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By John McWhorter

Opinion Writer

I was still processing the election last week when I got to see a new production by Encores! of the musical “Ragtime.” It was sublime. The show, which is based on the novel by E.L. Doctorow, follows a Black pianist in the early 1900s as he encounters and responds to racial violence. That pianist, Coalhouse Walker Jr., is a fictional character, but other characters include real-life celebrities of the period such as Emma Goldman, Booker T. Washington and Harry Houdini.

The score is a soaring masterpiece. Somehow the lyricist Lynn Ahrens and the composer Stephen Flaherty, despite their long record of great work, are not often discussed in the hushed tones they deserve. Every song lands — ragtime as pretty as Scott Joplin’s, solid modern Broadway ballads and more, all cohering into a single organic work. The performances were stupendous, too, exceeding the already high standard set by previous Broadway productions.

But it was a small thing about the show that left the biggest impression on me. When the leader of the white toughs taunts and threatens Walker, he uses the N-word. Repeatedly.

These days, not just the use but even the mention of the word is regarded as taboo, with teachers reluctant to assign “Huckleberry Finn” and people’s careers reportedly ended for using the word even in quotation. But with “Ragtime,” short of never again reviving this epic musical, there is no way of getting around the word. No substitute word would ring true, and the scenes in which it’s spoken are too central to the plot to be coyly deleted. You have to, as it were, say Voldemort.

In simply using the word with no trigger warning, this........

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