This is the 1st time in the story that we see the blatant racism in the language of the time period. Reading the story back I thought it would be misleading to portray life in those times without including basic brutal truths - the use of this word to address enslaved people, for example, was constant, forced into their reality on a daily basis. I don't use it lightly.

That word would've been used a lot more back then as a description rather than an epithet. For example, a couple of decades ago I was shopping for a used TV at a repair shop. The TV I was looking at had Clarence Thomas on the screen. A man next to me casually remarked, "Look at how good the colors look on the n-----." The owner gave me a look imploring me to not say anything. I didn't, but probably should have.