I lived in Detroit’s "hood" for a long time before eventually moving downtown and then out of the city. All the years I lived in the "hood," I would never have dreamt of using the n-word, even though I heard my neighbors using it as a term of endearment all the time.

One of my neighbors even told me once that I could go ahead and do that with him, because he would understand what I meant. (This after he used the term for me affectionately. He frequently called me "my n-word," with the a-sound on the end.) But I never took him up on it because it felt so wrong trying to come out of my lips. And also because I knew other Black people who didn’t know me like that would hear my usage very differently than he would.

Did you know that the word “faggot” is on the cutting edge of being reclaimed among some young gay men as a term of endearment? I didn’t know until recently, and I shuddered when I heard it. I gasped internally.

I’m not at all opposed that these young people are doing that. If they reclaim the slur as a term of endearment, then more power to them. But it will always be difficult for me to accept emotionally, because in my own personal experience it’s so loaded with hate.

So I think of that analogously with respect to the n-word. If a straight person ever used "faggot" as a term of endearment toward me, I would be outraged. I would not care how many gay friends they had or if they grew up among mostly gay people. To my mind, that word would be forever off limits to them, even as a term of endearment.

That makes understanding why the n-word is forever off limits to me very easy to understand.