A word almost solely employed by racists, when expressing dislike about the fact that anyone dare identify a racial component in anything, anywhere. Just FYI.
People have a right to be offended by derogatory words, especially -- but not only -- if they are directed towards themselves or people like them. The issue here is that Terry most likely doesn't have the ability to use a different word, or express his fear/anger in controlled way. His vocabulary is an expression of the culture in which he lives -- if he were in Russia he would be expressing fears about the KGB, not the CIA, for example.
Someone else compared his writings to a Markov chain -- the n-word is part of the input corpus to his diseased mental processes then. I personally don't infer intent on his part.
Taking offence to those things isn't a good thing at all, it just shows a massive lack of sympathy and understanding in the people who chose to take offence to it.
This is an absurd statement. I believe I've given as much justification as you did, BTW.
To answer your question: No. I'm not. If I was, I'd be having a lot more altercations with the homeless in LA and SF. Though to play devil's advocate I could totally make the argument that one should heed the words of the racist mentally ill, as bad things can happen: (See Hitler). Having said that, If someone commands that I should show or 'give' respect and somehow separate the wheat from the chaff in arbitrary fashion to the benefit of the doubt of the mentally ill because he 'clearly has no control' seems somewhat like a disservice with that special treatment tied in, that's just an acknowledgement that this is acceptable. My stance is that it's not, regardless of your condition. How you handle that and prevent it is beyond the scope of this.
