I’ve always loved New Year’s. Yes, it’s arbitrary. Yes, there’s no particular reason to set resolutions and plan new starts on the 1st of January. But it’s a nice reminder to take stock of where you are. To look back over what you’ve learned. To re-examine ways of thinking you’ve come to take for granted. In my article, What Does Ni**er Mean?, I asked why the n-word is so taboo. What does it make certain black people feel? What does it say about the person using it? What does it mean?
The insults will cease to have meaning if the 'victims' cease reacting. This guy's reaction is priceless.
I know the n-word is an ugly one, but haters gonna use it, and blacks who use it continue to legitimize it and make it forbidden fruit to racist whites who of course are happy to shock and insult. It would do all of us a lot of good to develop thicker skins against the slings & arrows of outrageous fuckheads.
And there's no better way to piss off your enemies than to not get triggered by an ugly word. I've never forgotten your article in which some Macedonian kid called you the n-word and you chased him down, laughed in his face, and challenged him. What if we all did that?
"I've never forgotten your article in which some Macedonian kid called you the n-word and you chased him down, laughed in his face, and challenged him. What if we all did that?"
Yep, I wish more people would react like this. Only, I didn't chase him down, he skulked off once he realised I wasn't going to burst into tears. Which was immensely more satisfying.
While I agree that only bullies & people with a deep sense of their own inferiority use insults like the N word, or like "sugar tits" for women for that matter, it is still intended to hurt and for some people, it does. If those insults come from people with power - your boss, or a policeman for example - they're dangerous too.
For those of us who've got past the pain, it's a source of strength: now I'm in my late 60's, anyone needing to call me "sugar tits" is going to get nothing but a belly-laugh, or the on-line equivalent, and the best way I can help younger or more fragile women is by doing just that. Humour or mockery? Do I care?
Exactly this. I mean, you're right, these words are only used with the intent to hurt. But so what? What does it say about this person that they have the intent to hurt a stranger. Or that they'd use a racial slur to try to do so? Why on Earth am I letting myself be affected by their intentions?
We're not typically very good at turning the lens on ourselves by asking questions like these. But I think we'd all be a lot happier and more mentally healthy if we did so.
I had to Google "sugar tits." A make shift pacifier. And then it became an expression of contempt thru usage. People are horribly creative when it comes to being jerks with words.
I think that "attitude" comes from the idea that it's about malice and disrespect. My wife had been in America for a few days. We were in my aunt's car, she was driving, with my mom and uncle in the front seat. My wife and I were in the back seat. My uncle turned and looked right at me and started talking about "gooks." He was a Korean War veteran, and like many Vietnam veterans in those days that word got a lot of use. But he clearly meant it maliciously, leading me to the thought of ripping his eyeballs out and stuffing them up his ass. Out of respect to my mom and aunt I let it slide, but always despised the MF after that. 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞, 𝐬𝐨 𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬. My feelings weren't hurt, but as a young man, fighting words called for a fight.
"My uncle turned and looked right at me and started talking about "gooks." He was a Korean War veteran, and like many Vietnam veterans in those days that word got a lot of use."
Yeah, there are some layers here considering he's a war veteran, I guess. We've talked before about how people are taught to dehumanise the enemy. And terms like these are certainly a part of that.
This is why I often say that words like these only really say something about the person using them. They speak to pain in that person's life. To a lack of thought about the views they hold. To fear. Honestly, that's all I hear when I hear words like that come out of somebody's mouth now.
That said, direct a word like that at somebody I love and I probably won't be so understanding.
‘Malice and disrespect’ - perfect. When the black kids in my junior high jeered at the way veins showed on my legs I was both humiliated and oddly shamed (and outnumbered...and afraid). I told myself I learned humility and that isn’t a bad thing but the countless similar incidents drove home the fact that I was hated for my skin color and it was bullying, plain and simple. Your uncle’s callous and deliberately hurtful words may have stemmed from his Vietnam experiences but he’s a damned adult and should have been able to act with a bit more grace. Sorry you both had to go through that.
I was a different man then. At this point in time, assholes are part of the scenery in the journey thru life and I try to not let them unduly influence my state of mind.
I think this is a rather skewed take on the use of bigoted language.
