Even now they are finding that the Constitution does not in fact allow civil rights, and the Civil Rights Act is being pared away.
You can call it out by whatever name you want, but in the end a lot of Americans want that and you don't have the overwhelming political force required to override them.
The one small upside: they'll tell you that you're only making it worse by name calling. That's not actually true. It may not make things better, but it is not the cause of it. Arguing about words is just a common tactic to get you to stop talking about the actual subject.
But in addition to that extremely reliable and enthusiastic vote are a lot of allies who say things like "I'm not racist but...". Often followed by "I just happen to have totally non bigoted reasons to always vote with the bigots".
Funny how they're always espousing Republicans as the way to go. Once upon a time, that may have made (some) sense, but the modern Republican party is ... "not very close" ... to libertarianism.
Therefore in a two party rule, libertarians should do what they can to pit one arm of the government against the other. Sometimes this will mean voting D, and sometimes R, whichever better disrupts single party rule.
They "should", but somehow they always seem to find themselves voting R...
I checked ngram viewer, and it showed this document from 1937 that first used it in that context:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Jews_Jobs_and_Discrimin...
Another example (this is a hard one imo) "discrimination". It is used in the US in an important legal document, a part of a powerful legal social right.
It's both the NEGATIVE and unjust social process of dividing minorities, often segregating them away from the resource-plenty enjoyed by majorities -- basic 'good favor', low prices, neighborhoods with food oases.
And it's also the POSITIVE or NEUTRAL term of "making a fine distinction and discerning". Such as, "The experienced journalist listened intently to the politician's statement, applying a keen sense of intellectual discrimination. She was able to quickly discern the subtle ways in which key facts were being selectively highlighted and crucial context was being omitted, allowing her to call out the misrepresentation rather than accepting the narrative at face value." (gen'd by ai <3)
It was once an efficient term for identifying careful critical thinking. I speculate we do less of this as we have fewer words to do this with, nowadays.
I suppose "bigot" and "bigotry" ought to have been used by the US when it made its civil rights advancements.