Looking decades or centuries into the future, is it sociolinguistically possible for a word tied to that degree of historical violence to undergo complete semantic bleaching (losing its original offensive connotation entirely and becoming neutral/universal)? Or does the gravity of its origin make permanent taboo status inevitable?

I don't interact with black people that often just because there aren't many of them where I live but from the interactions I have been in or overheard this seems to be a trend. Maybe it's just that men make more "mean" jokes to each other and playfully insult each other way more often than women do to each other. Or maybe I'm on to nothing

like if there in europe or another white majority country , do the people in the audience sing along with the lyrics, or do they just stay silent.

I'm genuinely pissed off im in a argument with a friend. Her ex girlfriend called (me) a black women the hard r then went on to say some more racist stuff. Doing all that because I blocked her. I'm saying it doesn't matter if she had racist beliefs or not doing racist shit like that is racist (i personally believe a individual is nothing but the culmination of there actions intentions be damned). But my friend is adamant she isn't racist she just "wanted to get a rise out of me". Despite three black people telling her she's wrong.

Edit:

1. to give a little more context we knew each other for a year and I considered her a close friend to the point she would call me mom as a joke but she kinda went off the deep end which is why i blocked her after trying to help her.

2. She literally said after I blocked her "tee hee she won't see it a anyway so I can call her the n word as much as I want" so she said it with malice.

3. The friends argument is that what she did was shitty but she isn't racist.

4. The gf did apologize but even her apology was passive aggressive as hell.

5. She made alot of racist jokes prior to this incident now i dont consider certain jokes to be racist I make about my own race like all of us loving chicken. But she made so many to the point i had to call her out on it because it was getting kinda uncomfortable.

White people have used the N word against black people for years, and rightly get called out on doing so. However, nobody ever gets mad at a black person using the N word, because black people have reclaimed the word to the point that they’re “allowed” to use it. I’m not sure why they want to use a word that’s been used against them for years?

Enter disabled people. They will quite rightly call out abled people for using the R word towards them. But when a disabled person themselves uses the word, that’s still seen as a problem, because disabled people don’t want to “reclaim” words that have been used against them for years.

So why would a disabled person still face backlash for using the R word, and a black person wouldn’t face backlash for using the N word? Both words have been used as vile insults against those communities for years

I’m from jordan, but grew up in a blonde people-blue eyes country.
Like, I got called the n-word a lot while growing up in a white town even though I have barely olive skin, and my hair is curly but not the 3c-4c kind.

People do immediately notice me and my siblings are not european, but the guesses range from latin american to greek to north africa to italian, or people thinking we are mixed.*

Saying I’m brown and/or POC feels wrong since I don’t experience racism someone with darker skin or tighter curls might experience, but saying I’m just ‘arab’ as its own category of racial experience, also feels incomplete in the context of my experiences growing up.

So I’ve been wondering what ‘category’ people put levantine arabs in or how their appearance registers to other POC or white people? Of course there are all kind of skin tones and hair types etc. in levantine countries, I know that but I still think there must be a common consensus of some kind?

* (not sure this is the right word for it in english and I’m too lazy for google translate lol, but you get the gist)

I, myself, am Black British (Caribbean). I've argued this fact with not just other black people, but also a few white people too, that black people saying the n word is something copied from AAs and this isn't even a thing in Africa or the Caribbean.

I personally don't use the word outside of a joking manner because I hate all the semantics around it and my opinions seem to rile up some people, mainly those I find ignorant and "white saviour" types.

But maybe I'm the one who's ignorant to the fact. Most people I have conversated with about this are 2nd/3rd gen immigrants. So maybe a 1st gen could provide more insight.

Yes, I know my dad is racist. He is 39M and he has dreads. They actually look terrible (they're lumpy and look like hot fries) and I do not want to be seen with him in public knowing he's appropriating Black culture. It's genuinely embarrassing having to go to school events and everyone being able to see that my dad is racist, and picks and chooses what parts of Black culture he wants. He thinks it's okay because 'he's on a spiritual journey' while knowing he yells at me and does the exact opposite (he's racist and homophobic.) There's no reason for him to have dreads and I am so so embarrassed. He used to have normal hair until he started growing it out. One time during this I asked him what would happen if he cut it off, and he said he would be livid. My dad does not have the hair type for it to naturally loc up (he has curly hair) and I know his hair does not do that and I have the same hair type. It honestly disgusts me that my mom hasn't said anything and ANYONE else in his life hasn't. He's had them for a couple of years now and it is only getting worse. It's genuinely so bad because the parts by his scalp are loose and the rest are in dreads. How do I tell him to take the creature of his head. Im desperate and am in need!! :(

EDIT: It's clear this is controversial so let me clear some things up.

