my friend said, "it is never, ever okay for white people to say (n-word)."

[fujiyama]

216. I just view the use of dashes and other symbols as silly and pointless

and in some ways it simply mystifies and creates a strange fascination of the word. Just by covering a few letters in a word, doesn't erase the historical oppression, cruelty , and nastiness behind it.

I've been recently listening to a lot of historical audio books and civil rights and racism are some of the topics covered so as you can expect when individuals are quoted, the word certainly comes up. As an audio book, of course the narrator uses it as he rightly should. I cringe when I hear the word and it just disgusts me to the core, but I know that in context these are neither the author's or narrator's viewpoints or feelings. I also know that if the word wasn't used, these quotes would certainly lose their effectiveness.

Ultimately, breaking down barriers toward education, discrimination in housing, credit, and workplaces, will do more to destroy the word than simply covering a few letters in it. Of course, it's important to also educate children when reading literature and history about the word and why it was used. But I'm absolutely dead set against editing any written piece of work to do this. It's vital that all writing, and especially literature, is understood within the context of the time period it was written.