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it's been said in some capacity already, but much of the N-word is about reappropration of language. It happened in the gay community as well.
Dyke and faggot were derogatory labels applied to homosexual women and men respectively. The gay community have reappropriated these words completely. Now it is so common, many don't even think of the original sense of the word. We talk about dyke culture, dyke moms, etc. They say things like, "I'm meeting a fag friend of mine for dinner." They took the negative power directed at them, and they made it their own.
The problem with nigger is that the history is longer and more ingrained on the wider culture, and the connotation is far heavier. But this doesn't mean that black culture hasn't reappropriated the word for its own use; it's just that the word remains largely political.
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot
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