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

America has always been the shining city on a hill for me. Ever since I was a little boy growing up in the Spanish region of the Basque country, America represented what I cherish: freedom, the rule of law, opportunities, a better future. I associated everything that is good not only with the physical space that we call the United States of America, but with the idea of America.

My long held dream of coming to the US finally became an exciting reality in the late 1990s. I applied and was accepted to the graduate studies program in a large university in the Southwest. Until that point, I had had little interaction with non-whites, but all that changed in the years I spent studying for my Ph.D. The United States was truly a multicultural society, and becoming more so as it entered a new century.

I vividly remember the morning of September 11, 2001. The horror visited upon an entire nation by individuals who hated the same values and principles that I so much loved and identified with. Even though I was not a US citizen, I felt that these attacks were directed against the very idea of America. I was hurt. A few years later, on March 11, 2004, Islamic terrorists planted bombs on commuting trains in Madrid, Spain, killing almost two hundred people and wounding scores more. That was the worst terrorist attack my home country has ever suffered. It felt like Islam was waging war on the West and its values all around the world.

After finishing grad school, I began teaching at universities across the US. It was as a professor that I began noticing patterns in black behavior: a sense of entitlement, a lack of discipline, a bad attitude, disrespectfulness, and aggressive behavior. And the more black students a college had, the worse their behavior was. I was always reluctant to share these observations with my colleagues for fear of being called a racist.

Eventually, the inevitable happened. A black student filed a complaint against me, accusing me of racism. The head of my university’s Affirmative Action program asked me if I was racist. I replied that I did not like jerks, and that the student was a jerk who happened to be black. It’s noteworthy that when blacks treat you with disrespect or scorn, they get very angry when you respond in kind. I had had it with the infantile, entitled, and narcissistic attitude she was displaying and I made that clear in front of the entire class. One white student thanked me afterwards for speaking up and putting an end to such disrespectful behavior. After a long bureaucratic process, the administration found me innocent of any wrong doing. That was almost entirely thanks to the testimony of two students who defended me. It was a happy resolution, but I knew that these kinds of accusations were being made more and more often, and that I would probably face another in due time. Most blacks have an entitlement problem. They feel that they can behave in any way they want because they are black, and if you call them out, they accuse you of racism.

As I was becoming more racially aware, higher education was becoming more “woke” and enforcing diversity workshops and trainings. I attended one of these multicultural seminars and it was just an exercise in white male bashing. The premise was that non-whites were underrepresented in academia and that this underrepresentation needed to be corrected. The “white men need not apply” message came clear to me as I witnessed the demonization of an entire group of people in a tax-funded institution.

In the last four years I have educated myself when it comes to the real issues relating to race in America. One can say that I have experienced an awakening. The prevailing myth that blacks are in a perpetual state of victimization is just that — a myth. Meanwhile, the mainstream media and the entire educational system blame whites for just about any and every problem in society. The claim that America is a racist, white supremacists, evil society is lie.

In 2014, I became an American citizen. I’m proud of that, but I can’t deny that the shining city on a hill is dimming. The promise of America is in deep trouble. The demonization of an entire group of people is taking root in a place that I once loved but longer recognize. In 2019, sick of dealing with hatred from blacks and the utter dishonesty of so-called “liberals,” I returned to Spain. I feel the same pain as I felt when terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. It is the same revulsion, the same outrage, the same sadness. America is being attacked from within by groups like antifa and Black Lives Matter, and by evil, poisonous ideologies like Critical Race Theory, which seek to dismantle and destroy the very values that have made America unique and exceptional. The same values and principles that made me fall in love with America. My hope is that the shining city on a hill will shine again. I want to believe that the best days of America are still ahead. I just have to.

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.