On October 10th, 2014,

the @washingtonpost produced this extraordinary project about the "N-Word." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dre/features/the-n-word

This prompted an op-ed piece by the often incendiary @piersmorgan,

which, as he's known for, generated a typical firestorm on social media:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2829080/PIERS-MORGAN-black-Americans-want-N-word-die-kill-themselves.html

I felt this latest public vetting of this very old controversy is a good time to call attention to a documentary by Todd Larkin Williams that got of notice in 2004, but not a lot since. Sadly, it's not complete on Youtube, but what is here, is pretty interesting and surfaces just a few of the many ways this issue is and has been discussed by people of all colors and from all walks of life.  Here;s some back story on it.
 

The N-Word Documentary

List of interviews

Part 1  – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN1JengGaZg
Part 2 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLTazJIkrGc
Part 3 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLaII-v-jMo
Part 4- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rq5jQ_4iTw
Part 5-  Missing
Part 6 – Missing
Part 7 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ8e9RI5DH0

Tim Wise on the use of the word "nigger/nigga." 

"No, white people should never use it. History has been a double standard, so get over it."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmLXZ6_PW9A

Wynton Marsalis, the renowned black musician disagrees with Wise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ5dOOoBydM

My opinion on this issue is irrelevant, and has nothing to do with why I produced this post.

I feel it's the media's job, as well as our educational system's role to help discuss these kinds of issues in thoughtful and informative ways without always maligning or impugning people merely for having an opinion about a controversial topic.  These issues must transcend race because we are a multi-racial planet. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone should be able to voice theirs. Yeah, even Piers Morgan.

Related

Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word by Randall Kennedy

It’s “the nuclear bomb of racial epithets,” a word that whites have employed to wound and degrade African Americans for three centuries. Paradoxically, among many black people it has become a term of affection and even empowerment. The word, of course, is nigger, and in this candid, lucidly argued book the distinguished legal scholar Randall Kennedy traces its origins, maps its multifarious connotations, and explores the controversies that rage around it.