taste of ian ross

see his play fareWel. it will challenge and sadden and amuse you.
Ross on the character named Nigger:

'There's a lot of internal racism on reserves, and that's a common nickname if your skin's darker. But by using it I'm also reinforcing one of the play's themes, the power of language. The word has a history and a context, but we still choose to give it power. Some believe you shouldn't use it, others believe you should reclaim it. I'm in the second camp. We can't just not say a word and have it go away. Then you're giving it more weight.'

i'm torn. words like gay, retarded, faggot, and bitch have all been used in the past to persecute and take power away from groups of people. many people, including myself, simply choose not to use these loaded words. but if my goal is to remove the power from the language, is not using it enough? do we need to go further, and "reclaim" these words, as ian ross has suggested? if so, how do we go about doing that?