[sertman]

I personally don't use the word, but if I were to use it in the context that most people here intend to use it in (a joking way) , I would make damn sure that the person that I'm saying it to isn't black, and if they were, they know I'm just kidding around. If there was any doubt in my mind that the person it was directed at would take it the wrong way, I wouldn't say it.

However, the use of the word HAS been diluted. Gone are the days of widespread open racism, where the KKK was in power and the word was highly used as a racial epithet. Although racism is still a problem, and stereotypes still exist, with the popularity of shows like Chappelle's Show, where you see black people using this word that's so "deeply rooted in racism" freely, and getting laughs, while using racial slurs for and making fun of white people, it begs the question: just how seriously do black people take the word nowadays?

I think you'd be suprised at the answer. Although I am not black myself, I have been in a ton of situations where I've been playing with black people on Xbox Live and people start being racist towards them. Guess who's offended the most? White people. What usually happens is the white person will kick them out of the server, and be like "Sorry, dude" to the black guy, whowill say "It didn't really bother me." And that wasn't just the N-word... i've heard some **** on there that took me aback. Draw your own conclusions from this, but I've come to the conclusion that a lot of the black people who post on internet forums or play games with headsets don't really care, because they've heard it all before. And when it's quite obvious that someone's joking, especially if they're talking to whiteboy or something, then I don't see the harm. It's not racism.