Dear tropers, let me tell you about a college professor of mine. White as can be, utterly convinced of what may as well be an American conspiracy against black people. One day in class, she talks about how white people should not be allowed to say the word "nigger," which she has trouble saying herself. (As for me? I'm not white '''or''' black.) She is perfectly fine with black people being allowed to say it ... and as for people of mixed ancestry, as I asked her casually after class? "It depends on how they are integrated into society" ... which sounds a lot more meritocratic than anything else she's said. Because up to that point, she sounds like she is essentially saying that people of certain skin colors should have special privileges that are not available to people of differing ethnicities.

This light-skinned black troper was told, point-blank, that she did not have N-Word privileges and never would due to her lack of melanin. She's not too broken up over it, since she really hates that word, especially when it's applied to her.

This troper has an African American friend... who's white. Her family is South African, and we have many jokes about her being "black." Did I mention she's a lesbian too? Saying "nigga faggot" to a white girl outside our group of friends gets some odd looks. Even stranger is the "I'm a gay South African" excuse actually WORKS, despite the fact the only other white black person around here is an illegal alien...

This trooper had a room mate who INTRODUCED HIMSELF as. "A nigger from the streets. You ain't allowed to say that, okay?" Truth in Television SO much.

This troopers Senior class president elections were made much more memorable when one of the candidates opens up his speech with "Wussup mah yellow brothas? Chinks in da house!". Needless to say, but I say it anyway, he got disqualified (But NOT suspended IIRC. So the C-word privilege kinda held up.)

Yeah, the head of the Jewish society at this troper's university was much like that. Eventually I explained that the real problem was the age of his jokes. It had some impact.

This troper had a FridgeLogic moment regarding this in high school: Two football teammates were throwing the "n-word" around casually. Since this troper was only half-listening, it took a moment to realize that '''A)''' the teammates were both white and '''B)''' they were referring ''to each other''.

This female troper and her girlfriends will casually say, "Man, why are you being such a cunt today? You on the rag?" The one time a male associate tried something similar, the temperature in the room dropped several degrees and the associate fled for his life.

This lesbian troper and her LGBT friends throw around the word "dyke" pretty casually, but don't take the word well when it is being shouted by 300lb+ old rednecks in pick-up trucks plastered with Sarah Palin 2012 bumperstickers. However, NOBODY is allowed to say the word "tranny" because hate-crimes against transgendered people is a very, very sensitive topic to queer people in our town.

Also, instead of "that's so gay" we sometimes say "that's so straight!" And "No hetero" instead of "no homo." We typically don't do this around straights.

... Sarah Palin 2012. Must be what all the end of the world prophecies for it are all about. :p

Dude, "tranny" is offensive? I just figured that it was just informal, on the level of "black guy" or "gay guy". So is it more on the level of "faggot" or "nigger" or on par with "Negro", or "a black."? Could someone please inform me?

'Tranny' is a word on par with 'faggot' because idiots use it as a word meaning 'person who does something out of the ordinary for my social group'. Kind of like 13-year-old boys use the word 'gay' to decribe... well, everything.

Huh. I always used to word to refer to automotive transmissions. No wonder I got weird looks when I described the tranny I mounted in my car last year.

this TG troper doesn't mind the word tranny used, it's 'shemale' she finds offensive that said because a large chunk of my friends growing up were hispanic I gained the privileges on using 'beaner' 'spic' or 'wetback' in a friendly joking manner because as a lot of my friends told me "hey you're just one of the cholas chica!"

This TG Tropette doesn't mind tranny as well, unless it is spoken in an unfriendly way (then again, any word spoken unfriendly doesn't sound nice). She got herself privileges to call Polish, Russian, Turkish and Mexican friends around her by various N-word variants, as she was considered to belong. She herself gave the previous Tropette the German N-Word privilege (guess which word THAT is).

Original poster: Yeah, different people find different words to be offensive. It depends on the group you are in and the context. For example, I don't find the word "queer" offensive and use it all the time instead of "LGBT" which sounds too much like a sandwhich. However, in the past few years, I have heard the words "tranny" and "she-male" and even "it" used against trans people-including some of my close transgender friends- in a truly hateful, spiteful way which is why I personally hate the word and many of my trans friends find it offensive, even when said in "jest". In general, I would avoid throwing the word around in causal conversation unless a transgender person (like the above two posters) specifically says they don't mind it.