Yes the equanimity and strength of which you speak should be more common than it is. But the idea that it would represent the majority is miles past idealistic into "starry-eyed." Fact of the matter is that many people, most people, are going to be insulted, outraged, angered, or hurt by these words, and not because they're weak or thin-skinned.
I am still offended to the core by "queer," even though gay people and the gender-trash use it with some perverse pride, calling it reclaimed, and fooling nobody. It is just the latest form of confrontational belligerence and I don't care how many people say so, anyone who applied it to me was invited to leave my house and never come back.
My boss at one job told me how when he first started at the company decades before there were rules against making hostile workplaces he would be referred to by the N-word, in front of his coworkers and those he managed. and even after all that time he was clearly in pain over the memory. And even though I had never used to word outside of referring to it abhorrence I felt the need to apologize to him.
Yes using the word, or "queer" or any of the other vocabulary of bigotry says more about the speaker than the hearer, it is still intended to hurt and hurt it does. To say that people should be able to rise above reaction is to ignore too much. To expect too much.
"Fact of the matter is that many people, most people, are going to be insulted, outraged, angered, or hurt by these words, and not because they're weak or thin-skinned."
I don't see any reason to say this is a fact. Attitudes to many words have changed over time. Being insulted isn't necessarily about being weak or thin-skinned. It's about internalising somebody else's feelings about you. There are times when this is a good thing to do, as in when somebody you trust gives you feedback. And times when it's not, as in when a stranger is throwing a tantrum.
I understand why you're offended by the word "queer." And I don't think you're weak in the least for feeling that way. I think its usage today is an interesting reflection of how the broader aims of the LGBT community have shifted from being accepted to being subversive at all costs (I know this latter element has always existed within the LGBT community, but it seems much more mainstream lately).
But yeah, I'm not talking about "rising above." I'm talking about truly acknowledging where the reaction is coming from. It's not the sound waves being carried to your ear that hurt. It's what happens when they reach your brain. I advocate for changing the internal reaction to the word because it's the only way people can free themselves form the pain of these words.
You say that this change is difficult. And you're right. But expecting racists and homophobes and other bigots to stop using these words when they still provoke that reaction? That's far more of a stretch.
Bigotry is common. When people use these words it may just be a matter of them telling you who they are. In some ways it's good that they've let you know.
When aimed at someone as purposeful insult and contempt it is another issue in my opinion. I never forgave my uncle for the incident I mentioned. In that case it was not so much what he said, but how he said it.
The magic of magic words is not just the word, but how it is used.
You mention the Q word. As a child I learned the word as meaning, out of the ordinary, peculiar or strange. I don't know when its dominant use became a slur aimed at homosexuals. Something new during my lifetime or something I was just unaware of in a time of innocence. One of a number of words ruined by how it became used.
"Was the N word (origin) ever benign like that?" Yes, the borrowed word 'niger' has ancient origins meaning 'dark' or 'night' and continues to have benign or official use today. It is a major river and even a country in Africa. It is recognized internationally as a color, even appearing on children's crayons. This legitimate word appears with a single g (not gg). My apologies if you are asking only about the etymology of the far more recent "gg" variety.
In my recollection the Q as noun has always been a slur; in Commonwealth English it was often no more than (as an adjective) meaning something like "odd." Growing up, "queer" was easily one of the two or three most vile slurs there was.
Then at some point it became a badge of identification, about the time when being gay ceased to be remarkable or noteworthy, and those radical gays who saw their specialness slipping away were obviously seeking a way to go back to being offensive.
There has always been a strong imperative to tell heterosexuals how much we hated them (except I didn't) and to offend them as much as possible, which is what pride parades were always about.
Some people tell me that for not accepting "queer" I am demonstrating "internalized homophobia," but then that's the same thing they told me for not accepting pantomimed sex on pride parade floats.
I was thinking in terms of the use of the word in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" where it had, to the best of my understanding, no sexual connotations, or even in the song "Send in the Clowns".
I had not considered generalized hate, but I guess that would explain the parades essentially giving heterosexuals the finger which is clearly not about seeking acceptance.
What is the ratio of politicized (in a caustic way) vs. non-political homosexuals (just living your life as you see fit)?
Perhaps it is too difficult for it to not be an identity in the face of open hostility. Now making me wonder if it applies to all of the identities in today's politicize everything world where demonization and insult are so common.
