Like I said, silly. Thanks for proving my point.
Such discussions always lead me to read up on the subject. Even on Wikipedia you can find some "neat" history. For instance the word "n----er" (the N word) is old and dates back over 500 years into various European and other languages. It derives from the word for "black" in various languages. There is no specific date or incident where suddenly the word took on such negative connotation. But, in the US, somewhere around 1775 the N word started being used as a racial slur. It predates that in other parts of the world. In 1851 a Boston society for the abolition of slavery published a weekly paper and in one issue said blacks, or negros, which was the accepted term at that time, should stop using the N word themselves if they wanted to stopped being called that. It's 2020...sorry Boston society...no dice.
Mark Twain never used the N word in his narrative, but he did use it in dialog between characters, who would have used the word. Twain used "negro" when he was writing as the all-knowing narrator in a novel.
Just a few historic tidbits.
Yeah, Boston is muy comfortable using that word, in whatever form.