Nicholas Minucci is a white teenager charged with a hate crime for last year’s baseball bat attack of a black man in New York. Despite evidence to the contrary, he has argued that he was acting in self-defense. More controversially, he has claimed that his use of the “N-word” (that’s “nigga” for the uninitiated) prior to cracking the victim’s skull had nothing to do with racism. Instead, he argued in court yesterday, he was speaking in the vernacular of hip-hop culture.

“There’s a very big difference in the hip-hop world that I come from,” Nicholas Minucci told reporters “I was the only Italian in a school of 2,000 mostly African-American kids. We always called each other ‘nigga’ all the time.”

Right. I wonder if they frequently used each other’s heads for batting practice at this high school too.

According to authorities, Minucci and his friends shouted racial epithets at Glenn Moore, the victim, and two of his friends. Eventually Minucci and his posse caught Moore, and Minucci hit him with the baseball bat and took his sneakers.

Based on the available evidence, this seems like a fairly simple case. Unfortunately, it is being complicated by another issue: the use of the “N-Word.”

In the aftermath of Glenn Moore’s attack, many Black leaders have used his case as further evidence that Black people should stop using the N-word. If Black people didn’t use the term, regardless of their intentions, White’s wouldn’t feel empowered to do the same.

I admit that I sometimes use the N-word rather comfortably (i.e. I like to call niggas, niggas) and I am willing to allow for the possibility that I’m part of the problem. Still, it seems that having such conversations in the same breath that we talk about the current trial is problematic. By placing the “N-Word” at the center of discussion, we are playing into the hands of Manucci’s attornies, who are cleverly creating a context in which the “N-Word” is being prosecuted and not the man who allegedly committed a vicious crime.

I hope that the jurors, even if they believe in the ridiculous notion that “nigga” can only be uttered by Black people if White people have the same right, will not ignore the other critical facts in the case.

Also, I hope that Black people aren’t fooled into believing incidents like these wouldn’t happen if Black people hadn’t implictly given license for White people to use the term. Even if that were true, which it isn’t, Minucci didn’t crack Moore’s skull because he thought he had “N-word” privileges. He did it because he was mean and racist.

To be clear, I’m open to a rigorous and productive public discussion about the virtues and vices of the “N-word.” I just don’t want it to confound an otherwise clear cut case.