You’re making the right call. Use the “N-word” one time here, and context doesn’t matter... the left will immediately see you as one of those racist Klansman Freepers over there on the FreeRepublic site tossing around racial epithets.
And the Left will deny that they are denying free speech in the interest of “can’t we all get along.” It will be interesting to watch what words will be denied in the coming weeks after Tucson. We’ve already heard a few. Fascinating, somewhat frightening, times we live in.
Methinks you might be a Shakespeare fan.