I KNOW PEOPLE, people who are friends of mine, white people who are friends of mine, who use the word nigger like you or I would say motherfucker or cocksucker. Which is to say not often, but often enough to recognize that we say motherfucker and cocksucker more often than we should. I miss a shot in a game of pool and I bark, "Cock-SUCK-er!"

Sometimes afterwards I apologize in front of women. But it's less of an apology than a "God bless you" after a sneeze. "Cocksucker." Sorry. "Motherfucker." Sorry. They're naughty words without the meaning of nigger.

To me nigger isn't only a bad word, it is the unreachable star of bad words. It is the Arc of the Covenant of the unspeakable. It is the frozen flagpole of tongue-worthiness. You could say that nigger is the new cunt but nigger was the old cunt as well. Nigger is a word that has frightened and fascinated me since I was old enough to know not to say it.

I guess my parents never had to tell me not to say motherfucker. They never had to tell me not to say nigger either. My mother set the tone. She was cultured. Academy of Notre Dame and Manhattanville College educated. She used the word jigaboos. Or jigs for short.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright has reminded us why the word nigger will never go away. Not that he is one, but that he thinks I think he's one. He thinks that I go back to that secret society of white people and say, "Did you see what that nigger said?" And he's right in a way. Except that my secret society of white people is as public as Dirty Franks or the Daily DeLeon. And the words that I used to describe the Rev. Wright were, "Did you see what that nutcase said?" There was a nigger lawyer sitting to my left when I said it, and a athiest professor sitting to my right. Neither of them had to ask which nutcase I meant.

Jeremiah Wright, who has become the pedophile priest in Barack Obama's background -- "Why didn't you report this abuse the first time it happened?" -- flew over the cuckoo's nest on Monday at the National Press Club in Washington. After a thoughtful and restrained appearance on PBS with Bill Moyers on Friday night in his first public interview since his famous "God damn America! God damn America!" video became the focus of one of his congregants presidential campaign, Wright allowed the Holy Spirit to reveal his true nature on Monday. And his true nature is pissed off. And not in a Jesus way. Jeremiah Wright is an Old Testament preacher, weaned on Hebrew prophets of doom, not redemption. In other words, a nutcase.

Curiously, while watching him speak I thought of Adolph Hitler -- and, yes, I am comparing Jeremiah Wright to Hitler, another nutcase (albetit a nutcase with one testicle) -- whose manner of speaking was more communicative than the words he used. Jeremiah Wright could have been speaking German, but I would have understood that he was pissed off and not going to take it anymore. And my understanding would have been just as nuanced as my understanding of Hitler speaking a language I do not understand. I didn't need to understand the language to comprehend the anger.

And for Barack Obama this was like presidential candidate John Kennedy hearing Fr. Patbottom explain why he likes altar boys.

What I found incomprehendible about Wright's remarks on Monday was his lack of Christian conscience regarding the impact of his statements on Obama. He knew exactly what he was saying -- nutcases aren't crazy -- and he said it anyway. As distrustful as he is about white America, sounding like a World War II great uncle raging about the Japs until the day he died, Wright did what black people distrustful of authority know not to do. He snitched.

In front of white people he revealed the Gordian knot of rage in the heart of so many successful African Americans. By calling the criticism of his remarks an attack on the Black Church he sounded like a Roman Catholic bishop describing the spiritual sanctity of a confessional booth equipped with a glory hole and saying it's no one else's business . It's a Catholic thing. You wouldn't understand.

Well it isn't. A black thing. A Catholic thing. An anything but American thing. Wrong is wrong, you nutcase. And now you may have poisoned the well for the first black man to have a chance to show this country that "it doesn't have to be this way." You have renewed white America's license to be suspicious. And believe me, I know how many white racists are racing around out there without a valid license.

Let me tell you a story: I was in a bar in South Philly having a terrific time talking to a funny guy I've known for years. This is a racist-friendly Irish bar where I am known to be racially sensitive. Which is to say that when they use the word nigger they look at me and smile. So I see a lot of smiles. This funny guy is telling me a story about this Iranian guy who has become his friend and at first I think it's a story about getting over false impressions or prejudice. But it turns out that the point of the story is that this Iranian guy broke off with a white woman he was dating because he found out that she had a child by a black guy.

The funny guy looks at me with a "YouknowwhatImean?" look and I reply, "Did I ever show you a picture of my granddaughter?" He sort of ignores my first mention and continues seeking my confirmation about the correctness of his and his immigrant friend's revulsion to the white girlfriend's unforgivable past. I persist. "Did I ever show you a picture of my granddaughter?" and something about the way I pull out my wallet to show him Daphne DeLeon's photo leads him to interrupt, "Don't tell me you've got a nigger baby."

And as happily as I could muster, I replied, "As a matter of fact, I do."

I haven't been back to that bar since. Not because of that. Not because I'm angry or hurt or bewildered or even disgusted. But if someone were to ask why, I suppose they would understand if I replied, "The chickens have come home to roost."