I enjoyed talking to these great @usc undergrads & profs about free speech & academic freedom, for which I’m a fierce advocate: Black & other socially marginalized dissidents wind up bearing the brunt of crackdowns on transgressive utterances by status quo defenders & apologists. Understandably, many find the N-word I deploy in my scholarship offensive & dehumanizing—a form of “hate speech.” For them, the word’s deeply racist roots make any & all current-day uses of it tainted fruit of the poisonous tree. The NAACP formally buried it in Detroit in 2006!