That term is racist, and I'm pretty sure you're using it because you have poor reading comprehension and didn't understand what I posted.
I don't want to be
that guy, but thinking "white privilege" is racist is probably the epitome of white privilege.
As for the topic in general, here's my two cents:
Black people aren't a hive mind. There are differing views among black people about nigger and its derivatives. Don't think that just because your black friends let you say "nigga" every other black person is wrong to feel offended. On the other hand, don't think that because some would rather nigger be erased from the dictionary, everyone else feels the same. Generalizing is one of several things you should avoid doing when discussing race issues.
Next, for those who adamantly want to use nigger but don't know why they "can't", ask yourself this: who are you asking? You aren't asking white people, an anecdote earlier in this thread showed a great example of that. Obviously, you're asking black people. Now, because "we don't mean nigger
racially" is the go-to defense in saying nigger, why make it a racial issue from the get-go? Easy.
You know nigger is offensive to many people.
So why do you want to say something so much when you know it could offend someone? Because black people get to say it and they aren't offending anyone? Once again, generalizing is a no-no, it isn't difficult to find black people who are uncomfortable when anyone uses nigger, even if the user is also black. But what about those black people who are
only okay with nigger when other black people use it? Well it goes back to how nigger and "I don't mean it racially" are just about mutually exclusive. Take this scenario:
Say you're white and you walk up to a black person you don't know and say "Wassup my nigga?" Now you use it just the right way that, to you, it seems almost impossible to take it any other way but synonymous with "Wassup bro?"
Put yourself in his shoes: a stranger walked up to you and called you a nigga. Now, this person knows absolutely nothing about you other than what you look like. One of the more noticeable qualities about you is that, well, you're black. While it is apparent that he is trying to use the term colloquially, here's something that may bother you: because nigger is a racially loaded term, it is also apparent that he is calling you by your race. You don't know if he also calls his non-black friends niggas, and even if he did the terms relationship with black people
specifically is what's bothersome, not necessarily the term itself.
You feel you were called a derogatory term, even if he meant it "nicely".
You see, the reason why many black people don't get offended when nigger is used, as long as it is used by other black people, is because there is no latent suspicion they mean it in a derogatory way. When a black person walks up to a stranger who's also black and says "wassup my nigga?" he may not feel that the person is singling out his race because, well, he's also black. You're less likely to expect a racial motivation in an intraracial relation than an interracial one. Well, at least when nigger is involved.
These are just my thoughts. Once again, be careful not to generalize as I can only really give one outlook on a complicated and multifaceted issue. But a general rule of thumb is
just don't say nigger.
You really aren't missing much.
