Why is the N-word offensive?

Because its encompassed with a history of oppression, slavery, rape, murder, etc…

there is no word in the english language that has a different meaning if someone of different ethnicity says it. If it was offensive when it was first initiated, it should still be offensive. Not one person today has been a slave or owned a slave.

Hundreds of years ago it just meant ‘black’. Now, as everyone is saying, it’s been so loaded with hatred, insult and degredation that its original meaning is lost. It’s a word that needs to drop out of our language. There are a lot of alternative, non-offensive words available instead.

You should avoid ever using this word which is so degrading since back in the slavery days. I don’t like people calling me Maria. That isn’t even as offensive. Just calling someone something that doesn’t represent them would be considered offensive. I wonder why you decided to ask such a question. It’s obvious it’s offensive.

It’s one thing for a black man to use it and a totally different thing for a white man to use it. . . So it’s best to just drop it from your list of usable words. . .

was that a serious question? because back in the day, when black people were owned by white people, they would call them, n* but I dont approve of african american people running around calling their fellow people the n- word, because it is being hypocritical.

because that’s what the whites used to call them when they were racist back then it’s like calling a white person a cracker or white trash,you just shouldn’t say it period!

I dated a blk guy and he said it meant a dirty person someone looked down upon and when white people use it it degrades them as humans.

Actually, I read an article in an newspaper about the proper usage of the n-word by nonblack people one time. It said that some black people let nonblack people call them the n-word because they know the person is not racist.