[cfadvan]

Americans really do think they own not only the world, but the language too, don’t they? I’m not arguing for the wisdom of insulting people, it’s just that it’s so arrogant to assume that one group in one country can declare a word belongs to them. A word that same group has spread as a part of popular culture through tv, music and so on through the rest of the world.

Just amazing. And this from a country full of people who can’t even pick out most other countries on a map, even the ones they’ve bombed. A country that apparently thinks some Palestinian, East Indian, Russian, Japanese, etc kid rapping along to a popular song is using “forbidden” words. I think Americans should worry less about their empty words, and more about their actions which the rest of the world judges them by.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think a lot of Americans are racist or not because of some words. I do think it’s a racist country because of their prison system, shooting and strangling unarmed black men, the systemic racial poverty, the Birther conspiracy, and who they go to war for and against. No amount of careful wording will change that.

[TheCoelacanth]

Do you see a lot of Americans complaining about the use of the N-word on the opposite side of the world? I don't think I have ever witnessed that subject come up.

Why would you presume that an American author talking to an audience in America is discussing worldwide social norms rather than American ones?

And I can assure you Ta-Nehisi Coates has spent plenty of time discussing most, if not all, of the alternate subjects you suggested. I'm sure it would dwarf the amount of time he has spent discussing the N-word by a huge margin.

[cfadvan]

Were having this discussion on an international forum, online. People are making blanket statements about language without a scrap of distinction as to background or locale, just “white” and “black” and little else. Further back in this thread appears the phrase, Thanks for your assumption that I am an American, I am not.

So yes, the context I’m examining was very much on the table.

[TheCoelacanth]

We are discussing an event that happened in the US. Social norms in other countries are not pertinent to the discussion. Do you think every single statement needs an explicit geographical qualifier regardless of context?

[cfadvan]

I think you haven’t kept track of the discussion or are intentionally arguing in a very narrow manner to nitpick. I’m not interested.

[sumedh]

This has nothing to do with Americans its just simple human decency, if you want to be insensitive keep using that word.

Incase you are wondering, I am not an American.

No need to digress to the current geopolitics which has to do with the topic.