Be that as it may, the only thing you accomplish by saying “I get to use this word but you don’t” is to alienate people.
If you feel alienated over trivial something like this, maybe you need to move to another planet.
People should be insulted for their choices, not inherent qualities.
Seriously. Don’t Black people know any types of segregation/discrimination is wrong?
I’ve always wanted to know, why do people want to say the word? A few ideas:
1: They hate the idea that Black people can say something that they can’t.
2: They figure “hey, white people have said it for three hundred years. Why break the streak?”
3:…?
I think not. My best friend (often called my work wife) is a lesbian. She and her partner call one another dykes on occasion, but I don’t get too. I don’t feel alienated, because I recognize the situations are not the same. Similarly, I can discuss my little sister’s character flaws with my favorite cousin, but I’m not gonna talk about it with a stranger, and if a stranger insults her in my presence, he and I are gonna have a searching conversation.
I agree with the excellent catalogue marshmallow posted above. Insults are supposed to be hurtful, and the trend on the intellectual left to prevent any hurt feelings borders on infantilizing. Moreover, as was pointed out in your last thread on language and society, there isn’t yet a nationwide consensus on the use of terms like “fat” or “gay”.
Finally, you don’t have the best track record on this yourself:
(emphasis added)
This idea is beyond stupid.
Look at it this way: remember when you were a kid, and you’d fight with your siblings, or you’d pick on each other all the time. But when someone ELSE did it, you’d go and kick their ass. It’s kind of the same thing. I can insult this person because they have a connection to me. They do NOT have a connection to you, so you can’t.
It’s the best explanation I can think of. (And before anyone asks, no, I’m not black, and I don’t use the n-word.)
No, “retard” fits a lot better. He’s not alleging the word “stupid” had a different meaning but is now largely used to disparage the handicapped.
Problem is that stupid and dumb are not necessarily used to show contempt, while “retard” still is. It’s enough just not to use those terms to describe the mentally handicapped.
As for “nigger,” reclaiming words that were previously used to disparage you is a means of fighting their use. It may seem paradoxical, but it often works. It then evolved from there to where it is today.
As long as people still use it to mean “I hate you because you are black,” it can’t evolve any further.
My Momma says “stupid is as stupid does”.
My Momma says “I’m allways on the run…”
(Lol, i just found out that is not actually one of the lyrics of the song)
I think what we’re getting at with nigger is thatit’s an in-group thing. If the epithet can be turned around and still make some kind of sense, the parties involved are on equal footing. If Skald or monstro called me a cracker or honky, I would feel insulted because the same thing can’t be turned around. But if Sis called me a cracker, I could come right back with the same or a variant of it.
As far as stupid goes, I’m far fromstupid, but I’ve done some really stupid shit before. 
I’m not sure that would be a totally bad thing. OK - at some point some situation would arise, and so would my blood pressure to the point of explosion without having insults to release my frustration. But we aren’t allowed to directly insult each other here and it seems to help things flow. Maybe if we applied it to the world at large that could be good?
I think the challenge with “stupid” is, as others have mentioned, that there are stupid things that people do. We had a couple living a few doors down and the husband obviously wasn’t technically or clinically “challenged” as he was an I.T. guy for our city’s hospital system. But it’s like he checked his brain at the door when he left work and went home. And it was almost impossible to not say that “Fred is stupid”. Insulting? Sure, but Fred, who obviously wasn’t stupid at work, consistently did stupid things at home.
And several years ago I had an employee who was technically smart and competent at work but, like “Fred” above, seemed to check his brain at the door when he left the office. And being in the military as his divisional officer, I spent enough administrative time helping him sort out his private life’s stupidities.
You’re saying a white person can never be as good a friend to a black person as another black person can. Again, If your goal is equality for your group, you should not tolerate the idea that there are things your group can do, but other groups can’t.
If we just stopped expressing ourselves completely, it would keep us from affecting, polluting everyone else’s minds. In order to do this we should stop thinking bad thoughts, this will be hard but if we can just place all our negative thoughts and feelings into a tiny little ball tucked away inside ourselves it can’t possibly backfire later and explode into a ball of rage later. 
I’m in the opposite camp from the OP. I believe no words should be “off limits”. The words a person is comfortable using tell me a great deal about them in a very short time. If you start removing those words from the language, it’s going to take me longer to figure out who the assholes really are.
But what if you think people’s personalities and intellectual abilities are mostly inborn? Is it wrong to call someone an asshole if they can’t help it?
I think partially because it’s a fun word to say. The double g and the “er” give it a nice mouth feel for an insult. You can put a lot of invective into it.
See also: motherfucker. I’m not even sure what people think it means. That the target fucks their own mother, or is a devious person who goes around fucking other people’s mothers? You know, a sneaky motherfucker? Regardless, it’s so fun to say that it’s used as pretty much every part of speech, not even mostly as an insult anymore (check out these motherfucking cupcakes, man). Ditto “fuck.” Faggot is also fun to say, dudes love that one.
Plus white guys are jealous that black people have a privilege they don’t. It’s not like Latinos and Asians go around calling each other wetbacks and zipperheads, either.
I agree about “stupid”, but I’m not so sure about “dumb.” At least, “stupid” has the advantage of being factually correct, irrespective of whether it’s ok to use a factually correct adjective as an insult. But when someone says “wow, you’re so dumb” or “the dumb blonde model”, the speaker is obviously not talking about whether the targeted person can speak or not. And I certainly do think both of these phrases are usually said out of contempt. (Maybe I have a warped understanding of the usage of the word? 
)
So, “idiotic” and “stupid” are acceptable, “dumb” and “retard” are not. That’s where I draw the line. At least as a general principle; I don’t follow this all that well IRL.
I wonder if you are spending a bit too much time in these boards, particularly ATMB. 
But on a serious note, this is a great idea; I completely agree with this.
No, that’s simply the closest analogy I could come up with. There are certain groups you’ll never be a part of, or certain experiences you’ll never have. I’m not saying that black people and white people can’t be “as good a friend as”. I’m simply saying there are SOME things that certain people can only share among a certain group.
Besides, why are so many people so eager to use the n-word? Not saying that most people here are, but what’s up with the, “well, black people call each other that all the time!!!” Not all black people use the word, and some actually don’t agree it should be used.
That being said, I’m still going to call people stupid. The idea that “stupid” is a slur along the lines of “retard” (which, I admit, I do use) is absurd. If it offends the stupid, well, it’s supposed to.