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

As a child, I believed without question that race was nothing more than skin pigment. I treated everyone the same, and thought that anyone who didn’t was just stupid and hateful.

Then my parents divorced, and suddenly I went from comfortable middle class to poverty. In an effort to provide affordable housing, my mother moved into the black part of town. We were the only white family for miles in any direction. My sisters and I were harassed, mugged, assaulted, or harangued with racial epithets every time we went outside. I learned quickly that it didn’t matter to them that my family and I weren’t racist — it only mattered that we were white.

At first, my mother, being a Christian, told us to “turn the other cheek.” She told us our black neighbors would eventually see how loving we were and have a change of heart. But once she started noticing her children’s bruises, she gave us permission to fight back. My grandfather was a bare knuckles Irish boxer and learning to box was required in my family. It served me and my two sisters well.

Unfortunately, blacks stick together. One day, after winning a fight with a much older black girl, the defeated girl’s mother came to my family’s apartment complex to exact revenge. With a butch knife in hand, she gathered together a huge crowd of people, apparently excited to see a little action. It seemed like every single resident in the building was standing behind her when she tried to stab through the screen door, screaming about how she wanted us all dead. The crowd laughed and egged her on.

My family hurried out the back door and ran to the main office, where my mom called 911. When the cops arrived, they couldn’t find a single willing witness. The officers told us this was typical. The police then escorted us to our unit so we could gather up our belongings and drove us to a homeless shelter. We never went back to that apartment. It was too dangerous.

After that experience, I assumed it was just the “ghetto” blacks who were violent and racist. But, I paid more attention than most of my white brethren. And I started seeing how nearly all blacks resent whites. I saw the anti-white themes in movies and books. I saw the casual acceptance of racism against whites everywhere. I don’t have any hate in my heart, but I don’t relax around crowds of blacks and I probably never will. But, as Friedrich Nietzsche knew, “What does not kill me makes me stronger.”

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.