When Oprah had the cast members of the movie "Crash" on her show a few weeks or so ago, there was a gentleman on there who gave a really good statement on how and why the word has become common in our community. He said something to the effect of the younger people found a way, either consciously ot subconsciously to deal with the implications and baggage of that word by incorporating it into the day to day language. Sort of like commanding control over it to diffuse the power others have by using it. I can truly understand what he is trying to say.. I still feel, however, that the society should try to formulate another way to deal with this word though because everytime I hear people say "the N word" or some public figure calling for someone to resign or whatever when they say it, I get a little irritated. There is no way to legislate morality and no way to force people not to say something, no matter what the word is. Of course, in certain situations, clearly someone calling someone else the word should have consequences, but I think people are getting too sensitve about the words use, to the point where its going to make people use it even more. It just irks me when people do the whole
thing when someone says nigger, whether its a black person or a white person, but even more so when its a white person when we all know whites and blacks use the word every day. The change in this culture is going to have to come from within people at this point. The laws have done as much changing as they're going to do and the rest is up to us. If we are so bothered by the word, despite the pshychological way in which we have decided to deal with it, we need to cleanse it from OUR vernacular in the black community. That way, when whites use it towards us, the problem will truly be theirs, and theirs alone.