This troper is learning disabled. Back in high school, she was in a program that the students affectionately called Stupid Teachers And Retarded Students, and where most people have a brain fart, we had a 'STARS moment.' However, the moment someone outside of the program called one of us retarded or stupid, god help your miserable soul. Even one of the most nonviolent of the program, this troper, decked a guy for an incident involving a short bus and had to keep everyone else in the program from wanting to beat the shit out of him for both insulting her and for the insult itself.

This Troper has a white, technically African friend(his father is Egyptian, though he's never lived there) who insists people can't use the N-word around him. Because he's black. HilarityEnsues as often as not.

This Troper's uncle used to refer to any lapse in concentration as an irish moment. His aunt eventually got him to change it, by which time he was old enough to call it getting old.

Come to that, all of you have at least one older relative who puts down normal failings to getting on in years. If you doubt it's related try suggesting they're getting old.

This, Mizrahi Troper was recently talking with his black (very dark) friend at the mall. We were discussing the Maasai, and I made an off hand comment about how dark they tended to be. Another black dude passing by leaned in and asked my friend if he'd allow me to make such racist comments. Without missing a beat, and in these exact words, he said "It's okay, he's Jewish, he's got his N-word privelages." And the strange thing? The other dude actually looked embarassed and APOLOGIZED. <.< >.>

@/{{Jonn}} was on Kotaku, reading a discussion on piracy, when some guy came in and started deriding all the "moralfags" who were against piracy. When people called him on it, he tried to use this trope, claiming things were "different" on "certain parts of the internet". It didn't take.

There was also an occasion when he found a thread on GaiaOnline that was someone complaining that they got banned for use of the word "nigga"[sic]. Someone pointed out that the mods couldn't assume they were black just because their avatar was. It turned into an extended wank about the difference between "nigga" and "nigger". (PROTIP: There isn't.)

I once commented on a post about ThePrincessAndTheFrog, mocking a video, made by a black woman, which called the film racist for daring to portray a black girl with a little "badonk-badonk". Someone's response basically called me racist. I mentioned that my mother and sister were black, with the obvious implications for my own skin color. They never responded. Textbook example. And in case you were wondering, I ''never'' use the N-Word, and only rarely swear at all. -@/{{Jonn}}

There was also another post where I said that a magazine named "Bitch" seemed like it was trying to be edgy. Several of its readers took offense, and said that the magazine was trying to "reclaim" the word. Given what happened to the last time a word was "reclaimed", (hint; look at what page you're on) I didn't say anything.

On the one hand, it's true that throwing "Xfags" around all the time is commonplace and not treated as offensive on ImageBoards (y'know, in case anyone reading this didn't know that already...), so if he'd just slipped up ''initially'' then habit would be an acceptable excuse. On the other hand, that really isn't NWordPrivileges unless the poster and/or the board's general population is gay, and also it's rather rude and not very sensible to try and tell people they shouldn't be offended because the other people you hang out with wouldn't be. Which sounds like it's closer to this guy's line of logic.

Apparently he didn't realize that the use of "-fag" is done on Image Boards in a deliberately ironic fashion. Not "funny" ironic, unless you have a certain sort of mentality. Just inverting this trope by "giving" everyone said privileges. I even saw someone describe themselves as a "Christfag" once.dissonance is both in the fact that they use the word "fag", and in the fact that they claimed to be a Christian yet were using [=4chan=]. [[HypocriticalHumor Ironically, I read threads from the /tg/ archive, but try and ignore the bad parts.]]-- @/{{Jonn}}

Yes, because everyone on 4chan are Rapists, Pedophiles, Psychopaths and Weaboos, some of us are just geeks who like to read funny DungeonsAndDragons/Warhammer40000 stories on /tg/, I can't see how that prevents us from being Christians.

Speaking as one of those geeks, me neither. I was talking about the use of "fag" in anything but an academic or quoting manner. Not exactly loving or tolerant, the way [=4chan=] uses it, and I wince every time I see it.

