I’m not sure why it took Michael Richard’s racist rant to re-visit an argument that that should have ended decades ago, but here we are. Arguing about the appropriateness of the word “nigger.” In 2007. Obviously, Jabari Asim, an editor at the Washington Post, began writing The N Word long before KKKramer took the stage at that comedy club in LA. And the book came out before Don Imus’s “Nappy Headed Hoes” remark opened up the racial slur floodgates. But how appropriate is it that that this book should appear now, what with the NYC government placing a moratorium on the word, the Detroit NAACP holding its funeral, and Al Sharpton marching around midtown Manhattan trying to get record execs to stop their artists from saying it?

In The N Word, Asim uses the history of racism in the U.S. to prove his argument, which is that no one — black or white — should say a word loaded with so much hate. Exceptions to his rule include historians and, um, Dave Chappelle. It’s not my favorite word, and I mainly use it when I’m quoting someone else, but I don’t bat an eye when other black people say it. I’m not sure I agree with Asim that a word retains its meaning over hundreds of years despite the fact that black people who use it don’t consider it negative. At the same time, I have trouble reconciling that fact with another one that’s just as valid — “nigger” is still a racist’s derogatory term of choice.

We’re asking for trouble when one portion of the population is forbidden from saying something while another portion is not only allowed to say it, but disseminate it through music, literature, and film. Although they’re exposed to it in popular entertainment, we honestly don’t expect white people, not even impressionable teenagers immersed in hip hop culture, to begin to think the word is at least a little acceptable to use in certain contexts? I was always under the impression that this is why Asim-approved N-Word utterer, Dave Chappelle, began to feel uncomfortable with the racial humor on his show and decided to end it. So, maybe I do agree with Asim a little about the word just being wrong all-around, although I feel that it is so deeply ingrained in our culture that cutting it out cold turkey is impossible. What do you think? Is it a word that we’ve taken back from the racists and flipped to fit our purposes? Or should we all stop saying it?