What about Mark Twain and “Nigger Jim”? Does the simple use of the word make Twain racist, or is it more complicated than that?
Words change meaning and usage over time.
By 1880 the word was most definitely derogatory. Would you support its removal from the novel?
I’d be surprised if anyone on this site, of all places, would be okay with that type of revisionism, though I’ve always thought that the proposed “clean” version would be useful for schools where they might otherwise not read the book at all.
I think a good way of handling it would be to have the original version preserved in such a way that it can be looked up easily for academic studies or education, even if that’s not the “default” format available to the public.