This troper has studied enough Japanese to know how harsh the term "gaijin" is, and so insists that Japanese speakers do not have G-word priveliges. He'll accept the neutral term "gaikokujin," but only if it's said to him outside of America (realistically, you can't call someone a foreigner in their own country... not that more prejudiced people won't try).

This troper's Nakama are a fairly mixed bunch, resulting in the Caucasian members being considered to have "stamps on their Nigga card" to represent N-word privileges, though misusing slang or being ignorant can result in having the card temporarily revoked as "Negrobation". (It's gotten us weird stares, and kicked out of a mall once)

This troper likes to constantly remind our lacrosse team (Which is ENTIRELY white and has no diversity and often practices far away from anyone else) That we can say whatever we want with no repercussions.

Back when I was young and really stupid, I didn't know what the word nigga meant or what Punch-Out was, so I thought that Nigga was Doc's name. Yeah...

This Troper's brother declared he was offended by the word 'gay' and took defiant pride in calling himself 'faggot'. Of course telling me that didn't necessarily grant me the "F-word privilege". On the other hand, the word 'queen', much like 'bitch', can be either an insult or a term of endearment, and I'll even call straight men 'queen'...especially if they're acting like one.

This Troper's friends, family and one occasion, lecturer, all use the word "dyke" jokingly towards her, and no offence is caused; in fact, she kind of encourages it.

This fag troper learned the hard way that people can't tell your sexual orientation just by looking at you and saying "fag" in hearing range of a teacher is a bad idea.

This Japanese troper regularly uses "Jap" to describe himself and his buddies, and as he for whatever weird reasons doesn't look very Japanese, always gets in trouble for it.

"Jap" as a racial slur has always bothered me. For pretty much every other minority their slur is more complicated than "I don't feel like saying the whole word". My friend and I got a severe tongue lashing when we were overheard using the word Jap liberally simply because we were using the word Japanese a lot and didn't feel like saying the whole word. Just one of life's many examples that trying to be efficient will just cause more problems.

My friend (a white girl) actually got NWordPrivilages from a black friend. She and ONLY she could call him nigger and get away with it (he got to call her a Cracker Bitch in exchange). Everyone else got to call him Hershey (which I guess is also N-word Privilages, except with a less offensive word).

In addition to the above, we both had a gay friend who actually encouraged people to call him fag.

This Dutch troper has absolutely zero qualms about using slurs and making fun of race, creed, religion, disability and sex, provided the right environment is given and people know that you're joking around and understand their situation. When a person unfamiliar with the no holds barred environment enters, he goes out of his way to ensure said person gets these conventions and feels comfortable in them, which can lead to a bizarre situation in which a political discussion about positive discrimination and essentialist fallacies can immediately switch to a barrage of through and fro taboo jokes. It helps if said environment is very diverse.

This Australian troper is the sole Irish descended person in his group of friends. Everyone else is Italian. He's got Wog (in Australia it's a slur for Mediterranean Europeans, not black people) privileges. Everyone else has got dumb/drunk/poor Irish privileges.

This bisexual troper and her LGB friends frequently use the expression "that's so GAY" when referring to something stupid/ridiculous, but are offended when others do it.

This Troper can say all the racist shit he wants to his black friend, on the understanding he will get the same back in "cracka" jokes. Watching an entire Burger King collectively shit themselves when I tell him "back of the queue darkie" is a sight to behold.

After a discussion on NWordPriviliges in my English class, I decided I was going to refer to myself as a Mick, but only other Irish kids could call me that. Subverted in that the teacher was the only one who knew what I was talking about.

This troper finds it incredible that so many tropers are stupid enough to use such infantile language to their so-called friends. Also, she finds it even more foolish that they don't realize they failed the test. If you're happy to use such language, your "friends" are mocking you behind your backs.

Even then, not many end up taking it seriously after a while. Sometimes it is a lighter form of VitriolicBestBuds.

In some cultures, having the right to insult your best friends and for it to be taken as a joke or in some other way harmless isn't 'infantile' and nobody is mocking anyone. It's a sign you're close enough to know what you can get away with and in most cases is harmless fun. Most of the examples on this list are most likely exactly that in action, and if you were to call out your friends for jokingly ribbing each other like that, calling them stupid etc, they'd tell you to leave.

