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

I have never been outspoken about my views on anything in my life. Having strived to be a responsible and enlightened citizen in what I had always thought was the great Republic, I had made it a point to compartmentalize a litany of hidden doubts and suspicions unbecoming to an American born and raised in the cradle of liberty. I never dared question such “innate” issues as the institutional persecution of the brown races, the perpetual feminist plight of the modern woman under siege. I supported without question the notion of the universal equality of all peoples, that with the proper social environment and institutional support anyone could be poised to succeed in the upper echelons of society. Everyone is beautiful. Everyone is good. The myth was a magnificent, noble deception.

I was overly trusting of the kindness of the people I met, especially once I had left the protection of home to study at a liberal university in a large city. Each day, at the heart of the cosmopolitan metropolis, I witnessed (and deliberately ignored) the empirically irrefutable disparity in behavioral traits among the myriad of races I rubbed shoulders with on the streets, in the classroom, and on the trains. Asians were generally reserved and stoic, but almost always more agreeable, intelligent and trustworthy. Blacks were widely outspoken in public and prone to unwarranted displays of confrontation and braggadocio. Whites were keen in their brashness and self-confidence, but by the same token tended towards open-mindedness and civility. I remember admonishing myself for “projecting” such racial stereotypes. Surely, I reminded myself, these collective behavioral differences were a matter of socialization and not of skin color. In the student center, students would invariably agglomerate according to nationality or race. Blacks with the blacks. Hispanics with the Hispanics. Chinese with the Chinese. How odd, I once caught myself thinking, that everyone would travel so far from home just to willingly surround themselves with their own countrymen. Incidentally, the only social cliques I observed exhibiting any inclusion of different races together on a regular basis were those composed of white people.

The point of no return in my personal awakening came after graduation, when I embarked on a series of careers in East Asia. What these experiences gave me was perspective, a point of objective contrast between the egalitarian diversity of the West and the hierarchical homogeneity of the East. Compared to the garbage-ridden filth of New York City and Los Angeles, the outer workings of Seoul and Tokyo were pristine. Street crime was practically unheard of. As I observed the behavior of my workmates or local passersby on the sidewalk, I was confronted by a social phenomenon I had never experienced in the United States. There was a singularity of purpose, an invisible national ethos that united all of its populace in a commonality of moral and civic values. Propriety and respect were embedded directly into the languages themselves, where the inflection of words and phrases would morph into greater or lesser honorifics depending on the age and status of the person being addressed. Disagreement and conflict often arose between individuals, certainly, but rarely ever to the extent or volatility I witnessed in the U.S. when more than one race was involved.

In 1967, American sociologist Robert N. Bellah advocated the notion of a universal “American civil religion” that recognizes a “universal and transcendent religious reality as . . . revealed through the experience of the American people.” His contention was that civil religion functioned as the glue of America’s social and moral fabric in lieu of a state religion, which would otherwise be unattainable in a country occupied by mutually incompatible multicultural values. In essence, a simplified, diluted version of Christianity without Christ, this insubstantial compendium of foundational Western religious values has proven an utter failure in hardly half a century of mass immigration, positivistic rationalism, and the spiritual atomization of the average American citizen from himself, God, family, and country.

Only in America is there no such thing as an “American.” I have long lost track of the number of people I have encountered who barely speak functional English yet hold an American passport. They and the illegals who flood this country daily bring with them their loyalties to the country of their birth, their religions, their values, their genetic proclivities — a potent combination which more times than not is at irreconcilable odds with the foundational tenets of European civilization. It is no secret to those who study history that like all empires that have come before, America as we know it has entered its final throes. The barbarians are no longer at the gates. They are among us.

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.