Since this is basically a continuation of the previous thread, I may as well post the same thoughts I had there.
Maybe I'm making a weird connection, but:
There was an older video posted earlier where Maher has a panel discussing the word, and he talks down the black panelist and repeats the word to her. In that panel, Sarah Silverman is criticized for using a racial slur. She defends herself with "but I'm fighting racism" against criticism of "if your satire isn't done well, it supports what you're trying to satirize". Bill Maher rushes to her defense.
With Ice Cube, an exchange occurs that seems to run along the same lines. Ice Cube tells Maher that he makes a lot of black jokes. Maher responds with "but it's to fight racism". I think the "sometimes you sound like a redneck trucker" is making the same point that Silverman was criticized with.
I feel like when you compare that to cases like Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle where the comedians see that the joke is being used to support something harmful regardless of the original intent and then reverse their direction on it, it makes the defenses seen on the Maher panels seem like excuses to avoid responsibility. The egocentric nature of the argument (my intent is good, so the joke is okay) makes it seem like they don't really care about the effect; they're just claiming that they're fighting racism so they can feel free to use the slur.
Also, what circumstances are white people getting into where they need to use the word so much? I'm not black either, yet I never feel like there's a circumstance where I need to use it and feel horribly restricted that I can't.
I don't even think the word is 100% restricted to black people, in that there are a few (and a
very limited few) cases where it's used by necessity. To Kill a Mockingbird is my go-to example: when you're trying to accurately depict a extremely racist society that existed in real life and highlight its racism, it's necessary to show the methods it uses, which includes language. It's not running from the fact and making the excuse "I'm an ally so it's okay" or "I have black friends so it's okay". It's being used with the full awareness that it's harmful, that it isn't okay, and that it has to be used in order to demonstrate that those are true when it's was used in its historical context. There might not even be any other cases where the word is necessary aside from highlighting its own history.
But most of us aren't going to be doing that, and so if we're getting upset that we can't use the word, it isn't in those super specific context where it needs to be used. Black people have a different circumstances in that the word is used to describe them, whereas it's never really used to describe white people.
The root comes from the Spanish word for "black". It's understandable that some would think that blackness isn't bad, and so the word used to insult others based on their blackness shouldn't have to be bad. It can be used to celebrate blackness. But it's not my blackness that the word describes, nor is it the blackness of white people that is describes, it's the blackness of black people. They're the ones who have more opportunity to use it because it's used to describe something that belongs to them alone.