A black friend at an old school of mine (wow, StockholmSyndrome much?) called me, and maybe ''everyone'' "nigga." One day, we had an exchange like this: #QUOTE#'''Him''': What's up, nigga? #QUOTE#'''Me''': Not much, cracker. #QUOTE#'''Him''': ...''What?''

We both laughed, by the way. About a year later, in a different school during black history month, a black classmate was reading a civil rights movement story and said he didn't feel comfortable saying the N-word. I informed him he had NWordPrivileges by default. The teacher called me out on this, and some of the students called ''her'' out on ''that''...and we had an interesting talk on the subject. I even told them the above story.

In this troper's country, the word "cholo" is used commonly as an offensive way to call people (though this has been reduced in recent years); among his friends and family, this troper (and them) uses the word in an affectionate way.

Which region is it? The word "Cholo", at least in my city (North of Mexico), is a coloquial term for youth that live in gangs and do most unlawful activities you'd expect. Seems to be a fairly common word here, though.

The frontman for my brother's band likes to cover hip-hop sometimes. (He does an excellent version of A-Kon's "Ghetto".) Because he lacks N-word privileges, he uses "brotha"; it scans well enough, and even sort of rhymes as a drop-in replacement. Try it the next time you're at karaoke!

My dad is Japanese-American and grew up in San Diego; as such, most of his friends at school were Mexican. Also at his school was one white kid who "desperately" wanted to be 'in' with my dad's Mexican friends. So, one day my dad and his friends playfully greet each other in the presence of the wannabe kid: #QUOTE#'''My Dad''': Hey, wetbacks! :D\\ '''Dad's Mexican friends''': Hey, Jap! :D\\ '''Wannabe kid''': Hey Jap! :D\\ '''Mexican friends''': ''Don't call him a Jap!'' >:( *beats wannabe up* .

Everybody at my school, middle school especially. I remember a notable incident in which an arabic girl upon seeing her favorite substitute (Who was white) shouted out quite plainly, "Oh! Mr. *****This is my Ni**** !" It was hilariously racist. She didn't get in trouble. It seems N-Word privileges are automatically granted whenever you go to a school that prides itself on diversity.

Played absolutely, absolutely straight, and very often invoked and lampshaded, in this troper's 60% Asian high school. Asian slurs and (otherwise offensive) jokes are almost universally made by said Asians. Even better, we've been known to confirm some of the jokes after they're told.

After a few incidents of playing online with a microphone, this mexican troper has such an odd accent at times, he has been called all sorts of nationalities, both legitimately and perjoratively. After a while, just to confuse everyone else, he remarks them that he is not a black person, and that he is, in fact, a beaner, and that they should at least get it right.

When this troper's mother was in high school, there was a lot of racism towards the Portuguese. Since there is no slur for Portuguese(at least, not to my knowledge), bullies opted for the term "Wop"(which is a slur for Italians) instead. Eventually those of Italian heritage stepped in, and the Portuguese were given N-Word Privileges. The two groups became close friends, referring to each other as "wop" until the bullies left them alone. My mother always tells me this story with a smile.

This troper assures you that there are racial slurs for the portugese, but they're rather ineffectual in terms of impact as only a few regions know them.

Pork-Chop is the only one this Portuguese trooper knows. Though somewhat subverted in that he's only heard his (Portuguese) Grandparents use it.

This black troper often extends NWordPrivileges to everyone he meets. The word doesn't really bother him or any other black person (about 70% of everyone he knows) when it used in a playful manner. As such he permits the use of the term to get people to loosen up. It seems the best way to fight racism. Not allowing someone to use a word because of their race seems kinda well...''racist''.

As a side note, this troper's best friend is white. There is nothing quite as funny as the looks they get. ->'''Me''': Your too loud! Stop acting like a nigger! ->'''Him''': Don't be so uptight, honkey! The bewildered stares never get old.

This autistic troper often jokingly uses the word retard when a friend is being stupid. One time a woman started to lecture me about it being a hurtful word. My response? "I'm autistic, I have R-word Privileges" She had no argument for that.

Subverted for this troper and his mother, cause we're both autistic and we believe NO ONE should use the R-word period.

This troper has claimed "F-word" privileges.

You mean faggot?

Or "fartknocker"? Is that also a gay reference, or does it denote intestinal distress, or is it just a generic term for abject stupidity?

