50 yrs ago, if someone had said vicious, violent, flagrant, systemic racism and racial prejudice—taught in schools and relentlessly preached by news media and other entertainment companies—would be the norm in this country 50 years from now, nobody on earth would have believed it

Racism was virtually dead in 1974 when All in the Family was a top TV show and when Blazing Saddles was made—which is why it COULD be made in the first place, and why it was such an enormous classic timeless masterpiece.