I agree with Hornsby that utterances of slurs may not contain the actual meaning of the slur uttered (such as what a historian would find to be true of the word as Hornsby points out). I agree with this because I know several slurs myself, but I don't have nearly enough knowledge of their origins or meanings. The only knowledge I know of most slurs are the people or group they refer to.
I generally disagree that slurs are "useless" as the author describes them. Just as there are many different ways to say the same thing (synonyms), each one still serves some kind of purpose and has different meaning behind them. There are, of course, better words that we can use to describe a situation and words that give more meaning to our thoughts, but that doesn't mean that lesser forms of communication are useless.
I would ask if using a slur to refer to oneself has any additional meaning or if this would also be considered useless as it doesn't describe anything?
I think when people use slurs to refer to themselves, they generally do it to gain leverage with another person. As you argue that slurs are not useless, they contain denotative meaning (usually that a person is of a certain ethnicity or group) and connotative meaning (negative feelings towards this group). A person may refer to themselves with a slur to solidify their place within a social group, while being slightly self-deprecating to keep this role from being challenged.
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