Black Republican leader says it's not offensive to disparage a black man as "a negro"

I'd have joked and called Ken Blackwell, the black Republican leader in question, a "negro" in order to prove the point that the word is still offensive, but I won't because the word is, well, just that - incredibly offensive, even in satire. When we appease bigotry, we do incredible damage to the civil rights of African-Americans and every other American. And there's even more damage when the appeaser is a member of the group being disparaged. But somehow I suspect that Ken Blackwell, and his gay Republican and Jewish Republican brothers, aren't so worried about that.