This is a thoughtful and nuanced take on a difficult topic. I agree with one main point: that Tarantino‘s use of the word, like Lenny Bruce’s or George Carlin’s, came from a mistaken assumption that racism had been eradicated. I write more about this here. Nevertheless, I think Devore makes an important error.

Yes, it is creepy and disgusting for a white person to use the N-word. it is however, even worse to murder people and sell heroin. The point about Tarantino‘s universe is that it’s inhabitants are almost completely morally bankrupt. To have them be squeamish about using the N-word while murdering and torturing people would have been ludicrous. it would have been even more ludicrous, in a very Tarantino sort of way, for Samuel Jackson to call Tarantino‘s character on word use when both of them are committing crimes of much greater depravity. such an incident would’ve been a ridicule of the N-word ban, not an endorsement of it. And as another commentator pointed out, To have an Enslaver call his slaves “African Americans” would have been even more ludicrous. Another commentator claims that when young white Americans heard that word in pulp fiction, they concluded it was OK for them to use it. Did these same young people conclude that it was OK to murder and use heroin? Some of them probably did, but that’s another problem altogether different from word-use issues.

The N-word is a uniquely monstrous verbal artifact, and enclosing it in a network of taboos is uniquely justified. But those taboos must be limited to social interactions, not artistic expressions. A variety of racial words have been recently banned from contemporary social use. The N-word is the only one that cannot even be mentioned in society, let alone used. (The philosopher Quine would mark the distinction between use and mention by putting a mentioned word in quotes. I will now mention that the word “mention” has seven letters. when the word “mention” first appears in that sentence, it is used. The second time it is mentioned.)

There was a time when it was somewhat acceptable for a white person to mention the word as long as they didn’t use it. For example, they might say, “Anyone who would use the word “N-word” is a moral degenerate”. That time is now gone, which is why several white people got in trouble recently for merely mentioning the N-word. Nevertheless, It is still acceptable to mention other race-related words that can’t be used, such as “Negro” or (maybe I’m taking a chance here) “Colored”. (at least, when mentioning the full name of the NAACP.) There are several other words that I would bet can’t be mentioned or used today, if someone took the trouble to resurrect them. Some of them would’ve been acceptable use for well-educated northern white people who would never have used the N-word. I’m not gonna list any of those words here, because that’s a bet I don’t want to lose, but we all know that they exist. (and if you put them in the comments on my page, I will block you.)

Those words are all gone from polite social use today, and I am happy to see them go. But the artist must be the shaman and the fool, who says what is forbidden to others. That is the purpose of the secular-sacred spaces of the theater, the recording, the canvas or the editing room. Dialogue spoken in Theater and movies is often acceptable even when the exact same words would be get someone ostracized or even arrested if spoken in a different social context. It’s perfectly acceptable for Humphrey Bogart to say “ Give me all your money or I’ll shoot you between the eyes.“ as dialogue in a movie. It’s not OK to say the same thing to a bank-teller when you are standing in line at the bank.

There is a huge difference between what one can say in a social interaction and what can be said or done on screen. Theater has to portray people doing horrible things in order to have drama. Using the N-word is one of those horrible things, and we should not refrain from accurately portraying the horrors of racial injustice.