You're free to use whatever words you want. That was my point. If you don't like the social consequences of your actions, that's irrelevant to the fact that there are no criminal consequences. Cultural taboos are a completely seperate issue.

It is taboo for white people to use that term due to the long history of oppression by white people against black people. It's not particularly difficult to see why it is considered offensive if you are familiar with American history. That's not to say taboos are rational. Quite to the contrary, nearly all are not.


You're being intellectually dishonest. Did they do anything to deserve genocide? Of course not. But, to insinuate that they had achieved some sort of perfect, utopian society until Europeans came along and killed them isn't factual. To insinuate they never harmed or wronged any of their historical enemies, including Europeans isn't factual. History is far more complicated. It's entirely unreasonable to hold a whole race, European or otherwise, responsible for the actions of their ancestors. It's a perpetuation of the same type of racism that it claims to oppose.