I pretty much exited the gay community in 1996 and ceased any activism at the same time. I had my post-breakup fling with gay bars in 1994-5 and after I abruptly got tired of that and left for the last time I eventually stopped caring. For gay activists there was no uglier word than assimilation and the cause that mattered most to me, same-sex marriage, was openly scorned as a "str8" institution while promiscuity was our birthright.
It ain't me, babe.
I have no idea what it's like now. I have the impression that the specialness has gone out of the enclave culture. But the "trans" BS has taken over; gay magazines and sites are now all about "trans." I have the impression that gay culture is a lot more mainstreamed now but I have been away from it for a long time and now geographically remote from it.
Personally, I don't "identify" with being gay, while a lot of activist gays identify with nothing else. If you read their profiles on, say, Medium they are just recitations of their "queer" credentials, with no mention of hobbies or interests. I can't imagine anyone other than Trump supporters I want less to do with.
That's one of the problems with identity politics. Instead of being in a subset of the whole bringing peace and harmony to all, it results in hate, discontent and turmoil. Another is that they are essentially NPCs marching in lockstep with tribal dictates.
I don't find it hard to understand why some people can feel hurt when somebody calls them a slur, intending to hurt them. The strong sense of self described above is an apt rejoinder, for those who can cultivate it. I have sympathy and understanding for those who are not yet able to do that.
What's stranger and sometimes nearly pathological is that many people react just as strongly when the word comes up in a context where it's very clearly not intended to hurt them - treating it like the very vibration of the syllables (or the visual text) in itself causes neurological damage. Or will magically materialize a KKK member out of thin air, like Voldemort.
For example, being disciplined or even fired for reading Huck Finn aloud even after issuing trigger warnings. Or writing an article condemning racism but referencing the word as a word (rather than using "n-word").
That feels performative to some degree, rather than being a reaction to hurtful intention. I believe the reaction is largely about demonstrating a form of power-over, "we demonize that word to show that we have the power to do so". But it's not a constructive power, which builds strength and accomplishment - it the power of an excuse for not doing so, the power of valorized victimhood.
But it has (usually, not counting folks like you) unacknowledged downsides by modeling to others that fragility and weaponized victimhood are the path to personal power, rather than strength and accomplishment. The more one outgrows their victim status, the more hollow the outrage at merely seeing or hearing the word in a non-hurtful context. So developing a more secure sense of self winds up "feeling" like losing power-over.
----
Or it can be empty virtue signalling, when the person feeling outraged is not even a target.
Reference for example what happenned when Science Fiction author (and strong progressive) Mercedes Lackey accidentally* identified her friend long time Chip Delaney as "colored" while praising him (which did not offend him in the least). Lackey was immediately ejected from the conference for using a "racial slur", her husband (who was not even in the room) was ejected to for being associated with such a racist, the video recordings of the session were sequestered so they would not cause harm to any future viewers, and this was all announced to the whole conference with counselling available to anybody in her session audience who had unfortunately heard the word "colored".
(* how "accidentally"? She says that she's not a good public speaker and when trying to distinguish between the two Samuel Delaneys she verbally stumbled between "black" and "person of color" and accidentally spoke something like "spcolored". So not only was the word never used by racists as a slur, and not only was the man being described fine with it even if she had deliberately used it for him, but she didn't even mean to say it even as a non-slur - but intent doesn't matter, the syllables had escaped her mouth and perhaps permanently harmed the life trajectory of somebody in the audience who heard the cursed phonemes, if counselling fails to heal them).
This was as far as possible from an intentional slur, but it was treated as being just as magically terrible as using the n-word to deliberately hurt somebody. But the con organizers had to prove that they were meticulously virtuous beyond reproach, and had less than zero tolerance for racism.
I fail to see how this is going to produce a freer and better world for anybody. I certainly hope they never get somebody from the NAACP on stage and ask them what the initials stand for. To me it's clear that this religious prohibition against certain syllables being spoken by any non-Black person - in any context whatsoever - is not about protecting real people from real harm, but about asserting social power or social virtue.
The insults will cease to have meaning if the 'victims' cease reacting. This guy's reaction is priceless.
