Take that up with the people at Race and History ...
According to the argument being made by some people here, I cannot judge if his opinion on the word is legitimate or not unless I know his race.
Which is rather racist.
Really, I think we're mature enough to know that something like the N-word has so many negative connotations when said by whites that it's better to be avoided. And we know that words that assume gender, such as "trashman", "stewardess", etc, ties occupation and gender together and are best avoided as well. You don't have to be someone of recent African descent, nor someone of a particular gender to object to the word and argue against it. Nor do you need to use the defense that you cannot judge the word unless you're part of the group it targets or excludes.* There's better arguments to be made against the word.
The problem is when politically correct runs into stupid territory. Take the word "Squaw". Some idiot decided that it basically translates into a four letter slang word for a woman's vulva that starts with "c" and ends with "nt". Serious etymologists have looked at this and rejected his hypothesis. Yet idiots still object to this name based on the discredited etymology. Y'know what - I don't care if it offends them, I'm not catering to idiots. Neither should you.
Some people seek to be offended by a word in order to be holier than thou, or to create a false social offense that makes the speaker of the word socially obligated to whoever is offended. This is ********. Not only that, but it belittles words that are used frequently in truly offensive ways. Being PC is no longer about removing negative assumptions, but it's about social gamesmanship. Screw that.
There's an easy rule of thumb here - is a word for a racial/ethnic group frequently used and interpreted in negative ways? If so, avoid it. If not, then the problem is on those who object. To use two words in English - the N-word is quite clearly associated with negative connotations against a group of people in modern English. While an English word also used in the past to frequently describe a group of African Americans is "slave". That word has quite a racist origin. It's the name of a culture that was used as slaves. But nobody today uses the word "slave" in that way. I doubt many people could even describe the origin of the word slave. So if anyone objects to it, then it's their problem, not ours.
(Oh, and by the logic that our view on a word isn't legitimate unless we are part of that group, my grandmother is from the group where the word "slave" originated.)
* This hasn't crossed my mind before. Saying that you can't judge a racial slur unless you're part of the group, but turning around and saying you can't judge a word that excludes a group unless you're part of the excluded group, seems rather weird...
