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

I began to see the light on race when I sat down for a presentation on racism at my church in 2017, and the person leading that presentation, who was a perfect stranger to me and knew exactly nothing about me, told me — and all the other white people there — that we were racists. I was at that time a liberal Democrat raised with reverence for MLK Jr. and taught from birth that race is merely a matter of variation in skin color. I was, in fact, not a racist at the start of that presentation. But as the presentation unfolded into a discourse on “implicit bias” and “systemic racism” — as it became essentially a long elaboration of the original insult and slur directed at all the white people in the room — my perspective started to change. I suppose I’d say I started to see the light then because, like many others, I am not inclined to be told that I am a villain by an inarticulate and obviously stupid person whom I’ve never met, and simply roll over and take it.

Still, my change in perspective had just begun, and I have to admit that I was still a liberal Democrat in 2020 when George Floyd died, and I still hopped on that loathsome bandwagon, joining the hue and cry for conversations on racism and all the injustices black Americans (and others) supposedly endure. In my defense, I’d had a number of black friends throughout my life, and each and every one had filled my ears with stories of the racism they had personally endured, which now, in hindsight, strike me as hyperbolic if not more or less fictional. I never supported BLM or joined any other such group, but I was anguished by what I saw as overt racism and cruelty toward blacks.

Post-2020, though, reality began to crash in. To put the matter simply, what I’d first encountered in that presentation in 2017 became mainstream, ubiquitous even. Contrary to the belief that race is only skin-deep and that all persons are essentially the same, we were now to believe that all whites are essentially wicked, the whole of American history is racist and irredeemably vicious, and all “BIPOCs” are noble, superior even, and worthy of a kind of veneration. In other words, everything now is quite literally black and white. Blacks only ever fail because of whites, and whites only ever succeed because of blacks. I was horrified by the 1619 Project, the epitome of all this, and horrified that every single white liberal I’d ever known seemed utterly entranced by this nonsense.

This was when I had a stark and sudden realization: after all the help that American society has given blacks in particular, including trillions in state and federal spending, endless affirmative action, and endless groveling praise and accommodation, blacks are in worse shape, collectively and often individually, than they have ever been. And so we seem to have reached an inflection point. Either we admit that they are simply incapable of participating in our Anglo-American civilization in the productive and creative ways that whites routinely do, or we blame whites for everything. The experiment has simply gone on for too long now, and has too obviously failed. We have to come up with some answer as to why it failed, and it’s either option A (blacks are not capable of living as we do), or option B (in spite of all evidence to the contrary, all whites are somehow secretly racists and subtly, “systemically” holding them back). Mainstream America has obviously opted for option B. And believing that one, first and fundamental lie, now it’s lies and deception all the way down.

It was at this time that I began to open my eyes to two things, first to the voluminous hard data ready to hand, and second to my own life’s experience. As to the data, it’s all right there in the open, in crime statistics, IQ results, and in the obvious inability of people of African descent to function collectively in real civilization, the world over. As to my own experience, I realized that I have rarely if ever encountered blacks and come away feeling uplifted or inspired. Quite the contrary. In the 90’s I lived for several years in a black-majority city, and in truth couldn’t wait to escape its rampant crime, corruption, and general degradation (which included blacks taking over a major four-lane thoroughfare in our neighborhood every Sunday and ultimately engaging in an extended gun battle with police there, an event about which the local news was conspicuously silent).

I have had black professors, and one and all they were awful. I have worked with blacks both in blue-collar work and in a professional setting, and they almost universally live up to the reputation of being shiftless, promiscuous, and clueless. Recently there was a party at a house on my street which was attended by a large number of black young adults, and I looked out my window before bedtime to see a young woman relieving herself right on my lawn. That, I think, is emblematic. I could recount stories like this all day, and most white people can, if they would just drop the blinders and be honest with themselves.

The truth of things is painfully obvious, but the painful truth is that most of us have been brainwashed. Along the way I discovered organizations like American Renaissance, and I’m grateful for the work you do, thankless though it is. Please don’t stop. I consider myself an objective and open-minded person, a realist now and always. Once one sees the reality of race in this world, each day presents some new confirmation, and one simply cannot unsee what one has seen. We must bear witness to the destruction of our society, the defaming of law enforcement, the corruption of education, the desecration of our military, to the endless litany of examples of demoralization and decline. Because it’s gradual right up to the point when it’s not. And the first step is the easiest, simply to open one’s eyes before it’s too late.

If you have a story about how you became racially aware, or about your firsthand experience with race, we’d like to hear it. If it is well written and compelling, we will publish it. Please feel free to use a pen name and send it to us here.