A meme has gradually been accepted in the American media that if someone uses “the n word” in the hearing of a dark-skinned American, he is fully justified in any and all response. Up to and including mass murder.
This is very odd, as there is no other word that “justifies” such extreme reaction.
Part of the reason is the word is simply the southern pronunciation of “Negro.” As a white southern thing it is totally anathema because white southerners are anathema. The problem with the words is the attitudes of the people who speak. That is why blackafricannegro Americans have gone through so many changes in what it is permitted to call them. The viewpoint doesn’t change so each new term quickly becomes heard as a word of biased bigoted opprobrium. The problem is too much of that population got itself stuck on the proletarian level taking their living from the government in a society that should not have more than a vestigial proletariat and even the lefties see black folks in unflattering stereotypes and they work hard to keep them in those stereotypes.