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To me, it's a matter of our culture (hopefully) evolving into one that has respect for all people, and one measure of a society is the use of language. And language is powerful - it is the stuff of which wars are made! It reflects the thing we humans value so highly - our "evolved" consciousness.
Can't we see that painting an entire race with the broad brush of a negative term just hinders ourselves as well as members of that race? People do not choose to be black, Polish, white, Puerto Rican, etc. Therefore, you are bound to offend needlessly when you speak of that group with a derogatory term.
Yet I believe that societal change can only be accomplished one person at a time. It took me years to get the courage to ask an acquantance that was in my home to leave because of his use of the word nigger, but it has not been the last.
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