Yeah, I know this isn't really the same thing, but this troper lives in a small Swedish town that is much more famous across Sweden than the size of said town would suggest. Why? One of Sweden's most notorious mental institutions is located there. It's perfectly okay for inhabitants (and ex-inhabitants) of said town to make fun of that fact, but if anyone else does it...

This troper is enlightened enough to know that there is a difference between black people and niggers, as well as gay men and faggots. Of course, he's not willing to take the chance should he happen to strike up a conversation with any one of the four.

This Troper lives in a county where seeing a black person generally means they are a visitor, so all the teenagers are very racist (racist jokes told just about everywhere in school) because of this. This is a berserk button of mine, as I was friends with a black guy when I lived in London (I moved when I was about seven) and, as such, take annoyance that people insult others just because they don't know better. If where I lived was typical, I'd pity the ethnic minorities everywhere...then again, that doesn't stop me telling jokes about the Irish and Scots and Welsh, leading to moments when my scottish best friend (who doesn't have an accent) has to remind me that he is scottish!

This troper is of Indian descent, and always makes fun of Indian government, movies, English, etc. when he can. Problems occur because the other one of Indian descent in my class is unaware of this trope.

This Black troper cringes whenever she hears that word, especially when she hears other black people saying it.

In addition, I hate when people use the word "gay" as a synonym for "stupid" or "weird." I'm also a member of an anti-Literature/{{Twilight}} group on Facebook, and it makes me cringe that the other members of said group feel a bit too comfortable about throwing the word "faggot" around.

There was one interesting case of a white person being given general racism privileges by a group of black friends in World of Warcraft. The white friend put together a 40 person raid which included his five black friends who had given him permission. The entire raid was a "segregated run" and the five black players were forced to stand at least forty yards from the rest of the group or they would be kicked out. This forty yard radius was even enforced during fights where you were all but REQUIRED to all gather together, making the entire thing more complicated. The white leaders dedication to kicking anyone who got too close, and the good nature with which the black players took it (finding the whole thing hilarious, not the least of which the reactions of the other players) meant they completed the whole thing though.

This troper is a white, blond, straight, conservative Christian male from the American South; yep, part of the richest overlap on the Venn diagram of AcceptableTargets. He also thinks that the concept of "reclaiming" hurtful words is utter bullshit. Whenever someone talks about using words like "bitch," "nigga" or "faggot" as terms of empowerment, I always ask "Really? So you're saying that if I called you that ''right now'', you'd feel proud instead of offended?". Since pop culture considers me the universal "evil oppressor" archetype, the response is invariably no, so I point out that they're not even close to "taking back" anything yet. When the group that minted the term to be abusive no longer has the power to hurt people with it, the word has been successfully taken back. Until then, it remains a term of degradation no matter who says it. Anyway, that's my two cents.

This troper disagrees—the previous troper doesn't get to define what "reclaim" means (especially in his self-professed AcceptableTarget-ness).

Alright, first off: I reserve the right to define whatever, however I want, but that's a moot point because "To remove the hurtful qualities of" seems to be the go-to definition people have in mind when they try to "reclaim" words, and I didn't make that up. Second, nobody's been able to successfully pull it off yet; that part's not even a matter of opinion. Words aren't intrinsically good or bad, but some of them have been abused for so long that the negative connotations are too hard to shake off. So instead of keeping the terms around and using idiotic rules and hypocritical double standards as to how they should be used, maybe we should consider confining such words to the dustbin of history and moving on.

Kinda funny tale of this troper. I was at a [=McDonalds=] when I swiped my debit card and it didn't read. Cue me yelling out "THAT'S SOOOOO GAY", when I was called out by a guy behind me who may or may not have been gay himself, saying that word is offensive to other gay people. Panicking, I thought I could either lie and say I was gay or try and defend myself(I also could've apologized but that was one of the few times the option didn't occur to me). So I opted for the latter, saying something to the effect of "Nonono you misunderstand, I didn't mean gay as in homosexuals, I meant gay as in lame, or stupid, because by all means this card should work I got like twenty bucks on it. It's completely different, like discrete and discrete. Think man, what do homosexuals have to do with my card not working. That's some controversial thinking, and I'm an American" There was an awkward silence, then I just paid in cash and apologized. The food was delicious, in case you were wondering, I got a McChicken.