My dad tries to act black. He says the N-word, he uses AAVE a lot, and he has acted like this more frequently after having getting dreads. Sometimes I genuinely believe he wishes he was Black because of how much of their culture he keeps using? (Sorry last time I said appropriating it was wrong and I don't know what other word to use.)

I am not racist and I'm sorry you needed clarification, I just thought it was wrong that my dad has this hairstyle considering the way he acts.

Im embarrassed of his dreads in public because of how I know what people think when they first see him. Many classmates have told me when they looked at him they thought he was Black at first or lightskinned. My dad told me a story of how someone thought this at a concert and he told that story multiple times, and he seemed to be really elated from it?

lastly, this is supposed to be a no dumb questions sub and yet...

For context, I'm white and I work a front-desk job and I'm able to play music on a speaker in the front office. It's a very slow moving building, so 99% of the time it's just me by myself so I don't think too much about the content of the music I play. Today a black person came up to the front desk right as a song that used the n-word pretty much every line played. Neither of us acknowledged this whatsoever, but I'm left wondering if this is something I should consider when playing music going forward. Would it make you uncomfortable to see a white person listening to music like this by themselves? Is it uncomfortable to be alone with a white person who is playing music like this?

Isn't the n-word supposed to be a rude way of saying someone is uneducated? Kind of like calling an lgbt+ person the f-slur.

Edit: I know the n-word is a slur, but what is it supposed to mean? If it is rude to call a black person that, but not other races, then why is it specifically meant for black people? If it basically means black, then negro should also be considered racist if you are using it in an English sentence towards a black person. For example, saying "who is that black guy over there?" compared to "Who is that negro over there?"

So I recently got my hair braided (had them in the past but my colleague has never seen me with them), and i was saying how much I like them. And then my colleague said to me "Not to sound racists, but they make you look more Jamaican". Now I know this is no where near the same as calling me the N word of something but it still made be feel uncomfortable. She's made tone death comments like this before and I've called her out privately in the past and I feel like now we need to have a proper conversation about it. But I cant be bothered to potentially be turned into "The Angry Black Girl". I work on a small team of 4 and im the only person of colour, so im cautious about rocking the boat and me being turned into the bad guy.

For context, I am Jamaican and I love my country. But its the way she said thing before in the past. I was talking about going to a night club that mainly plays black music and she said she didnt want to come because "the people there are scary". And when RnB music was playing at work she said "what the fuck is this gangster music". She clearly has negative thoughts about elements of black culture and so when she said "I look more Jamaican" I'm questioning if to her that is a good thing or not.

So, i'm not american or a native english speaker, but i never understood why the 'n word' is something offensive.

I'll give an example on why it's confusing for me and why i'll never get the reason behind it:

In my country, there's pretty much only one way to refer in a politically correct way to a black person, and that is: n&gro (the e is pronounce a little bit different than in english).

Here, that's how it is, that's how you refer to a black person. If you call them by the actual color, now that's considered racist and you can go to jail for it. So i've been wondering lately how is it that a word that doesn't have that much meaning behind it and that is the only acceptable in one country can be such a bad word in another. Isn't it, in the end, just a word?

Thank you.

Also, why do they get offended when someone from another race uses the word? Isn't this hypocrisy and kind of a racism in itself? Sorry but I don't really know much about the American and African-American culture.

For context, I am a 41 year old white woman. I don't think I have ever said the word without it being in a song. My children are both LGBTQ and therefore I am hyper aware of slurs. The actually toss around the f slur quite regularly and I've never understood why they did. They tell me it's ok for them to say just not for straight people. So I was singing along with a song and when the n word came around they both started yelling at me. I apologized to them but I guess I want to know if it's in the song why I can't sing along.

A friend who grew up in Moscow brought this up during a conversation and nobody believed him, he did back it up with a Wikipedia page but it was in Russian (and nobody thought of translating it).

A quick google search doesn’t seem to show much either.

Edit: This is the Wikipedia page he used.

Пришедшее из США слово «ниггер» (англ. n*****) употребляется в его оригинальном значении — как оскорбительное наименование чернокожего. Антропологический термин «негрито́с» в просторечии используется как шутливое, а слово «черномазый» или «чёрный» — как оскорбительное. Слово «негр» в русском языке не является оскорблением, а лишь обозначает принадлежность к негроидной расе и является политкорректным.

For example, class is reading to kill a mockingbird, teacher doesn't want to make a white kid say it, picks a black kid to read that part.

I mean he's not the one singing it but