30 Ex-Racists Share What Honestly Changed Their Views

Man I don't even know where to start with this one. I grew up in the middle of f**king nowhere Mississippi where the slave trade was referred to as the great African migration in our history books. Every person of color was referred to by the N-word as just the default. It wasn't until I moved the hell out of the south that I begin to comprehend what racism was. I wish I could say I had a moment of clarity that washed away all the racist bulls**t that I'd grown up with but it was more like a couple decades worth of mental deprogramming I had to fight against. There was so much underlying hate of different people that warped how my view of the world was.

Not me, but my grandpa told me that when he was young he was a bit racist, due to his a-hole alcoholic dad being really racist and teaching him to treat others of different races like trash. He told me this stopped though when he was around 13 when his dad left. He realized how stupid it was to judge others based on race, and I'm glad he realized how stupid it was since he's a really sweet guy now.

I never thought I was racist until I started going to the bars. If a white dude was hitting on me, I’d usually accept a drink and politely turn him down (or not) later that night. If a black man did the same, I got really uncomfortable and would just ignore them completely.

As a young white girl, I was taught that black men were dangerous sexual predators. This is something I carried into my adult life. One night, among many nights where I went out with my friends, it randomly occurred to me that I reacted to black men immensely different than white men... for doing the same exact thing. I didn’t know why, but I decided that night that I wasn’t going to do that anymore. It led me to realize many other odd racist things I did in my day to day life, without even realizing I was doing them.

Not racist but colorblind, might be just as bad. Assumed that the world was as I saw it, a white kid from a working class NYC suburb. I was opposed to anything that tipped the scales, used to say that the media is the last source of racism and things like the Black Lives Matter movement were about division. Never had an ounce of hate in me, and I love knowing that this world is full of different people because I love learning new things. Because, I don't know anything.

My son was born in Dec of 2019. While spending long late nights putting him to sleep that winter and spring I did a lot of reading. I was terrified of being a new dad, and I was terrified of what this pandemic could do in the years ahead. So I was humbled. And I sat in the discomfort and sadness of 3 more executions of POC that spring. And I had a lot of quiet time to think about the world my son was going to grow up in.

In my dad group here on Reddit, I read other dad's like me, but not like me, tell their stories and their fears, of raising children of color in this world.

That's when I knew this color blindness is bullsh*t. I need to start listening. I need to start acknowledging and respecting our differences. I need to think a lot more about what my place in this system has been, and what I want it to be.

My whole family is quite racist. When I was little I was trying to wrap my head around the rules of the world, so I thought it was as simple as different teams. Blacks vs Whites was just like the Red Sox vs the Tigers. Then my grandmother starts going on about how horrible Polish people are and how I'm never to talk to them. So I'm psyched! Screw those Polish people, whatever color they are, we're mortal enemies. Then she points out our Polish neighbor to me. But... she's white.

I point out to my grandmother that she's white so we're on the same team. My grandmother says no, that she's a mix-breed. I point out that my great granddad was a Shoshone Indian and that I'm a mix-breed. She says that doesn't count.

That's when I realized she was just making up the rules and I wasn't going to play games with someone who couldn't stick to the rules.

I saw (and still see) how miserable my older family members are because they continuously judge and hate everyone. They have no friends. It’s pathetic.

I honestly used to be kind of racist against, like, fresh off of the boat Asians when I was younger. I don’t even remember why, I think I just had some weird run-ins and they had really poor English and I was an idiot.

Anyways, I remember I had just gotten gas and was back in my truck ready to leave, when I heard an Asian man calling to me with bad English, trying to get my attention. I rolled my eyes out of the back of my skull, rolled down the window, and snapped, what?! In broken English, he told me I’d forgotten to put my gas cap back on.

Took a breath and realized how much of an asshole I was just about to be to this guy for absolutely no reason. Completely changed my perspective. And nowadays, from other life experiences, I have such respect for first generation immigrants who have been able to learn English, even if they speak it poorly. But yeah, I was a d**k for a bit.

Grew up with a racist step dad and although I never actually felt hate towards anyone I would laugh at and repeat the jokes. Until I was kicked out at 18 I had only met a Mexican family (my adopted neighborhood family) and a black guy I was friends with from school. They also made the jokes about their race and laughed along depending on the crowd. Wasn't till I got older that they were doing that to fit in and could've been living somewhat in fear. After being kicked out I moved around a few times before finding a job working with developmentally disabled adults. I was hired as the white guy, the company and all the workers were all born in Africa and moved to the US. It was a cultural shock at first, but they immediately became family. They taught me how to cook, how to treat others, and their culture. They even made sure to teach me how they were treated in public by citizens and police. Since then I haven't made or laughed at a single racist joke, I've made sure to look at everyone the same way no matter, and I've made sure to try and help others understand how their actions may not be racist but they can still be hurtful. I've met so many beautiful people that I wouldn't have had the chance to talk to had I followed that influence growing up. If anyone who has any racist thoughts and is reading this, please just sit down and have a meal with someone. You'll be surprised how much you have in common while also having such different lives.

My situation was complicated growing up. My father was the son of an Italian immigrant with Egyptian roots and he was so ungodly racist towards anyone not considered white as he considered himself white. The thing is, my dad has dark brown skin, dark brown eyes and black kinked curly hair. He looked EXACTLY like the people he was racist against. And he hated Arabs.... all Arabs.... and he is part Arab. This was so confusing. He also hated gay people, Muslims, "commies" and any type of alternative lifestyles.

My father hated black people the most. He told me if I ever brought home a black boyfriend he would disown me. He told me, as a small child, that if I misbehaved I would be sent to live with a ****** family in the ghetto.

He was equally misogynist and held onto a strong patriarchal mindset.

I admit, as a kid I repeated his words. All the other kids did too on my neighborhood so I thought he was right. It wasn't until I was literally in my 30s did I realise the internalized racism I still held onto. All my partners and friends were white my entire life. I felt unsafe near a group of black men. It was only until I moved to northern Europe that I realized that I am not considered white here and experienced racism myself and oooooo wow what an eye opener.

I began to dismantle my entire thought process and honestly, I am so repulsed by my father now I can't even speak to him without feeling disgusting inside. He's really old now and much more calm and probably won't live more than 10 years. I have not returned to my birth country to see him in almost 7 years because I am so angry at him. Because of his racism I missed out on friendships, relationships and understanding cultures different from my own. I am making up for it now as the immigrant community that I live in is amazing and supportive but I will never get back that lost time and I will never know fully the extent of damage that my hateful words may have done to people who didn't deserve it.

I grew up in a very small town in Iowa. Couple of hundred people. All white. So I guess I was raised not to discriminate against people that were different from me because we were all the same. Once I got older and moved to the city, oh yeah. Racism is alive and well in Iowa. I didn’t fall into that trap. I didn’t understand it. Ended up in Alabama. My best friend was black. We just had the same sense of humor and liked the same things. I credit him with my kids being non racist. He would crack jokes about racial things and they would be shocked. As they got older they just rolled their eyes. Funniest thing was one of my daughters date shows up and he opens the door and introduced himself as her dad. He moved to Michigan. I miss Charles.