Racism. I was raised by bigoted white supremacists. The Hard R was what I was referred to regularly by my parents when in trouble. Bad grade, messy room, or maybe getting home late incurred physical violence with racially hateful verbal abuse.

I thought that that was normal. I thought that every other family just hid it like my parents did when we were around non-family.

When I went to uni I learned partially of how ignorant and broken my world view I was (and am).

At uni I took sociology and anthropology course to try and understand how racism damages communities and about how nation/states use racism for reenforcing power structures. I had to re-learn US Civil War history ... being taught in high school that the war was really about States Rights (which is bullshit and I continue to re-learn thank you Mr. Coates).

What I didn't do was check myself, though. I forget to point with my thumbs when engaging in accusations of racism.

So now in my middle age I have discovered that I am a racist. It was unconsciously done for my first 30+ years. That what I tried to leave behind intellectually feels branded into my fucking head.

And I do not like it.

I am working on disengaging with that part of my ignorance. But when I hear the hard R ... I flinch. When I here the non-hard R ... I still flinch. I am at a point of understanding that my ignorance about the African American experience extends to my ignorance of humanity.

I have anxiety every time that I have to interact with an African American. I don't worry that they are going to do something to me ... but rather that some undiscovered corner of my ignorance will be exposed to them. That whomever I was just dealing with now feels let down once again by humanity. By humanity subset psulli -- me. Worse still ... it would happen, and I wouldn't learn from it.

So now I sit here besieged by a collection of people trying to convince me that racism is dead. That my new perceptions are white guilt or some manifestation of it. All of that is juxtaposed on the backs of Michael Brown, Jordan Davis, Trayvon Martin, and the countless unreported assaults and murders of African Americans by my nation.

It leaves me screaming and crying. Literally crying, cursing alone out loud in the garage. My partner is struggling to be with me because of my emotional inability to parse what I am being show in Ferguson, MO, right now.

So that is what is in front of me emotionally right now.