[split] PSA: Hate Speech (discussion of video etc)

[Athene]

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Bah... a book...
I don't care that much about that idiot word...
But I care enough to check the wiki

""
In its original English language usage, nigger (then spelled niger) was a word for a dark-skinned individual. The earliest known published use of the term dates from 1574, in a work alluding to "the Nigers of Aethiop, bearing witnes".[2] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first derogatory usage of the term nigger was recorded two centuries later, in 1775.
[...]
During the fur trade of the early 1800s to the late 1840s in the Western United States, the word was spelled "niggur", and is often recorded in literature of the time. George Fredrick Ruxton used it in his "mountain man" lexicon, without pejorative connotation. "Niggur" was evidently similar to the modern use of "dude" or "guy". [...]  It was not used as a term exclusively for blacks among mountain men during this period, as Indians, Mexicans, and Frenchmen and Anglos alike could be a "niggur".[8] "The noun slipped back and forth from derogatory to endearing."[9]
[...]
Nineteenth-century literature features usages of "nigger" without racist connotation. Mark Twain, in the autobiographic book Life on the Mississippi (1883), used the term within quotes, indicating reported speech, but used the term "negro" when writing in his own narrative persona.
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And then it goes on to show how, in the 20th century, it became less and less accepted.
From this, something tells me that there's some history that's not being told right to the younger generations, and that connotation of each individual use of the word should be taken into consideration, instead of your reported blanket reaction to hearing it as "I think they're an absolute piece of shit".
Sure, on some locations it was probably used as you say it was, but clearly it wasn't everywhere. So the meaning of the word is not just the one you've been taught.
Perhaps you guys can endeavor to make society reduce the word to being just another insult... and, like so many others, not particularly effective at arousing violence.

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Regardless of it's etymology the fact remains: The term has been a principle of white supremacy for hundreds of years and it still is today.

So, if you were to call me a N**GER, I would indeed regard you as a racist piece of shit and have no qualms in telling you so.
There you have it.

Use the term if you like, but you do NOT get to dictate my responses.