wait what was Barney doing in the 1940s

He was chilling with the Minions.

"NOT THE MAMA!"

While Britain participated in the slave trade, they went out of their way to not do so in Britain; the slaveholders kept their slaves abroad and out of sight, in places where the laws of civilisation which rule such institutions to be obscene are waived. (Sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean were one such place.) And it was impolite to inquire too hard about the sources of fortunes that built stately homes.

The difference being that when the N-word was uttered in Britain, it was belittling and condescending in an exoticising way, like a colonial-era picture book of funny foreigners in their traditional costumes. In America, however, it had a more immediate edge of aggression and violence, implying an other that’s here rather than far away, and firmly below the speaker in the established racial hierarchy, and who must be kept there using tools including designating them as a (N-word).

Those were exceedingly good stories though!

It was altered in the 70s, around the same time the Thomas book was altered.

"relatevily uncommon" != "there weren't"

Yes, and Black soldiers took part in D-Day seven years prior.

Again, nobody said that. You keep just making shit up.

...are you okay? automatically assuming the worst possible meaning of ambiguous statements doesn't seem healthy.

what about this: "pointing the klansmen out to people back then was harder because the average person was more racist."

There are things in the world to legitimately be outraged about if you want to be outraged. You don't need to force yourself to be angry at shit like this.

it just cracks me up because if you look for Hays violating shit, it's everywhere back then. If they wanted to sing about sex, they sang about food.

You hear that, Bobandy? That shrill sound in the distance? That's a shitwhistle heralding the arrival of the shit train. Carrying countless shitcars each filled with tons and tons of shitcargo. Should be here any moment, Bobandy, but first a little drinky poo!

That's no reason to throw the gamer word at them. Actually, it's more messed up because it was a bunch of lily white English kids chucking rocks. Should've called them crackers as he passed instead.

My god this was probably a real problem in 19th/early 20th century England though. Fucking kids can be fucking assholes lol

Lmao that sounds like a python library

Oh god, worse than I could possible have imagined D:

It's hammered into a lot of people's heads that the word is very mean, and not just "insult" but "remember, people like you used to be considered animals and treated like property, subject to difficult to fathom attrocities".
It doesn't need to be directed to be a reminder. While reference is likewise a reminder, it's at least couched in terms that convey the speaker understands it has weight beyond "insult".
Couple that with saying it as a white person can carry significant reputation damage.

Since these lessons are usually imparted in childhood implicitly, and it doesn't come up often enough to drive introspection for most people, it just lingers as "don't say words that hurt people and make everyone dislike you".

Kind of? Like you could call a child a "little bugger" and that would just be calling them annoying rather than an arse fucker

Once I used it like that at work, everyone was surprised, and so I looked it up after. I'm actually dead now. This is my ghost typing.

Well, there was one episode of South Park about people who annoy you...

Doesn't matter, the word is rooted in homophobic intent.

They also punish a locomotive by sealing it behind a brick wall. Considering those things are sentient and basically immortal that's some new levels of fucked up.

No, he’s sent to Crewe for a rebuild and returns with a new shape - mostly changes to his firebox iirc as he’s been struggling to build up enough steam with anything other than high-quality (expensive) Welsh coal.

Source: literally re-read the relevant book over the weekend.