> It's the only major city I've been to where a white person dropping the word "nigger" (and used in a clearly negative way) in conversation doesn't elicit gasps.

Maybe you should find new friends.

I was born in ATL and lived there the first 20 years of my life and then for 18 months after college. I can say unequivocally that I've never been in a situation where it would have been acceptable or "just felt normal" to encounter that.