I need help with the N-word.

I really need help putting the n-word into the right context.

Let me begin with what I know.  It's a bad word.  It's derogatory.  It's mean.  It's incendiary. It's a word that I have never used as an insult to someone of any color.  I heard my grandma say it once when I was very small, sometime in the 70s, and it surprises me that I still remember it clearly. In her defense, she never said it again and I heard her, through her words and actions, wrestle with her feelings about those with dark skin after having grown up in a very white and fairly uneducated place.  I don't blame her or hold that over her; she recognized her own bigotry and worked through her feelings to overcome it.  It's a word that people use to put dark-skinned people in a subjugated place. I know what it feels like; I remember the first time I heard someone say they wanted to "Jew down" a price for something.  It gives you an ugly empty feeling in the pit of your stomach and then anger wells up after the initial emotional hit.

I also know that dark-skinned people use the n-word.  I am conflicted about using the term "black people" because they are not black just as I am not white. To me it's like using "darn" instead of "damn" -we all know what you meant to say.  I digress.....

Dark-skinned people use the n-word to address each other and I get it. For blacks, it's an identity or cultural term. It's still ugly, though. I don't call my white friends "crackers" or "Betty Crocker".  Why would dark-skinned people call each other that awful word?  And it's common. I heard it in my elementary and middle school.  Little kids called each other that ALL. THE. TIME.  I heard it in a rap this morning during my workout. How is this okay?  I don't care if it means something different from black to black or not; it's not right.  I told my black students that it is confusing for everyone if they use a disparaging term for each other but then get offended if a white student would use the same word to the same group of students. I told them they have to model respect for their own culture if they wanted others to respect them. Is this wrong?

As a teacher, both in my own home with my own children and with the kids at my school, that we need to model the kind of behavior and language we want children to emulate.  I don't use derogatory terms with children or in front of children.  I just don't (I do catch myself, however, sometimes using derogatory words for bad drivers-oops).  If dark-skinned people do not want anyone else to use "their terms", it can not be a double standard.  It's still an insult to use "Penny Chaser" to a fellow Jew -it's not an appropriate cultural term. It's mean to call a Mexican a "Border Bandit" when said to a friend or in jest. Why do blacks think it's okay to call each other "the n-word" (I didn't even want to type it)? 

Help me understand this.  If you don't want people to use a word, don't use it for yourself. And, call out those who do. That's my opinion and it seems simple to me, so clearly I'm missing something. Sure, my pink-ness is showing, but I think it reflects a larger issue of use of this word in the greater environment.  How can you teach people to respect you and your culture if you yourself use potentially derogatory terms that only you get to interpret?  It is confusing and makes the term ripe for misuse.  We all know that "Penny Chaser" and "Border Bandit" are derogatory and members of those cultures do not use them as a cultural term (I can't vouch for insults), so, we do not use those terms.  At all.  It seems to solve a larger problem if the same guidelines are used for the n-word. Additionally, if you do work to model and teach respect for your own culture, it becomes easy to identify those who are truly racist when they do not respect you or yours.  Words matter.

Editing to add:

After I published this, I decided to clarify that I am NOT blaming dark-skinned people for the cultural mis-appropriation of the n-word.  That is not my intent and I do not blame black culture for this. I want to make that very clear. I am simply trying to understand how to deal with this word and what an appropriate action/reaction should be on my part.