I know the n-word is an ugly one, but haters gonna use it, and blacks who use it continue to legitimize it and make it forbidden fruit to racist whites who of course are happy to shock and insult. It would do all of us a lot of good to develop thicker skins against the slings & arrows of outrageous fuckheads.
And there's no better way to piss off your enemies than to not get triggered by an ugly word. I've never forgotten your article in which some Macedonian kid called you the n-word and you chased him down, laughed in his face, and challenged him. What if we all did that?
"I've never forgotten your article in which some Macedonian kid called you the n-word and you chased him down, laughed in his face, and challenged him. What if we all did that?"
Yep, I wish more people would react like this. Only, I didn't chase him down, he skulked off once he realised I wasn't going to burst into tears. Which was immensely more satisfying.
I thought you chased him after he lobbed the n-bomb at you while riding his bike...?
https://level.medium.com/this-is-the-way-the-n-word-dies-ab51167bf9d0
Nope. He was ready to ride off in case I decided to chase him, but he was unprepared for how little I cared about his stupidity.
While I agree that only bullies & people with a deep sense of their own inferiority use insults like the N word, or like "sugar tits" for women for that matter, it is still intended to hurt and for some people, it does. If those insults come from people with power - your boss, or a policeman for example - they're dangerous too.
For those of us who've got past the pain, it's a source of strength: now I'm in my late 60's, anyone needing to call me "sugar tits" is going to get nothing but a belly-laugh, or the on-line equivalent, and the best way I can help younger or more fragile women is by doing just that. Humour or mockery? Do I care?
"Humour or mockery? Do I care?"
Exactly this. I mean, you're right, these words are only used with the intent to hurt. But so what? What does it say about this person that they have the intent to hurt a stranger. Or that they'd use a racial slur to try to do so? Why on Earth am I letting myself be affected by their intentions?
We're not typically very good at turning the lens on ourselves by asking questions like these. But I think we'd all be a lot happier and more mentally healthy if we did so.
I had to Google "sugar tits." A make shift pacifier. And then it became an expression of contempt thru usage. People are horribly creative when it comes to being jerks with words.
I think that "attitude" comes from the idea that it's about malice and disrespect. My wife had been in America for a few days. We were in my aunt's car, she was driving, with my mom and uncle in the front seat. My wife and I were in the back seat. My uncle turned and looked right at me and started talking about "gooks." He was a Korean War veteran, and like many Vietnam veterans in those days that word got a lot of use. But he clearly meant it maliciously, leading me to the thought of ripping his eyeballs out and stuffing them up his ass. Out of respect to my mom and aunt I let it slide, but always despised the MF after that. 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞, 𝐬𝐨 𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬. My feelings weren't hurt, but as a young man, fighting words called for a fight.
"My uncle turned and looked right at me and started talking about "gooks." He was a Korean War veteran, and like many Vietnam veterans in those days that word got a lot of use."
Yeah, there are some layers here considering he's a war veteran, I guess. We've talked before about how people are taught to dehumanise the enemy. And terms like these are certainly a part of that.
This is why I often say that words like these only really say something about the person using them. They speak to pain in that person's life. To a lack of thought about the views they hold. To fear. Honestly, that's all I hear when I hear words like that come out of somebody's mouth now.
That said, direct a word like that at somebody I love and I probably won't be so understanding.
"That said, direct a word like that at somebody I love and I probably won't be so understanding."
That's the thing, it is easier to let that stuff pass aimed at me than when it is aimed at someone we love.
Yeah absolutely. Even then it's not so much the word as the intent to hurt someone I care about.
‘Malice and disrespect’ - perfect. When the black kids in my junior high jeered at the way veins showed on my legs I was both humiliated and oddly shamed (and outnumbered...and afraid). I told myself I learned humility and that isn’t a bad thing but the countless similar incidents drove home the fact that I was hated for my skin color and it was bullying, plain and simple. Your uncle’s callous and deliberately hurtful words may have stemmed from his Vietnam experiences but he’s a damned adult and should have been able to act with a bit more grace. Sorry you both had to go through that.
I was a different man then. At this point in time, assholes are part of the scenery in the journey thru life and I try to not let them unduly influence my state of mind.
True that.
“Try hurting somebody’s feelings by drawing attention to the pattern of lines on their palm” I love that
I think this is a rather skewed take on the use of bigoted language.
