). Don’t like the meaning “they” assigned? Use it differently! Stop annoying the rest of us with your pet peeve! Kill the “word” instead!one!ELEBEN!!
Right. Mostly the listeners. If you are screaming ‘Gay Niggers!’ at the top of your lungs in a rage, and homosexual black people are smiling back at you like, “Sure. Have a beer and relax, my friend” because that word triggers no emotion in them anymore; we can effectively say that you aren’t communicating what you wish to. You’ve been robbed.
Help! The gay niggers robbed me!
Sigh. I can’t be laughing when I’m supposed to be working.
Can we get a ruling that spelling its wrong is a moderatable offense? I get a lot more pissed off when I see it’s when it should be its than when I see cunt.
And V****mort. Please don’t use the V word.
If you can’t laugh, scream about your “gay nigger” employer enslaving you! That would probably be worth a lawsuit or two… 
You know, I was a hater of the C word. Just yesterday I was discussing this - at work no less! It was kind of funny how we stepped around and whispered and stuff. It started with “Chicano.”
After the whole debacle here, and this long thread (which I didn’t read all of), and the culture of the Giraffe Boards - I think I’m just immune. I’ve heard it so much that it doesn’t even mean anything anymore.
I won’t be using it, but that’s just habit. It’s not my “curse of choice.”
So fuck all of y’all motherfuckers, and let’s just get over ourselves. 
I’m with you. I’m a fucker, have been for years.
Except when a white man uses it in the presence of a black man. Then all hell breaks loose.
But why would a white man want to use it anyway? It’s not big, and it’s not clever!
Go read the post I quoted again.
It doesn’t matter that a white man wouldn’t want to say it.
Well, an interesting thing has been happening in the hood. White folks are starting to say it, and black folks are starting to ‘let them’. I remember when hip hop was relatively young, we always had a ‘white boy Mike’ or a ‘white boy Bill’ in our circle that would hang out with us and sing every word except ‘nigger/nigga’.
I remember lots of hip hop songs at the time discussing the word, claiming the word, reclaiming the word and philosophizing about it. (Sucka Niggas by Tribe is a good one). I used to always wonder why we could claim to be using the word as a term of endearment if we didn’t ‘allow’ whites to do the same.
I am happy to notice that the younger hip hop generation is taking it to a new level, and whites are much more likely to feel comfortable using the word.
I mean, my great aunt Ruby isn’t going to change. She is never going to tolerate hearing ‘the n word’ from me, no matter what. But a new generation is coming up that may be completely immune to that particular ‘weapon’, eventually.
ETA: Clockwork, if a white man uses that word aggressively, there is probably some other conflict going down that may cause him to get his ass bust. I don’t think the word alone would spark much more than a quizzical look from most blacks I know. I don’t know all blacks, though, of course.
Meh, maybe if both are over 30…Nzinga is absolutely correct, among the youth this happens pretty regularly w/o all hell breaking loose.
In my conversation I mentioned upthread, our lone black guy said that “nigger” doesn’t really bother him. I thought maybe he just said that 'cuz he’s the only black, but he seemed sincere. He’s 39, for what that’s worth.
I am a member of the “youth” and I’ve never used nigger around black people. I have seen others use it around black people and take nothing but shit for it.
Hmm. Out of curiosity, do you live in a predominately black neighborhood? I imagine the only black in a hood of whites and hispanics may be more sensitive than usual to it.
According to the high school website at the time I attended it the population was something like 73% Hispanic. There were about an equal number of blacks and whites, followed closely by American Indians.
Shrug. I’m not saying that there aren’t black people who are OK with it. But I have several black friends and have hung around with many more black people that I would consider acquaintances, many of whom refer to me, along with their black friends, as “nigger” or “nigga” or whatever. They would all get upset if myself or any of their other white friends used the term.
I’ve had this discussion with some of my black friends before and they all seem to fall into one of two camps:
1.) The word is horrible and nobody should use it, including black people.
2.) It’s “their” word.
Edit:That being said, when I get a text message or IM from a few white friends of mine I respond “My nigger.” It makes me laugh and I tend to do what makes me laugh. 
Edit 2: One of the most awkward things I’m doing atm is writing dialog for stereotypical black characters in a comic a black acquaintance is producing.