I don't think Debito Arudou has ever been called a "nigger." I have. I have also been called a "gaijin" by every conceivable age group in Japan. I am also a Japanese citizen. You have to start with your own community and be visible as a member of the community to make people understand the word is wrong.
I have no more distaste for the word "nigger" than I do for the word "black." There is no such thing as a black person. It is a social construction designed to rob people of African descent of their cultural heritage.
As Morgan Freeman said to Mike Wallace on the news-feature TV program "60 minutes": "I'm going to ask you to stop calling me black and I'm going to stop calling you a white man." Maybe we can make the same deal about the word "gaijin."
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