Yes the equanimity and strength of which you speak should be more common than it is. But the idea that it would represent the majority is miles past idealistic into "starry-eyed." Fact of the matter is that many people, most people, are going to be insulted, outraged, angered, or hurt by these words, and not because they're weak or thin-skinned.
I am still offended to the core by "queer," even though gay people and the gender-trash use it with some perverse pride, calling it reclaimed, and fooling nobody. It is just the latest form of confrontational belligerence and I don't care how many people say so, anyone who applied it to me was invited to leave my house and never come back.
My boss at one job told me how when he first started at the company decades before there were rules against making hostile workplaces he would be referred to by the N-word, in front of his coworkers and those he managed. and even after all that time he was clearly in pain over the memory. And even though I had never used to word outside of referring to it abhorrence I felt the need to apologize to him.
Yes using the word, or "queer" or any of the other vocabulary of bigotry says more about the speaker than the hearer, it is still intended to hurt and hurt it does. To say that people should be able to rise above reaction is to ignore too much. To expect too much.
"Fact of the matter is that many people, most people, are going to be insulted, outraged, angered, or hurt by these words, and not because they're weak or thin-skinned."
I don't see any reason to say this is a fact. Attitudes to many words have changed over time. Being insulted isn't necessarily about being weak or thin-skinned. It's about internalising somebody else's feelings about you. There are times when this is a good thing to do, as in when somebody you trust gives you feedback. And times when it's not, as in when a stranger is throwing a tantrum.
I understand why you're offended by the word "queer." And I don't think you're weak in the least for feeling that way. I think its usage today is an interesting reflection of how the broader aims of the LGBT community have shifted from being accepted to being subversive at all costs (I know this latter element has always existed within the LGBT community, but it seems much more mainstream lately).
But yeah, I'm not talking about "rising above." I'm talking about truly acknowledging where the reaction is coming from. It's not the sound waves being carried to your ear that hurt. It's what happens when they reach your brain. I advocate for changing the internal reaction to the word because it's the only way people can free themselves form the pain of these words.
You say that this change is difficult. And you're right. But expecting racists and homophobes and other bigots to stop using these words when they still provoke that reaction? That's far more of a stretch.
Bigotry is common. When people use these words it may just be a matter of them telling you who they are. In some ways it's good that they've let you know.
When aimed at someone as purposeful insult and contempt it is another issue in my opinion. I never forgave my uncle for the incident I mentioned. In that case it was not so much what he said, but how he said it.
The magic of magic words is not just the word, but how it is used.
You mention the Q word. As a child I learned the word as meaning, out of the ordinary, peculiar or strange. I don't know when its dominant use became a slur aimed at homosexuals. Something new during my lifetime or something I was just unaware of in a time of innocence. One of a number of words ruined by how it became used.
Was the N word (origin) ever benign like that?
"Was the N word (origin) ever benign like that?" Yes, the borrowed word 'niger' has ancient origins meaning 'dark' or 'night' and continues to have benign or official use today. It is a major river and even a country in Africa. It is recognized internationally as a color, even appearing on children's crayons. This legitimate word appears with a single g (not gg). My apologies if you are asking only about the etymology of the far more recent "gg" variety.
In my recollection the Q as noun has always been a slur; in Commonwealth English it was often no more than (as an adjective) meaning something like "odd." Growing up, "queer" was easily one of the two or three most vile slurs there was.
Then at some point it became a badge of identification, about the time when being gay ceased to be remarkable or noteworthy, and those radical gays who saw their specialness slipping away were obviously seeking a way to go back to being offensive.
There has always been a strong imperative to tell heterosexuals how much we hated them (except I didn't) and to offend them as much as possible, which is what pride parades were always about.
Some people tell me that for not accepting "queer" I am demonstrating "internalized homophobia," but then that's the same thing they told me for not accepting pantomimed sex on pride parade floats.
I was thinking in terms of the use of the word in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" where it had, to the best of my understanding, no sexual connotations, or even in the song "Send in the Clowns".
I had not considered generalized hate, but I guess that would explain the parades essentially giving heterosexuals the finger which is clearly not about seeking acceptance.
What is the ratio of politicized (in a caustic way) vs. non-political homosexuals (just living your life as you see fit)?
