It was in the early 90's when they took down the N like nigger alphabet card down from the classroom wall, fairly early nineties as I recall it. In the 80's, no-one cared whether you said nigger or not, there was pretty much no-one around to get offended about it and there was no need for derogatory use of the word. It simply wasn't a bad word here back then. I remember well when the concept of nigger being a derogatory word was introduced, it was some time in early nineties, so it gradually became a bad word, use of which was to be avoided. The process started some 10-15 years ago or so, as far as I can tell. So, the word has been gradually falling out of use, even in the originally non-derogatory contexts it has been used, such as the renaming of the candy known as nigger's kiss in 2001 and the recent disappearing of golliwog-like lakupekka from Fazer's licorice wrappings in 2007 (the picture can be seen in the Wikipedia article [
fi.wikipedia.org]), which has caused some discussion as disappearing of cultural heritage as the figure has been there for decades. The British removed their corresponding figure, Black Jack, from their licorice wrappings in 1990's, so the same trend has been taking place in there as well, though it's less recent than here in Finland. The word has only recently become derogatory here, so we're living in a transition time of sorts (note that we didn't have any part in the long tradition of oppressing the blacks by Britons, Americans, Spanish and such peoples).
As for the game, "Who's afraid of the black man" (I always imagined the black man as some kind of a shadow man, as shadows are black in a sense) wasn't as violent as British Bulldogs is described, having tagging instead of tackling. For more violent games, there were games like King of the Hill and Tournament that had more physical contact in them.