In an epically unhinged racist rant on Tuesday, conservative entertainer Rush Limbaugh said that because of Zimmerman trial witness Rachel Jeantel’s post-trial CNN interview, he will now take it upon himself to use the “n-word,” but with an ‘a’ at the end because “it’s not racist.”

Limbaugh said that Trayvon “called Rachel and told her that he was being followed by a ‘creepy-ass cracka.’ We have now learned that that is a person acting like they are a police. Who like a security guard.” [sic]

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He went on to play a segment from Jeantel’s interview with Piers Morgan, in which Jeantel said she wished she hadn’t said the word “nigga” on the stand.

“People, the whole world says that it’s a racist word,” she explained, but the term “nigga” is now used as a term of affection between young African-Americans, a way of defusing the power of the epithet “nigger,” which has been used by whites as the ultimate insult against people of color for generations.

Limbaugh declared that therefore it’s okay for him to use the word “nigga,” too.

“So, ‘nigga’ with an ‘a’ on the end,” he said. “Well, I think I can now. Isn’t that the point? Cos it’s not racist. That’s the point. I could be talking about a male. A Chinese male, the guy at the laundromat. I could be talking about a man. That’s what she said it means.”

Watch the video, embedded below via Media Matters:

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[Rush Limbaugh caricature via Donkey Hotey’s Flickr Photostream, Creative Commons licensed]