I've heard Republicans use it. I've heard Democrats use it. Idiots abound everywhere. But the few times I've heard "nigger" said -- I am NOT going to go wishy-washy here and say "the n-word"; this is part of the problem; the word itself must be defused, somehow, and that starts by not being afraid to say it in a non-perjorative manner -- by Republicans, it's been when they've really completely blown their cool on an issue and are almost using the term simply because it's so vitriolically charged that it supercedes almost any other curse word they can come up with. But very rarely do I hear it used. Hardly ever. I did, however, want to say that yes...I've heard it used. But again, rarely, and no more by Republican cohorts than Democrat cohorts (although I try to stay away from bothering to debate politics with the few Democrats I know; all but the consultants are mind-bogglingly stupid).
Again, hardly ever. Far less often than I've heard the c-word used to refer to women, and that is EXTREMELY rare, and, again, seems to be used when a less-than-intelligent Republican has totally blown his cool over one specific woman. So no, on the par, informed Republicans do not use that word, ever, unless, say, a guy like me is writing to a post like this and *discussing* the word itself (in other words, not using it in a nasty manner).
I am not sure what to make of this. Is the GOP really regarded as racists by the average woman?
Absolutely. Even more so by the highly-educated woman. In fact, I recall reading a while back that while those who graduate with Bachelor's degrees tend to lean more towards the right, those who go on to get Master's degrees are HEAVILY weighted to the left. Chalk it up to more liberal brainwashing. I spent five years at UC Berkeley and witnessed a complete, neatly-packaged, liberal parcel of crud shoved down everybody's throats. Republicans/conservatives are mean. They're nasty. They destroy the environment. They want old people to die without the aid of social security. The want to destroy the earth and build a floating Deathstar. It never ended. I recall walking out on one Econ class after the professor opened up the session with a completely non-related rant against conservatives.
And you want to know the worst thing? The liberal indoctrination that I received a UC Berkeley (which, luckily, fired up my contrarian nature and drove me to further study conservative philosophy) -- PALES in comparison to the liberal brainwashing they tried to heap onto me in middle school, high school, and even earlier -- in the lovely, predominantly-white suburb of Wellesley in which I live now and was born and raised in. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is worse than White Suburban Guilt. These are the folks who vote straight party-line Democrat, keep Barney Frank and John Kerry in power, pat themselves on the back for being such open-minded, intelligent, tolerant people -- and they're also the same people who would faint dead away if a black person moved in next door, or immediately phone the police if they just happened to see a black man walking on the streets (it's happened -- anybody remember the Dee Brown incident out here?)
From Day One, I was taught that Democrats were the champions of racial equality and that Republicans were racist and misogynist. What eventually emerges -- unless you manage to get ahold of some good conservative reading on your own, as I did, and seek out conservatives to talk with and listen to -- is a mindset that teaches people that being a Democrat is the same thing as being a good, moral person. Being a Republican is simply evil. It's drilled into you. Facts? These people don't care about facts (there are already a host in this thread that don't need repeating). Being a Democrat is the morally "right" thing to do. Here's an anecdote, from Berkeley -- I once made a woman cry...because I tried to calmly explain to her why I was against affirmative action. I told her the conservative line; that it is a coddling of minorities; that it is disrespectul to minorities; that it produces a culture in which the seed of doubt is planted in people's minds regarding intelligent people who have benefited from affirmative action -- because the bitter thought always lingers that perhaps they're in their position simply because of affirmative action and not because of their merits. I made this argument very coherently, very logically, with no malice whatsoever; it was merely an attempt to explain my position. The girl in question broke out into tears, banged her fists on the table, and demanded to know how someone as intelligent as me could be such a heartless bastard. Then she ran off. Needless to say, I didn't get a second date. ;-) The moral of the story is that when these people -- most especially the White Suburban Guilt Libs -- are confronted with facts and reason, they respond with histrionics and outbursts, because what you are telling them goes directly against they've ever been told makes a "good" person -- i.e., a good Democrat.
Now, mind you, I am ashamed to admit that I have relatives who do indeed freely say "that nigger" about any black man or woman. Or rail about the "niggers" taking over "our society". Were they not forced upon me over the holidays by the other reasonable members of my family, I would have nothing to do with them. They speak the same way about gays. I usually leave the room as soon as humanly possible and begin to thank God that my parents raised me to have a brain. I also still hold out hope that maybe there was a mix-up somewhere and I'm actually not related to these people at all. ;-)
Of course, these same morons are life-long registered Democrats, voted for Clinton twice, and for Gore in '00. Go figure. :-)
Keep in mind that the ladies I was out with regard me as a friend and I hardly did anything except have an NRA sticker in my cube that would mark me as a partisan.
Heh, out here in Mass., an NRA sticker in your cubicle wouldn't mark you as partisan, it'd mark you as a certifiable lunatic. :-) That's why I loved hanging out with a friend of mine who had NRA stuff all over his cube, plus a liberal (in the good sense :p) dosage of "Geeks with Guns" stickers around. On a side note -- he's told me many times that the two most helpful groups in the various pro-2nd-amendment rallies he goes to are The Second Amendment Sisters (pro-2nd. amend. women) and the aptly-named "Pink Pistols" (pro-2nd. amend. gays) because, as he said, "The rest of us are so damned worn out from trying to explain we're trying to protect a constitutional right and not just randomly secure the right to shoot people on sight, it really helps to have the Sisters and the Pink Pistols in there because they have so much more *energy* -- they're relatively new groups and haven't been completely wearied by the hogwash yet."
Anyway, in closing, I would recommend that you give the women in question the facts that have been posted in this thread by others -- I'm guessing they will react on a purely emotional level and reject the facts, however, so keep on them...ask them to give YOU facts...ask them, as someone else suggested, to keep track of who says "nigger" and what party they're affiliated with...and if they have the patience (and the honesty to tell the truth), they'll find that true Republicans/true conservatives still do represent the party of Lincoln. But keep at them. You have to dish the truth out to these people repeatedly; they've been brainwashed for too long by the schools, the universities, the media, et al, into believing that Republican is simply a synonym for "evil". If you keep hitting them with facts, eventually they'll either give up the argument (yet somehow still claim they've won, liberals are great at fooling themselves) -- or maybe, just maybe, you can explain that the Republicans, in fact, are the people who want to address the root causes of racial inequality; to take on the cancer at the root -- and that all the Democrats propose are band-aids -- infected band-aids -- as solutions. They're also the party in whose interest it is to fuel racial hatred and an "us-vs-them" mentality, as it keeps their base intact and, more important to any Democrat, their power intact. But don't give up on this debate! Maybe, just maybe, you might get them to think about things in a rational manner, and change one person's mind -- and if you can do that, you've won a major battle. Keep fighting the good fight. The cause is just, the message is clear, and we have to get it out and keep getting it out to as many people as we can.
--KL
P.S. Re: Racist FReepers -- Admittedly, I've only been back at FR for a few months now, and I'm sure there are some racist whackos on here, but I have had the good fortune not to run into them yet in threads, and I highly doubt that they'd last long -- this isn't the place for them, and I can't see any FReeper I know bothering to even acknowledge them (except perhaps to make some good fun at their expense).
You know that does sound kind of cool.
BTW, my girlfriend dropped her democratic registration the other day :)