I'm afraid the line will have to remain just where it's drawn for the near future, since what really matters with words is the speaker's intention, and intentions are hard to judge—which of course is why you feel the need to turn around the book. Others may judge your (or the book's) intentions wrongly. Kind of sucks, though, because I do agree with my friend that giving negative epithets, racial and otherwise, too much power is a bad thing. Gay people seem to be the only ones to successfully re-appropriate/redefine such words in positive ways.

Sorry for the delay in posting your comment. For some reason it was identified as "junk," so I just found it today. It was not junk, not in the least!