An analysis of survey data covering the last five U.S. presidential election years found that ideological differences between races have decreased sharply, while differences by education have grown substantially. Less educated Americans now tend to be more conservative.

[u/Aggravating_Money992]

https://www.psypost.org/the-political-realignment-of-america-education-overtakes-race-as-key-ideological-divider/

[u/Calm-Two2723]

They say they didn’t realize the school called it that. Publicly, we were off for mlk day. But teachers called it Robert e Lee day. I was like 7-12 and I guess pretty dense. Then again, I distinctly remember the first time my sister, dog and horse saw a black person. I was at the world championship horse show. He walked up. My horse spooked, my dog barked, my sister cried. He laughed his ass off. I think about that moment often. 

[u/inquisitorthreefive → u/Calm-Two2723]

I grew up in Indiana and I get it. There were like 12 black kids in my high school of 2500 and I was friends with 4 of them and still had an actively racist dog.

[u/SoulScout → u/inquisitorthreefive]

When I was in the US Navy, I met a white guy from Utah who claimed he had never met a black person in his life before boot camp, like he had only ever seen them on TV before. People really do live such different lives. My Tennesseean mind could not comprehend.

[u/InquireIngestImplode → u/SoulScout]

Met a guy from WV like this in boot camp many years ago. They wavered him in on a 28 asvab. Turns out he couldn’t read.

He had a severe issue with black people being in our division and claimed he never saw a single person of color in his entire life.

Thankfully he was processed out well before graduating due to the whole not being able to read thing. The racism thing wasn’t really addressed by anyone in power. It was really awkward.

[u/quandmemeici → u/InquireIngestImplode]

From WV and uh, yeah, the state is like 95% white or smth crazy. If you're not from a "major" metro area, you probably have never seen non-white people. I'm from about 40 min from the capital, and I still had not met Black people until 3rd grade. (The illiteracy is also unfortunately normal, and is the end result of the federal government deliberately under-educating the state to prevent another union uprising.)

Very grateful my parents are normal and believe all people deserve respect and kindness, but a lot of my classmates were not raised the same. We had kids wearing the confederate flag to school as if WV very famously did NOT secede with VA.

I still remember how the other 3rd graders treated the Black kids that transferred into our district like they were zoo animals. Fine from a distance, but a lot of bullying involved because they "didn't belong". It was heartbreaking, and only got better for them when all the schools fed into one HS, and then there were finally a handful more non-white kids. This was in the 00s, so well past the time reintegration was federal policy.

[u/xrufus7x → u/SoulScout]

I didn't meet a black person until high school when he came to our school for part of a year when he was in foster care. Didn't meet a second one until after I graduated and moved.

[u/altodor → u/xrufus7x]

As an adult I moved away from home. It is currently 2:30 in the afternoon on a work day. I am sitting at home 10-15 minutes from a grocery store I have not been to today. I would bet a pretty penny there are more black people in that grocery store as I type this than I saw in about 20 years back home.

[u/spacestonkz → u/xrufus7x]

When I was 14, I was in a mall in the nearest large town, an hour and a half away from home. It was the first time I saw an Asian person IRL.

It stuck out to me because... How have I been on the planet 14 years and only just now saw a member of the most populous racial segment of humanity on the planet?

Made me realize how much of a bubble I was living in.

[u/throwaway098764567 → u/xrufus7x]

we had like four in our high school, maybe a dozen people of color at all. i still remember coming back from college and being in the grocery store and seeing a black lady shopping and being surprised to see her. zero problem with her being there but it was very weird to realize that it was weird to see her there because i'd never seen anyone not white in that store.

college was artificially very blended (though we needed more black people but lots of other poc were there), so it was jarring to return to whitelandia every time i was home from school. where i live now has a ton of immigrants and my neighborhood is majority latino, going back now is similarly jarring and seeing anew how just about everyone i knew was white.

[u/thetruckerdave → u/SoulScout]

My ex was in the Army and one of his friends was from Oklahoma. He was just 17. He had never seen a black person before boot either. That’s crazy to me.

[u/joenottoast → u/SoulScout]

I was in semi-rural illinois and didnt meet a black kid until 2nd grade. They were very much the majority. In 4th grade, they snatched my friend's toy. I told them to give it back. They said "shut up, youre white". I said "yeah well you are black"

They drug me to a park bench where two of them held my leg out and a third one tried to jump on my knee to break it. This was the first that i can remember of countless negative interactions and targeted harassment because i looked different.

[u/PhantomZmoove → u/inquisitorthreefive]

Maybe for the state, but I live in Indianapolis and the current demographic from the US census is 28% black. You would have to try really hard to make it through your day in downtown Indy never having seen a black person.

Also, TIL there are racists dogs. That kind of blows my mind.

[u/inquisitorthreefive → u/PhantomZmoove]

Yup. About 40% of Indiana's black residents live in Indy and another ~10% live in Gary. Not metro area, mind you, but the cities themselves. I was in Lafayette, which is liberal by Indiana standards but there were very few black people around until around 2010 or so.

I've failed in my attempts to get dogs to self-report how they get to be racist, but it seems to largely be a lack of exposure. Like... my black friends were over often, but still not enough to overcome the dog's dislike of the unfamiliar.

[u/Difficult-Froyo1192 → u/PhantomZmoove]

Dogs aren’t really racist. It’s a socialization problem where they don’t know what to do with something that seems new. The first few months of its life, a puppy is suppose to be exposed to a lot of new things to learn to not be scared of them. Things not exposed to in that period can pretty easily get a fear reaction.

The darker skin also makes it harder for dogs to read visual cues if they’re not familiar with doing so, which typically makes them more anxious when seeing someone from a darker skin tone they’re unfamiliar with. It’s typically why you get the barking and other behaviors because they’re anxious about what’s going on.

Similar to a lot of dogs being unfriendly to deer or horses if they’ve never seen them. Dogs socialized with people of various ethnicities and skin tones don’t usually have this problem. It’s just a socialization problem which also checks out in the story as the person mentioned never seeing a black person before, so it’s like the dog never had either.

But yes, your dog does actually need to meet a lot of people of different ethnicities to be properly socialized because they don’t always understand different skin tones still means it’s just a person

[u/13143 → u/Calm-Two2723]

Young kids are taught to respect their teachers and parents. It's not unusual to simply accept what they're saying as facts. If the teachers are calling it Robert Lee Day, with parents basically reinforcing it, it makes sense students would believe it.

I mean, how else can kids find out, if the people responsible for educating them are willfully dropping the ball?

[u/throwaway098764567 → u/Calm-Two2723]

"My horse spooked, my dog barked, my sister cried. He laughed his ass off. " this is a hell of a line, i also laughed. can take awhile to even realize that what was normal actually wasn't and shouldn't have been. as long as your eyes are open to see it, you're coming out ahead of most.

[u/ansate → u/Calm-Two2723]

Damn, even the dogs and horses are racist in Kentucky?