A couple of notes:  I want to thank Kim for transferring the gist of our conversation over from Facebook.  I am Facebook friends with hundreds of former students there, and it is as closed a space as Facebook allows.  It is "public" in the sense that my friends can see it or copy and paste it elsewhere, but it is not searchable or readable by strangers.  So I am grateful for Kim's willingness to bring her comments to this much more public forum.  I should also note that our school policy does not allow faculty and current students to be "friends" on Facebook, a policy I fully support.  In addition, all alums are welcome to call me by my first name once they graduate, whenever THEY are ready.  Some do so immediately.  Some never do.

So in regard to you comments above Kim, I have continued to think about this.  It may be true that a small section of society as claimed the n-word as one of camaraderie, but as long as the rest of the population is not able to use it in this way, and I am quite clear that they can not, I don't think this is a legitimate "change" in meaning of this word. It's just slang used by a small segment of society, and most will never understand it in that way. There are a lot of words that mean something to rappers, but those words are not used outside of that community. Whether folks will be able to say slut in a positive way as a matter of course remains to be seen, but I'm not holding my breath. As long as we live in a society that values monogamy, I think this word is going to remain negative.

One last thought.  You warn people that your language may be offensive but do not apologize, as you do not find it to be so.  The warning is great, but do you think it's really that simple?  Is it up to individuals to decide if their own speech is offensive?  People say offensive things that are offensive to others all the time, sometimes on purpose, sometimes thoughtlessly. And it is the ability to offend that is part of the power of language.  But if it up to the speaker to determine the offense, why is anything offensive?  How does something become offensive?  Maybe we can talk about this some more.

Thank you Kim for stopping by and sharing your thoughts.  As I said to a colleague, I love talking with students and hearing new perspectives.