N-word presentation from today's class

In today's class someone talked about the use of the N-word and how it's just become so natural to some people that we don't even think of what it really meant to people 100 years ago.  While she was talking about it, I was thinking how much I hear that word everyday.  Don't freak out! My family isn't racist. My husband says it all the time, but he's black so I guess that's ok.  It's weird because I hear some people that are white just throwing that word around with their friends like it's part of their basic vocab.  I could never bring myself to say it, not even in a joking matter.  I went to Prairie View A&M University for a year and all of my friends there were black.  It's a historical black college in the Houston area.  I remember they'd be like, "Susan, you can say it."  I would always laugh and tell them no thanks.  I know if I did they wouldn't take offense but still it just wasn't something that felt natural for me to say.  Don't get me wrong, I unfortunately have the mouth of a sailor, but the N-word just seems like the ultimate disrespect and is too negative for me to say.  In society today, we have taken that word and transformed it into something completely different.  It literally meant ignorant and was used for whites to disrespect african americans, so why today do we use it as a term of endearment?  It's all over music, television, movies, you name it.  I think we've forgotten how that word really made people feel even 50 years ago.  My daughter is 1/2 black, 1/4 mexican, and 1/4 white.  She has a wide variety of cultures swimming around in her.  I hate to think that that word will come out of her mouth one day.  It is reality however that we get more and more progressive and liberal as time goes on.  Hopefully one day our generation will understand what that word really meant and the shame it carries with it.  Well that's my 2 cents, spend it wisely.  <------always wanted to say that :)