This is part of our continuing series of accounts by readers of how they shed the illusions of liberalism and became race realists.

My father was an American soldier and met my German mother in the rubble of post-war Europe. He married her there and took her back to Missouri’s homogenous, white, farm country, where I was born and raised. Mom used to wonder out loud how the USA could work with so many “different peoples” in it. Us kids chastised her for her political incorrectness, but when I was 14, we moved to St. Louis and I realized she was right. Decades later, I have come to realize just how right she was, especially now that I have worked in education.

There are many stories I could tell, but here are some of the more memorable ones:

A teacher I had worked with for several years was alone in her classroom, sobbing. She said she ought to keep this private, but she trusted me. She went on to tell me that a group of black parents, with kids in her second-grade class, had demanded that she be fired as a racist, for not letting their kids “act black.” Kate had merely forbidden her black students to hit, call each other names, and use the “n-word.” I had also observed this behavior. Kate was further hurt that the parents had not even come to her before writing a 10-page diatribe to the College of Education’s black dean. The mother of the biggest, tallest bully (and thief) in the class was a prison guard. One would think that she would try to correct that behavior so that her daughter would not end up in prison!

This is not a ghetto school, but a “prestigious” laboratory/research K-12 school, which is mandated to reflect the demographics of the state; ethnically, racially, income, educational attainment of the parents, etc, etc. This school, around 2004-5, developed an “ant-racist education” model, based on the premise that non-whites don’t do as well in school, and later on, with jobs and income, because “whites hold everyone else down!” In the small group of us that was presented these conclusions, I was the only one who objected; saying that blacks and Hispanics affirm that they have their own cultures, and I insisted that not all cultures value education as highly as others, and cited some studies I’d read which mirrored what I’d personally observed.

An example, the average black child came into our kindergarten not only not knowing any letters or numbers — but even more shocking to me; they hadn’t even been taught the names of the basic colors! When an enrichment class was finally started, it was soon besieged with criticisms about it being insufficiently “diverse.” So the standards were lowered and it essentially became just another class.

The then “new” idea was being tested in my school; ease off on disciplining black students, as their life is already so tough. A parent I knew kept pushing the school to discipline the black 5th grader who savagely mauled his daughter’s hand in the bathroom stall door, while using the bathroom before getting on the bus for the annual fifth-grade safety patrols’ trip to Washington, DC. The hand surgeon said he had never seen such a mangled hand; that it was maliciously done — not an accident. While the black student got to go on the trip, the white girl suffered at home on morphine, denied the trip she had so eagerly awaited! Her father was told to ease up; that the poor little black girl had a difficult life; poverty, no dad at home — the usual.

Another black youth, for no reason. pushed his white second-grade classmate’s face into a metal water dispenser as she was drinking. I recently looked him up online and see that he is in prison for attempted murder — no surprise.

My neighborhood is becoming more diverse — with the usual uptick in crime and litter that comes with it. Lately, cars pass by with their loud, rude rap music, so loud my house rattles. “Anti-racist” education and Black Lives Matter propaganda seem to have further provoked blacks to be even more surly, aggrieved and prone to violence. I have lived here for decades, and am quite attached to the little lake, my fruit trees and all the surrounding nature, but I’m considering leaving it, for safety’s sake. I wonder how my old childhood “stomping grounds” are doing? Has it “suffered” from a lack of diversity?

If you have a story about how you became racially aware, we’d like to hear it. If it is well written and compelling, we will publish it. Use a pen name, stay under 1,200 words, and send it to us here.