Oh, I was just watching something where they were making a contemporary movie of Life on the Mississippi, and they got around the problem by just calling him N-Word Jim.
I read that book a couple of times to my son before he could read - 4 to 6 years old I suppose? I used the word once and explained to him what it meant, and how times have changed and we don’t use that word anymore. So how about we just use his name - “Jim”.
At some point my son asked why he used a bad word in describing his friend Jim - and who he risked his own freedom to help escape? I tried to explain again that back then it wasn’t as bad of a word - or if it was, it was commonly used.
Fast-forward years later and my son is in grade-school, junior high or something. He said something like “It’s so stupid how they want to ban that book because of the ‘N-word’. Huck is friends with Jim, sees him for who he is as another boy, and helps him get free! The book is the exact opposite of being racist!”
Oh - I guess the prof got his answer to the question. It is worse to call a black man something than to hit him.
Remember when the first deep space probe went to Uranus and how the liberal PC NPR and PBS had this woman saying “You-rin-us” because they don’t know how to pronounce the planets name “You-rain-us. Of course the kids had fun with that name.