Even though I also attended private school (with religious Jews) until I got to college, I believe my experience with blackness is different than many of my peers. From before I was born until I graduated eighth grade we employed a wonderful African American babysitter/housekeeper named Debra. For thirteen years I absorbed her message which she taught both explicitly and by example that black people have never been, are not, and will never be any less than their white counterparts. I learned to appreciate her Southern background and not to judge the black kids in my town with whom I did not interact regularly because we attended separate schools.

A few weeks back I was video-chatting with one of my group project members who had spent his entire life in desegregated, very very white private schools. For lack of a personal picture of him, I used a meme with what I thought was his signature facial expression as the contact photo. I screenshot the contact and sent it to him so he could see. Immediately, he asked: “Why am I that n—–?” I literally could not believe my ears. In what I thought was a perfect personality description all he saw was skin color. Before this incident, I had never in my life heard a white man call a black person the N word in such a derogatory way. Thinking about it still makes me so angry.

This is why I disagree with Hannah Jones’ point that at this point Americans have gotten over our belief that African Americans are racially inferior, and now simply think that their culture is inferior. Many Americans still hold strong racial stereotypes about black people. I am the exception, not the rule.