In the past four decades, I have lived in Southern California, South Texas, North Carolina, and Maine, and I don't think I've heard anyone use the "n" word during that time, except maybe when they were reading or quoting someone, other than on television and in the movies. I had a landlord in North Carolina who was clearly a racist, but even he didn't use that word. Racist and anti-Semitic language was fairly prevalent when I was a kid, along with Polish jokes and dumb blonde jokes, but I can remember when I first learned that the n-word referred to black people, and I know that when I was very young, I didn't realize that phrases like "Jew someone down" referred to Jewish people, or that "Gypping someone was a slur on Gypsies. Some of this stuff was simply repeated without reflection, I suppose. I was aware that Polish jokes were slurs on Polish people because we tended to save them for our one Polish friend, Don Seleiski. As an adult, I just haven't been around people who used that kind of language, or who thought such things of people, as a group. While I am sure there are people who use that kind of language, perhaps these are simply people who I wouldn't ordinarily associate with, anyhow. The more common form of racism against black people comes from those who are firmly convinced that black people are wholly unable to accomplish anything on their own, or without the help of wealthy white liberals.