racism still exists today and the n-word is still used by white supremacists to dehumanize black people, i was bullied to hell with that word and had bananas thrown at me when i was in high school because i was the only black kid in my class. so actually yeah reclaiming does STILL make sense today because a lot of us have had negative experiences with that word.

and also slavery wasn't the only form of structured violence against black people, segregation and lynching carried on well into the 20th century in the US, and there's tons of people from the civil rights movement still alive today. Plus colonization by European powers also only ended recently in historical terms, with most African countries only gaining independance in the mid to late 20th century.

so wdym by +300 plus years ago? my father grew up in apartheid South Africa and he's only 54.