It shouldn't even be a bad word anywhere but America. It's an American thing. If I called some black guy from Chicago or Detroit a kaffer would they care?
It shouldn't be a bad word anywhere, for multiple reasons.
1: The word "nigger" was used about a million times this week, mostly by niggers. You cannot declare a word "bad" depending on who says it. "Hard R is different" is a figleaf hiding the reality that the actual rule in practice is that it depends solely on the skin color of the person saying it, even if the intent is completely benign, such as singing lyrics to songs. My intent in this post is certainly not benign, but I could achieve the same effect by saying "jogger" or "dindu" or just 13/56 or whatever we're up to these days. Criminalizing speech based on intent is more sane than criminalizing speech based on skin color, but it is still often based in mind reading that boils back down to "You can't say this while white." Also, criminalizing speech is entirely unacceptable to begin with.
2: Even if you're the most left-wing nigger-loving asshole in the world, you should actually embrace popularizing the word "nigger". It is through making it forbidden that the word has an impact. Ever notice how there aren't really any major insults against men? It's because nobody ever forbids anyone from calling a man anything. Make a word commonplace, and it becomes banal. The perceived power of insults against groups is really just a measure of how protected that group is.
3: Even if a wizard cast a magic spell and the word "Nigger" was irrevocably insulting, so what? They're words on a screen. In terms of actual harm, cops should be investigating missing lunches in the company fridge at a higher priority than policing speech, even if you think speech should be policed at all, which it shouldn't.
It was always considered uncouth, or "common" (being a corruption of Negro). Which again shouldn't even apply outside America, it should be seen at best as just a nonsense word, like calling someone a "wog" here, or for that matter calling a White person a Nanban or Laowai.
100% on the other stuff though. I'm just being a pedantic geek.
It shouldn't even be a bad word anywhere but America. It's an American thing. If I called some black guy from Chicago or Detroit a kaffer would they care?
It shouldn't be a bad word anywhere, for multiple reasons.
1: The word "nigger" was used about a million times this week, mostly by niggers. You cannot declare a word "bad" depending on who says it. "Hard R is different" is a figleaf hiding the reality that the actual rule in practice is that it depends solely on the skin color of the person saying it, even if the intent is completely benign, such as singing lyrics to songs. My intent in this post is certainly not benign, but I could achieve the same effect by saying "jogger" or "dindu" or just 13/56 or whatever we're up to these days. Criminalizing speech based on intent is more sane than criminalizing speech based on skin color, but it is still often based in mind reading that boils back down to "You can't say this while white." Also, criminalizing speech is entirely unacceptable to begin with.
2: Even if you're the most left-wing nigger-loving asshole in the world, you should actually embrace popularizing the word "nigger". It is through making it forbidden that the word has an impact. Ever notice how there aren't really any major insults against men? It's because nobody ever forbids anyone from calling a man anything. Make a word commonplace, and it becomes banal. The perceived power of insults against groups is really just a measure of how protected that group is.
3: Even if a wizard cast a magic spell and the word "Nigger" was irrevocably insulting, so what? They're words on a screen. In terms of actual harm, cops should be investigating missing lunches in the company fridge at a higher priority than policing speech, even if you think speech should be policed at all, which it shouldn't.
It was always considered uncouth, or "common" (being a corruption of Negro). Which again shouldn't even apply outside America, it should be seen at best as just a nonsense word, like calling someone a "wog" here, or for that matter calling a White person a Nanban or Laowai.
100% on the other stuff though. I'm just being a pedantic geek.