The Cat-Tribe wrote:1. No racist meaning to the person that doesn't know it has a racist meaning =/= "no racist meaning".
This comes back to "inherent" meaning. Sure, most people associate racism with the word "nigger" this is not an unalterable "fact" however. Look even at many members of the black community themselves who use the word as a self-labeling, but not in a racist, or offensive manner.
The Cat-Tribe wrote:and then you say words have no inherent meanings. I guess dictionaries are just nonsense.
Your representation of his viewpoint and your conclusion don't follow. Who said anything about dictionaries? I have a dictionary from the 1800's, in German, you mean to tell me that every single word in that dictionary means exactly the same thing it does today? Look at the word "gay" which has several recent changes in meaning. Pop at one point never meant a beverage, but now it does. Dictionaries attempt to give as many current meanings of a word as is generally applicable, but the words change, frequently. The claim that 'if words have no inherent meanings, then all dictionaries are wrong!' is whimsical, and nonsensical, the conclusion simply doesn't follow.
The Cat-Tribe wrote:3. Now you are moving the goalposts. Did I say that anyone that uses the word "nigger" must have a racist intent? No. I just said the word has a racist meaning. That is it's primary meaning. And the theoretical possibility that someone might use the term "nigger" to describe black people without knowing it is prejorative doesn't change the facts that (1) it is prejorative and (2) it is reasonable to assume one using the word knows it is prejorative.
Has racist meaning
to many people. It is not a
fact that the word is a pejorative. Many people understand it in a pejorative sense, certainly, but merely because a lot of people find a word racist, does make that fact. Again, citing that many black people themselves use the term, and I doubt that your argument suggests that any black person who has ever called another black person a "nigger" is a black-person-hating-racist, but by following your logic, one would encessarily arrive at that very conclusion.