I had an interesting conversation with a young American from LA, a mixed-race person who self-identifies as 'black' and likes to talk the talk about Mother Africa, slavery and the white colonial masters. I told him he really needs to go to Guess Where and be told how he's just a 'yellow man,' first argument he gets into, to learn something he doesn't know about racism. (Here in the States, a black person cannot be a racist; it's impossible. Just look at what Marion Barry is getting away with now. Well, he got away with doing cocaine, so...)
My little friend throws the 'n-word' around as if it's no big thing, and he told me that I should start using it too. I tried to make him understand that it's a racist term that a white really couldn't use. That he can get away with that... that's really a form of reverse racism: one set of rules for him, another set for me, but that is just life.
I think the Mods are on the side of the thread, really.