When she said maddafacka I burst into laughter

You know how it is said words have power? The N word was used derogatively to refer to black people. I imagine black people grew real tired of that shit real quick. But over time, they fought back by depriving the derogatory nature of the N word by using it to refer to each other harmlessly. They owned the N word. Now, it is considered extremely respectful for anyone who is not black to not use that word to refer to black people without permission. Why? Because in being respectful to not using that word, you are acknowledging the plight of a generation of black people. That’s real classy.

From Wiktionary (I’m not posting a link, look it up yourself):

There have been efforts by those of African descent to reclaim the word (especially in the form n___a), but these efforts are controversial and some people do not believe it is able to be reclaimed due to its fraught history and continued derogatory usage. Regardless, usage by non-blacks is still almost invariably considered highly racist and offensive.

Not really to your comment, but adjacent to it.

Here’s something that most people need to know: not all black people feel the same way about that word.

Some called me an “N-word” in a positive way and were okay with me using it around them (I wasn’t). Some only want other black people to use it. Some don’t want anybody saying it.

Can I ask where in the world you live? Not to be rude but just that I’m curious because this is one of those things that “everyone knows” in the US at least. Can’t listen to a lot of rap music without hearing it a lot!

Tbh I still think that I shouldn’t have to censor myself if I want to sing any song by any black person since about 1985, (nor just avoid singing any song from the most popular black music of the past 40yr because “it was made by black people so I can’t sing it,”) “black music is only for ‘the blacks’ you can’t enjoy other cultures!” sounds almost more racist to me than me singing the real words instead of:

removed you thirsty please grab a sprite, my crips lurking don’t die tonight, I just wanna dance with you baby, man down down the ave it gets shady, take a neighbor’s mind off that we can dip fuck in the whip slide right back in the function one wrong word start bustin’ put that on my yankee’s hat, I’m a gangsta crip, fuck gangsta rap, where the ladies at where da hoes where da removed? Every real neighbor know tha difference, bandana brown like the dope daddy shootin’ in the kitchen, real norf side neighbor never went to wilson or cabrillo, cocaine color of a creole, T-scrap moving for the d-lo and he know…

I mean, I do it, so don’t jump down my throat or anything because I’m already complying with the demand at large, but I disagree that it’s a racist practice to sing the words as written by the author who wrote them simply because I’m of another race. (Unless it’s like a David Allen Coe song, c’mon ykwim, rap music and stuff.)

Other than that I’ll agree it’s an entirely useless word, even if nobody cared I’d only say it then, when singing a song by a black artist I like. It’s kinda hard sometimes to switch the word too, you try and sing LaLa by Tity Boi ft Busta replacing all the words and tell me you didn’t fuck up when Busta said “smoking til a neighbor look a little shitty boy.” Lol.

Slurs about a community are often not to be said by anyone but a person in that community trying to reclaim the slur. Maybe it should be “no one is allowed to say slurs,” but there seems to be healing involved in taking back those words.

It’s a slur so… saying it is what makes people think you’re racist lol.

I generally assume if someone is using the n-word anonymously that they’re either black or a racist.

It’s not like people have arbitrarily decided that only asians can say the word refrigerator- there’s history behind the word.

It has a lot to do with the word being used pretty recently historically in a horrible context.

Also keep in mind that in the US, there are genuinely still plenty of actually racist people. In fact, there are still people using the slur as a slur. I don’t think it’s very odd culturally if you consider this.

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When discussing frequency of an action, it’s usually helpful to focus on per capita. This is one of those rare times where both raw numbers and per capita tell interesting stories.