What Word? What Word?

While standing at my post at my workplace tonight, outside by the front entrance, a woman walked with her family toward the doors. "N-word! N-word!," she exclaimed.

N-word, N-word? So outwardly offensive and yet still keeping it safe by public airways standards.

Of course, she was only instructing her small familial parade to keep marching out of the cold night and into the warm building ahead. "Inward! Inward!" Still, I grinned at the weird way I first heard that.