You are so right. We moved to Boston in the mid 60's from Alabama and my husband heard more racist comments in the barber shop than he heard in Alabama. Of course, my folks would never allow any racist type talk in our house.
One place you can get an idea of the racial atmosphere of a place is the walls of the public men's restrooms. There tends to be a lot of racial graffiti in the Washington, D.C. area, but the worst place I have ever seen is Honolulu.
There seems to be a lot of homosexual graffiti in the Bible Belt but not much in California.
Maybe public restroom graffiti reflects frustrations and suppressed impulses in the local population.
I seemed to see an increased amount of wife-swapping graffiti in the restrooms of interstate highways--along with quite a bit of homosexual graffiti.
I'm really not intreagued with graffiti, but it does seem to reveal some things.