For years, I’ve argued with certain African-American people about their insistence upon using the so-called N-word which, to my ears, is, inalterably, a statement of self-loathing. They say I don’t understand. They say the word no longer means what it has always meant. They say it’s just a friendly fraternal greeting.

I say one cannot arbitrarily decide that a word — especially an old and bloodstained word — suddenly means something other than what it always has. I say that, while language does change over time, it doesn’t do so because a few of us want it to or tell it to. And I say that if I call you an “idiot,” but say that “idiot” now means “genius,” you will be no less insulted.

Does that seem logical? If so, then perhaps you can understand my impatience with people who insist on defending the Washington football team whose nickname is a racial slur.