Perhaps it is too difficult for it to not be an identity in the face of open hostility. Now making me wonder if it applies to all of the identities in today's politicize everything world where demonization and insult are so common.
I pretty much exited the gay community in 1996 and ceased any activism at the same time. I had my post-breakup fling with gay bars in 1994-5 and after I abruptly got tired of that and left for the last time I eventually stopped caring. For gay activists there was no uglier word than assimilation and the cause that mattered most to me, same-sex marriage, was openly scorned as a "str8" institution while promiscuity was our birthright.
It ain't me, babe.
I have no idea what it's like now. I have the impression that the specialness has gone out of the enclave culture. But the "trans" BS has taken over; gay magazines and sites are now all about "trans." I have the impression that gay culture is a lot more mainstreamed now but I have been away from it for a long time and now geographically remote from it.
Personally, I don't "identify" with being gay, while a lot of activist gays identify with nothing else. If you read their profiles on, say, Medium they are just recitations of their "queer" credentials, with no mention of hobbies or interests. I can't imagine anyone other than Trump supporters I want less to do with.
That's one of the problems with identity politics. Instead of being in a subset of the whole bringing peace and harmony to all, it results in hate, discontent and turmoil. Another is that they are essentially NPCs marching in lockstep with tribal dictates.
I don't find it hard to understand why some people can feel hurt when somebody calls them a slur, intending to hurt them. The strong sense of self described above is an apt rejoinder, for those who can cultivate it. I have sympathy and understanding for those who are not yet able to do that.
What's stranger and sometimes nearly pathological is that many people react just as strongly when the word comes up in a context where it's very clearly not intended to hurt them - treating it like the very vibration of the syllables (or the visual text) in itself causes neurological damage. Or will magically materialize a KKK member out of thin air, like Voldemort.
For example, being disciplined or even fired for reading Huck Finn aloud even after issuing trigger warnings. Or writing an article condemning racism but referencing the word as a word (rather than using "n-word").
That feels performative to some degree, rather than being a reaction to hurtful intention. I believe the reaction is largely about demonstrating a form of power-over, "we demonize that word to show that we have the power to do so". But it's not a constructive power, which builds strength and accomplishment - it the power of an excuse for not doing so, the power of valorized victimhood.
But it has (usually, not counting folks like you) unacknowledged downsides by modeling to others that fragility and weaponized victimhood are the path to personal power, rather than strength and accomplishment. The more one outgrows their victim status, the more hollow the outrage at merely seeing or hearing the word in a non-hurtful context. So developing a more secure sense of self winds up "feeling" like losing power-over.
----
Or it can be empty virtue signalling, when the person feeling outraged is not even a target.
Reference for example what happenned when Science Fiction author (and strong progressive) Mercedes Lackey accidentally* identified her friend long time Chip Delaney as "colored" while praising him (which did not offend him in the least). Lackey was immediately ejected from the conference for using a "racial slur", her husband (who was not even in the room) was ejected to for being associated with such a racist, the video recordings of the session were sequestered so they would not cause harm to any future viewers, and this was all announced to the whole conference with counselling available to anybody in her session audience who had unfortunately heard the word "colored".
(* how "accidentally"? She says that she's not a good public speaker and when trying to distinguish between the two Samuel Delaneys she verbally stumbled between "black" and "person of color" and accidentally spoke something like "spcolored". So not only was the word never used by racists as a slur, and not only was the man being described fine with it even if she had deliberately used it for him, but she didn't even mean to say it even as a non-slur - but intent doesn't matter, the syllables had escaped her mouth and perhaps permanently harmed the life trajectory of somebody in the audience who heard the cursed phonemes, if counselling fails to heal them).
This was as far as possible from an intentional slur, but it was treated as being just as magically terrible as using the n-word to deliberately hurt somebody. But the con organizers had to prove that they were meticulously virtuous beyond reproach, and had less than zero tolerance for racism.
I fail to see how this is going to produce a freer and better world for anybody. I certainly hope they never get somebody from the NAACP on stage and ask them what the initials stand for. To me it's clear that this religious prohibition against certain syllables being spoken by any non-Black person - in any context whatsoever - is not about protecting real people from real harm, but about asserting social power or social virtue.