Pretty much.
Ill Doctrine: The Last Word on That Word from ANIMALNewYork.com on Vimeo.
There's no difference between african american's owning this word and gay people owning "queer" (except that the 'nuh' word holds far more reactive cache, to the point where I am nearly physically unable to type the 'nuh' word, but am quite fine typing out 'queer').
As a white, waspy-lookin' american male, it's rare that I'm exposed to bigotry towards myself; it's my hidden jewish background that people miss, so when one of the guys at work asks me if I was able to "jew down" the guy who sold me my scooter, he's not acting towards me with bigotry because he doesn't know I'm jewish. But it's maybe the closest I can come to experiencing what most african americans go through on a regular basis in this country.