Dismissing all of the direct, thoughtful critique of Bostrom’s current letter as just “piling up” about something else is, I am sure, not helpful.
There’s hotheads on twitter cursing at him & hotheads cursing in his defense.
You seem to be implicitly lumping OP here in with that. If that’s not your intent, great, please do say so.
The use-mention distinction doesn’t apply to Bostrom’s ’97 email.
He wasn’t discussing the origin of the N-word. He wasn’t analyzing a quotation, or discussing the use of the term.
He declared, proudly, his belief in a false, racist trope of white superiority, & attempted to give that declaration a veneer of virtue by contrasting it to an actively hateful, more directly antagonistic statement. He imagined a “real” racist to compare himself to. Using the N-word was a rhetorical choice in service of his aim.
It’s not a mention, it’s a usage.
He used it in ’97 to make his claim of white superiority more palatable.
Today, many people are still focusing on that word as intended, rather than directly asking about the content - Does Bostrom still believe there’s a white race with superior intelligence?