N word was not a big deal when this book was written and the movie made. The deal was Puzo and FFC were both showing the racism that existed, not so much as the choice of words. I remember very wekk when the movie came out that there was a lot of talk about how the deal was made to sell drugs to the "coloreds" only because they are animals anyway. Vito seemed to go along with that and only wanted it away from schools and away from the Italian neighborhoods....the same thing Michael wanted in III. this is a case of our imposing our views retroactively, which does not work.