I don't know how old you are, but I suggest that you pay attention that I used the words "probably" and "1975". People's attitudes change with time, and if you're old enough to remember those days I suggest that you're wearing rose colored glasses.
If I'm wrong, then it was probably because by 1975 things had changed. Perhaps I should have said 1960. My family came from Ga. a long time ago, so I'm not totally ignorant about Southerners.
Ideas of what's right and wrong change. The word "colored", when spoken by a white person today is considered impolite. Yet that was the "polite" word back then. What it wasn't was the common word used by virtually everybody, at one time or another, before it became a virtual cardinal sin to use it.
That's the major difference. The "N" word, while impolite back then, just wasn't a big deal with anyone. Claiming otherwise is historical revisionism.
Born at Emory Hospital near Atlanta in 1952 and the only time I had my mouth washed out with soap was when I said "nigger" in front of my mother at age 5.
My family came from Ga. a long time ago, so I'm not totally ignorant about Southerners.
Says something about your family....that's all.