Slightly more serious note: I as a black troper have no problem with anyone using the "N-Word", as long is its not used in an obviously racists manner, and even then I kinda laugh it off. I do find it a bit upsetting when black people are quick to get mad at white people for making jokes at their expense, then turn around and do the same thing to them, all because of things their ancestors did to their ancestors. I once saw on a show(or movie, I forget) where a white guy said 'nigga' while listening to rap music, then a bunch of black guys beat him up for it, and this was PlayedForLaughs, but to me it kinda looked like a hate crime (I still laughed but I laugh at all matter of fictional cruelty if it's done right). Sometimes you just gotta let shit go, racism and slave owning was a dark time in this country, but bringing it up isn't making it any better, especially when you are bringing it up to people who only have a passing connection to such things. To me it just makes those black people seem pathetic, trying to gain sympathy off of others misery. Personal example, my mom died when I was a little kid, and yeah it was sad, but I don't go around using it as a conversation starter, or to gain sympathy when I'm pissed(okay I did once, but I felt such terrible shame afterwards, I never did so again). I even try to avoid bringing it up at all cost, going as far as just going along with whomever thinks is my mother at the moment. So yeah, to me, whenever someone brings up the slavery/civil rights card over superfluous things, they are disrespecting all those who were slaves/civil rights activist and sub-sequentially fought for their freedom. If we gotta point the racist finger to someone, let's do it to those that are genuinely racist(or prejudice at all for that matter) to the point of being a threat, and make sure they are held off until they all die off so that future generations can truly all have peace and equality. Sorry for the rant.

In my group we all make fun of Asains, Hispanics, Russians, Polish, Jews, Christians, whites, gays, and Crossdressers and Irish and otakus We may seem like the most evil group in the world... but we are all these things. Also This troper, the CrossDresser, can say shim, (she-him) and so can any friends, but she's (they think) ready to pounce on anyone else who calls her anything along those lines, and any of their friends

Weeaboo's though, *psshhh*

An amusing anecdote: I went to visit a friend in a black neighborhood, and made a trip to a little grocery around the corner. Said friend was eating a lot of candy to help him quit smoking. The girls had caught on to this, and were always asking him for candy, so he was going through a lot of it, and he asked me to pick up some more for him. When I dumped my handfuls of candy on the store counter, a little five-year-old said, "Look! That nigga got lots of candy!" Did I mention that I'm white? The shopkeeper and I cracked up laughing, while the kid's sister was yelling at him...."What? You crazy!"

This troper is straight, white, cis, middle-class, American... you know, the kind of person that never gets NWordPrivileges. I do, however, claim M Word Privileges, as a member of an unpopular religious minority. My friends and I call each other "you stupid Mormon!" or similar things... but if you are not Mormon and use religious slurs towards us, prepare to have a Religious Tolerance Anvil dropped on you. I had one friend that was allowed to make mean Mormon jokes, but there was an acceptable/unacceptable line that he was careful not to cross.

This Troper accidentally forgot to invoke his NWordPriveleges on a LiveJournal advice community whilst giving advice to a fellow Asian about driving on the freeway. There was a certain amount of backlash--especially since this troper rarely signals his Chinese descent over the Internet, feeling that he has assimilated enough (born here, raised here, spent a grand total of 19 days in China over the course of my ''life'') to count as a bog-standard American.

I found a list online listing 170 relationship Red Flags. If one's boyfriend matched just two of them, the listmakers advised readers to get out. One of them was the use of "bitch" as a term of endearment. Aside from the fact that different couples have different boundaries--I live in England, and the swearing I hear every day would make "bitch" seem like something from a Saturday Morning kids show--the list itself was compiled by "Heartless Bitches Intl." (Incidentally, it also has a serious NeverMyFault attitude. Several red flags are, basically, just admitting his problems early in the relationship.)

This Troper has an Brown friend (he's Samoan) who uses this always greets me with "(My Name), my Nigga!" and constantly uses the N-Word. Cue frequent and occasionally heated debates between the two of us on whether a Samoan is "black" enough to have N-Word Privileges (I'm latino, in case you were wondering)...

