@TruthSandwich @freemo @wdlindsy Yep. You and I both grew up at a time where, even in a place like Los Angeles, bigotry and racism were not rare. Language was different. One heard the "N word" and other expressions and it wasn't frowned upon like it is today. I heard all the different stories about how this and that cultural or racial group was a certain way.

The problem for me was that my personal experience with all these groups didn't agree with and often contradicted the stories. I kept an open mind because a lot of these people who expressed bigotry were often very smart.

I'm the sort that needs for everything I know to make sense and hang together in my brain. My open-mindedness ended when I was about 19 years old, when I had learned enough about human nature to understand how this nonsense could exist. How could an obviously smart guy like Nobel Prize winning William Shockley spend the rest of his life and eventually destroy his reputation attempting to prove that whites were superior to blacks? Well, humans have some pretty big flaws. Not all people are as self-critical and willing to admit mistakes as I am.