I was born and raised in the south. I’m white. I don’t know how much those two factors weigh into my opinion on this but, the n-word has so much attached to it that even in educational discourse I feel extremely, extremely uncomfortable saying it. I have seen it used by vandals and seen the effect it had on my best friend and her mother. I have seen the effect is has had on my babysitter. And I have seen the effect it has had on the older generation when they hear the younger generation say it (or if not it something so close that the difference doesn’t matter to the elders). There are some words that are so steeped in hate that there is no way to redeem them. And you can say you are “taking it back” or “it means something different when it ends in -a, not -er” or “it’s okay for me to say it”, but in the end you are using the language of hate.
So yes, I have trouble saying that word. And I would rather refer to it than actually use it. Because, if for no other reason, I don’t want anyone, anywhere to ever think that I find it appropriate to use. For any reason.
At the same time as all of that, I found myself in the strange situation of having to explain to my boyfriend recently that there was a time that the n-word was just slang and not a huge, horrible, horrifying insult. And that there are horribly rural, poorly educated areas (especially in VA and NC), where it is still used to refer to black people with no malice attached. I had to explain this because there were stories coming out of Appalachia about canvassing and phone banking where the callers were being shocked by the language of people who were voting for Obama.
And in that context, I have no ill will towards them. I know that they are using the term their fathers and grandfathers used and I know that to them, it is the same as saying they are voting for the black man. They are not the same kind of people who would write messages of hate on a beach or say something to someone on the playground. For some reason, I’m more willing to forgive them their language than I am to forgive the newer generation the appropriation of the word as in-group slang.
I think it has to do with viewing the rural use as done in ignorance and the urban use as a choice to use such a charged word. I’m also not saying all ruralites are ignorant of its hate-charged history, but some parts of Appalachia are very isolated and language can be very local. Kind of like how I’d never heard anyone use “pop” until I came to the mid-west. Ever. “Soda-pop” if they were being old fashioned, but never “pop”.