"The implication of calling someone Fredo, like that of the alt-right insult 'cuck,' is of weakness, specifically a failure to live up to the masculine ideal."

"But Fredo is more of a complex, tragic figure than political mudslinging would allow....  In 'The Godfather,' [John] Cazale gave Fredo that sense of well-meaning haplessness.... The second 'Godfather' film brought Fredo into the foreground (not his natural place in the family portrait) and deepened him. Fredo’s involvement in a bungled attempt on Michael’s life ('I know it was you'), which leads Michael to succumb to his darkest instincts and commit fratricide, is at the movie’s tragic core, and it gives Cazale the most beautifully acted scenes of his career. The most iconic is the brothers’ conversation in the boathouse, when Fredo pitifully pleads for respect: 'Send Fredo off to do this. Send Fredo off to do that. Let Fredo take care of some Mickey Mouse night club somewhere. . . . I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says!' Cazale delivers this feckless rant with wide-eyed rage and self-pity, flopping up and down in his lounge chair like a beached guppy."



"But my favorite moment comes just before he’s whacked, as he sits with his young nephew Anthony by the lake with their fishing gear...."



"It’s probably the only time Fredo ever outshone his brothers.... Fredo’s death is as wrenching as it is only because we care so deeply about him—he’s pathetic, sure, but he has reserves of humanity that he never got to express, holding himself to an impossible yardstick of power and violence when all he wanted to do was go fishing....  More than four decades later, Fredo’s still not getting any respect, but at least he’s getting noticed."

From "Respect for Fredo, a Character Who Is So Much More Than a Political Insult" by Michael Schulman (The New Yorker).

Lots of people have been asking whether it's true — as Chris Cuomo asserted — that "Fredo" is the equivalent of the n-word. I think a big difference is that Fredo is a specific character. To call an Italian "Fredo" is more like calling a black person "Uncle Tom." With that kind of insult, we could go back to the origin of the character, as Schulman is doing with Fredo. But that's not what we usually do. The character takes on a meaning of his own within the insult. You won't be able to get away with calling someone "Uncle Tom" by detailing what's in "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

The Wikipedia article, "Uncle Tom," is broken into sections, with "Original characterization" ("a rejection of the existing stereotypes of minstrel shows... a Jesus-like figure") separate from "Epithet" ("an excessively subservient person, particularly when that person perceives their own lower-class status based on race... [or] who betrays their own group by participating in its oppression, whether or not they do so willingly").

It's interesting to go back to the original meaning of a term, but it won't and shouldn't get you off the hook when you use an epithet here and now.