While I respect your ability to disagree with me, I will note the flaw in your attempted ethos. First, you claim to, "...live in the hood." So, because you live in, "...the hood," and have not experienced two black Americans greeting each other that way, it's thus not an issue? There's a problem with your appeal to credibility. You must not be familiar with movies like, "Half Baked," "How High, " etc. Secondly, I lived on multiple military bases in my life. I attended middle school in Kansas, where caucasians [which, I am] were ethnic minority students. They use the phrase in the way I described. Maybe they don't do it everywhere, but that's not the principle.
Next, you assert that it isn't okay for non-black Americans to use the phrase. Here's another disagreement we have. I have a friend who is a black American named lucky. I went through four years of Purdue University with this guy and I still have no idea what his real name is, but yet we use the phrase with each other regularly. He is not the only one I share this degree of intimacy with. We are in good rapport with each other. Therefore, you are attempting to impose your values by stating, "Even if it is a friendly racial slur used among black americans, doesn't mean its an okay foe non black americans to use." I don't share that value and I do not agree with you, friend.
Next, did you know that "Nigger" is actually a variation of the word "Negro," which comes from the word "Negroid"? "Negroid" derives from the scientific expression for that group of people (the corollary to the word, "Caucasian" for white people). Yes, the word may have been used in a derogatory way in the 1800s and 1900s, but it is a bit more complicated than that. Aside from also being a term of endearment to some, it's also a derogatory word toward people of other races.
Do I have a credibility problem because I am in the ethnic majority? Perhaps. Is there a problem with the logical and rationale? I don't think so, but that's for others to decide. I believe in fairness. I like Roman's earlier post about admins looking at chatlogs. I agree with that perspective. If he had not clarified that point, I would have made the next assertion that the words "cracker" and "honky" were added to this long list of unacceptable phrases.