This English troper of Irish descent often addresses his friend of Saudi descent as "the college's resident oil-monger". Said friend of Saudi descent often asks me to give him a pint of Guinness and show him where my pot of gold is. It works beautifully.

This troper loves making fun of the Bible and all its inconsistencies, along with some church policies. She gets away with it because she's a Catholic who prays every night.

This troper constantly Refuges In Audacity and constantly swears because, in my own words, "it's hilarious". I say nigger all the time and others have said it's hilarious. Rule of Funny?

...no.

NoJustNo

This Rroma and gay troper has no problems with "gypsy" or derivatives thereof, regardless of who's using them. This led to one of his friends assuming that he felt the same way about "fag," which ended pretty poorly for him. I'm a pretty weird case, thousgh, since I've also got trans friends that refer to themselves as "trannies" and Mexican friends who refer to themselves as "Cholo/a" with whom I've got N-word privileges.

This Troper, who is white, works with a relatively mixed bunch of people who all like to use various racial epithets when they're talking and joking around. One time, this troper was asked why he never used any of them too (despite also being well known for pretty much never saying anything ever), replied, "Well, I'm white. I'm not allowed to be racist."

You know, everyone ''used'' to be allowed to use the N word. White people just abused their chance, so they got it revoked somewhere during TheSixties.

Being a straight white middle-class American male with no issues of sexual orientation or gender identity, I clearly can't use certain words. OK, having Irish and German blood in me allows me to say "mick" and "kraut" among others like me, but if I said a certain racial slur for, say, Latinos, I'd expect to get my ass justifiably kicked for being a fucking racist (though I have in the past had the S&C Incident where I made a racist comment involving both Latinos and Asians just as a Puerto Rican girl walked out of one room next to me and an Asian-American boy out of the other). But then there's the Asperger Syndrome, giving me "A-word Privileges" that allow me to make jokes and comments about the autistic. Like, when discussing online fandoms with a friend, the subject came to furries and worse. There was one particular group, I forget which one, and they acted really weird. On certain kinds of websites they even refer to these kinds as "autistic", though to what extent the group overlaps with the actual autistic spectrum is unknown to me. I made the comment "Contain the autism!", then had to explain this trope to my friend.

I went to a pretty diverse school district, with a student population that was very black and very Jewish (though not, as someone once asked, at the same time. That would have been awesome). There the N-word (or J-word or C-word or Z-word) privileges were pretty well defined as belonging within that group or, in certain cases, a similarly persecuted minority (such as Mexicans for the N-word, because the Mexicans hung out with the black kids and were, for all intents and purposes, "black"). My Jewish friends make jokes about Jews and money ''all the time'', but I don't think I've ever heard a non-Jew make that kind of joke, and if they did, it wasn't well received. I'm half Jewish and half Irish Catholic (officially fully Catholic), with a ''lot'' of religious joking going on at the dinner table, so I tend to claim privileges for Jew and Irish/Catholic jokes alike.

That being said, I'm not used to being in a non-Jewish environment, so when I went to college and found that almost all of my new friends aren't Jewish and haven't been around many Jews either (one can't recall even ''meeting'' a Jewish person before), there was a bit of a culture shock regarding which jokes were appropriate and which weren't. One friend got offended when I mentioned that someone's large nose meant they were probably Jewish.  Another time, a friend directed apologies for her negative view of the Bible to a particularly Christian (as in Evangelical) friend while me and a Catholic friend were in the room. I loudly complained that she hadn't apologized to us as well, because, as Catholics, it wasn't as if we were "Jewish or something." The friend laughed hysterically, because the less-Jewish people around me are, the more-Jewish I present myself, but I realized later on that it probably sounded incredibly racist to anyone else within hearing distance. Given that a) we were in a cramped, thin-walled dorm, b) despite my previous statement, I only advertise Jewish-ness if it's relevant to the conversation, the number of people who misunderstood was probably a bit higher than I'd like.

...Does this mean that white people get H Word Privileges and C Word Privileges for the words "Honkey" and "Cracker"?

You don't get to say "HOW!" "Smoke-um peacepipe" or "redskin" around me, Unless, your an American Indian yourself. I've joked around a bit with myself on the "ancient wisdom" of American Indians, of how the "white man" wouldn't survive without my ancestors. But if such a joke were made from the outside, "you get beat-um up."