Racism is in the meaning, not the word, anyway. I've yet to hear someone say Eskimo with racist intent. An inaccurate descriptive term isn't necessarily an instant racist term.
you mean like how the N word isn't racist if it just means a certain type of person and "white people can totally be n-s too!"
No, words can very much be racist, and the only people who get to decide if a word is offensive are the people they are referring to.
More like how black people can use it and no one thinks of it as racistic term, but if white people, say, someone who has grown in mainly black populated neighbourhood, uses it despite using it on exactly same meaning, it somehow becomes racistic?
I know for a fact that there are lot of black folk, both in and out of USA, who don't take offence because none is intended, just like I don't mind being called "snowflake" or some other term that could be considered racistic in some other context.
TL;DR: Intent and context deside if usage of words are racistic, not if someone is offended by them. Because no matter what you say there will allways be someone who finds it "offensive".
Ninja'd:
If a person says something perceived as racist, or in other words something which may be construed as you putting your race above that of another's, then it's not racist if you did not mean to make any comment on superiority. It was just insensitive.
So you are actually arguing that the N word is totally okay because there's always going to be offended by something?
No I am not, and you are intentionally misunderstanding what I said by saying that. I said that
Intent and context deside if usage of words are racistic, not if someone is offended by them
You trying to claim anything else is simply dishonest attempt to try dissmis my my argument for your own strawman. Whita/asian/arab/alien/whatever shouting "you nigger" to a black guy with the intent to insult is racist, same person saying the same thing to a black guy while hugging them after getting nice christmas present is not racistic. Insentitive? Might be, but not racist.
What is up with some white people and this competitive need to use the n word? You can use it when you deal with all the oppression and suffering that comes along with it, and even then only if the people you are referring to are okay with it.
You are the one who picked that word, it's used as an example exactly because people like you try ti limit it's use in non-racistic context, which would only make it less of an racistic term in the long run. Emotional and political charge of an word changes with it's use, and as long as people keep hushing it up as the "n-word" all the negative baggage will remain with it and it will keep having a racist usage. I'm sure there are lot of words that were used as racistic insults hundred years ago that would make people laugh today if someone tried to use them seriously, in non-ironic meaning as an insults, but no one would be offended by it, simply laughing.
Edit: Ninja'd by everyone!