ProJo deletes Pickaninny comment

The ProJo has gotten around to deleting the back and forth among two commenters on its Politics blog that began when one of them said that recently deceased Newport denizen and GOP icon Eileen Slocum . . .

once referred to her half-white, half-black grandchildren as "my little pick-aninnies" and got away with it. These were the offspring of daughter, Beryl and her husband, Adam Clayton Powell III. They just don't make 'em like Eileen anymore. Farewell, my lady.

The sometimes-accurate Wikipedia has this to say about the word in question:

Pickaninny (also picaninny or piccaninny) is a term – generally considered derogatory – that in English usage refers to black children, or a caricature of them which is widely considered racist. It is a pidgin word form, which may be derived from the Portuguese pequenino ("little little [one]").