Just amazing. And this from a country full of people who can’t even pick out most other countries on a map, even the ones they’ve bombed. A country that apparently thinks some Palestinian, East Indian, Russian, Japanese, etc kid rapping along to a popular song is using “forbidden” words. I think Americans should worry less about their empty words, and more about their actions which the rest of the world judges them by.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think a lot of Americans are racist or not because of some words. I do think it’s a racist country because of their prison system, shooting and strangling unarmed black men, the systemic racial poverty, the Birther conspiracy, and who they go to war for and against. No amount of careful wording will change that.
Why would you presume that an American author talking to an audience in America is discussing worldwide social norms rather than American ones?
And I can assure you Ta-Nehisi Coates has spent plenty of time discussing most, if not all, of the alternate subjects you suggested. I'm sure it would dwarf the amount of time he has spent discussing the N-word by a huge margin.
So yes, the context I’m examining was very much on the table.
Incase you are wondering, I am not an American.
No need to digress to the current geopolitics which has to do with the topic.
