Nigger - There, I said it.

This is something that I've had two minds about for a long time now. There used to be a time when I got so offended by "nigger", I would not permit it uttered in my presence in any context. I wonder if this was simply a knee-jerk reaction to political correctness or if I was truly put off by the word - Then came the "N-word". Lately, I've been put off with that term too. There just seems to be no pleasing me. I feel that "N-word" is silly. In my mind, the use of "N-word" is the same as saying nigger, so why do we feel the need to sugar-coat what is essentially an ugly word? I mean, it's getting to point of becoming like "Voldemort".

I understand and try to appreciate nigger's origin. I do realise the negativity associated with its early use. However, today nigger has, in a manner of speaking, been "reclaimed" by the African-North American community, or at least by their youth. This leads to a larger issue, which used to be my argument against the use of nigger: words either have meaning or they don't, and therein lies the conundrum.

By utilising said argument, one tends to disregard context. My question is how important is context? If I were to refer to my buddy J as "my nigger" it wouldn't raise an eyebrow, whereas, if I were to call him a "fucking nigger", I'm sure it would lead to fisticuffs. So, obviously in this instance, context is very important. And the only reason it works is due to the reclamation of the word.

If I was to take it one step further, and attempt a similar scenario but with a different word that has not been reclaimed the way nigger has, I'm not so sure it would work. Say for instance if J was to come up to me and say "My paki, what's going on?". In my mind, those are fighting words. Here, context doesn't matter. The word is still an insult. Am I being hypocritical? Does reclamation of a word matter? At what point does a word become reclaimed? What's next? The "P-word" for Paki? The "C-word" for chink? What would cancer have to say about that? I'm confused.

[EDIT]

Question, when a person of note is caught for saying nigger is public, especially in a derogatory way... wait... let me rephrase, when a white person of note is caught saying nigger in derogatory way why is it they need to apologise to Al Sharpton or Rev. Jesse Jackson (see video above)? As Token Black from South Park so aptly put it, they are not the emperors of black people.

J recently informed me that, just this past weekend, he heard a couple of Indian people call each other Paki, a la black people calling each other nigger. I don't know what to think of that...