"nigger" is nothing more than a Southern dialectical form of the word "Negro" and in Mark Twain's time was understood as such and was not in any way insulting or demeaning. The character Nigger Jim was the wisest and most logical character in Twain's novel Huckleberry Finn, but now illiterates who have never read the novel would want everyone to believe that Twain was a racist (which, unlike nearly every White man in his era he most certainly was not) and to ban his book.
Huckleberry Finn was the most famous novel of its time that protrayed a Black man as something other than a savage beast or a childlike victim, and did a lot to create better racial understanding in a period when it was largely unknown./
The turning of the word into a taboo is simply an ignorant understanding of American history, but it is nonetheless a fact, and any sane White person would simply refuse to use it in any accusatory way simply to avoid the barrage of nonsense that will invariably be flung in his direction should he use it. You may have a right to rollerskate in the proverbial buffalo herd, and White folks may have the right to use the "n-word", but both actiuvities are both futile and unwise in the extreme.
It cannot be libelous in any legal sense to call anyone by the word or any other unpleasant ethinc slur words, and this is why the supposedly offended members of the audience Richard offended and their opportunistic lawyer (all enjoying their 15 minutes of fame) want to get Richards to agree to be judged out of court by some retired judge, because everyone recognizes that there is no legal case here whatever.
Richards deserves not to get any gigs until he becomes a lot funnier. The "victims" of his tirade deserve a refund of their ticket price and perhaps tickets to a truly funny show at most.
Far too many words have been wasted on this topic already.
