the 'n' word is not "simply" anything, shockalot. I highly recommend that you either read the book or see the movie "roots" and then maybe you will have a slightly better understanding of how that word is just one example of how our country made a practice of degarding, abusing and killing an entire race for many many years using that word all along the way. It is symbolic in this country of the torment brought to the african american people by their enslavement. That is why african americans are entitled to use it now as a way of turning it around on the rest of us. Some of us, on the other hand, are not entitled to use it because we are not african american and our people did not go through what they went through. It most definitely is a cultural thing in our country. That doesn't mean it is not worth respecting.