Well, I grew up in Romania and for the last 10 years I lived in USA. Here is something that I still don't understand, and doesn't matter what explanation you Americans come up with, I still don't get it:
why the black people can say the word "negro" anytime, but for everybody else is taboo? Doesn't things like this actually keep the racism in place? "We are from the black race, we can say "negro", you are from the white race, you can't say the "n" word"....
How stupid.
The kids are raised to be afraid to see what "freedom of speech" really means, for Americans, real freedom of speech can't exist because freedom of speech here is considered offensive.