I used to say the N-word in front of my sister just to get a rise out of her. I didn’t say it in a sentence or antything. I just said the word. Her reaction was hilarious, it was like she thought we were in a trendy restaurant in Berlin in 1943 and I said, “I’m a Jew.”
We live in comical, but oddly dangerous, times.
I assume it’s a slurred low rent way of saying negro but since it was probably used by many racists in the past it has taken on a very large pejorative nature. If you use it you are instantly branded as racist and vile if you are white and will get you fired and numerous other bad things.