They are repurposing the word for their own uses. By taking ownership of it they recycle it into something else. The community is not a monolith so it's irrelevant whether some agree or not. I'm not sure why you bring gays into this. It's a faulty parallel. We're talking about almost four centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, and general discrimination. This was the iconic descriptive used to diminish an entire race for centuries, there isn't a single word used against gays that has that sort of longevity. Now a community has taken the word back. And every year their ownership of the word diminishes its pejorative context
I mentioned gays simply because there has been a reclaiming of the F-word within some of the (also non-monolithic) community. This is partly clouded, I suspect, because people in the US
only use that word in a highly insulting manner (never to mean a cigarette, or anything else), which is why I don’t understand why some use it with each other, while not wanting others to use it.
To be clear, I wasn’t trying to equate historical treatment. Clearly the history of slavery and racism are worse than anything I can think of. Nevertheless there are insulting words for other groups, as
@the AntiPusher mentioned previously: “Is it okay to call my Asian friends Chinks or slopes, or Mexican friends Wetbacks or Jews 'Hymie because they may refer to each other as Heeb or Jewboy.” I would add “kike” to that list — a word solely associated with Jews (a group with a long history of mistreatment and discrimination), and used exclusively in a highly insulting manner.
For the N-word, I found
this in an online dictionary, which includes this section: “There have been efforts by those of African descent to reclaim the word (especially in the form
nigga), but these efforts are controversial and some people do not believe it is able to be reclaimed due to its fraught history and continued derogatory usage.
[5] Regardless, usage by non-blacks is still almost invariably considered highly offensive.”
For the F-word, I found this: “In North America,
fag is often considered highly offensive, although some gay people have tried to reclaim it.”
As I see it, reclaiming only ultimately reinforces these words, separating instead of bringing people together, which I think is what
@Murat Baslamisli has also been discussing.
