The latest round of controversy at the New York Times followed the insane firing of reporter Donald McNeil Jr. for repeating the n-word in a conversation about other people using it. The Times initially defended the ridiculous argument that “we do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent,” a standard that is so completely divorced from common sense that . . . I’d make up a comical reductio ad absurdum example of the stupidity of this, but the most extreme possible example already actually happened with the firing of a black school security guard in Madison, Wis., in 2019 when …