The Dog, Lenny and the N-Word

I'm not sure why anyone is SHOCKED to hear Duane "The Dog" Chapman, a former biker, drug user, and convicted murderer, use the "n-word."

While, I he's FAR from your typical skinhead racist and has done a lot to atone for his past behavior, his recent apology tour has an insincere ring to it. He sounds like someone desperatly trying to save their job.

Then again, he's an over-the-top kind of person, so this could be his real reaction.

Every time one of these "scandals" comes up, I think about Lenny Bruce's bit on the power we assign to words, the "n-word" in particular:

Well, if all the niggers started calling each other nigger, not only among themselves, which they do anyway, but among others...If President Kennedy got on television and said: 'I'm considering appointing two or three of the top niggers in the country to my cabinet' — if it was nothing but niggers, niggers, niggers — in six months nigger wouldn't mean any more than good night, god bless you... — when that beautiful day comes, you'll never see another nigger kid come home from school crying because some motherpopper called him a nigger.

I'm honestly on the fence this. It makes sense that Chapman lost his show. A&E doesn't really need that kind of PR and bailed.

I understand why the "n-word" has become s a vulgarity. BUT if The Dog had referred to her as a "c*nt", would this national debate even be happening?