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Well if you don't teach history, you could be doomed to repeat it.
I remember not realizing the class clown Ricky was east Indian until we hit grade 7 and someone pointed it out to me. He was just one of the kids to us (and still was after we realized the difference.) We knew Aretha was black because she told us so and she sang jazz like nobody's business. In high school she would say, "I'm a big, black, beautiful woman! Rawr!" The only kids who were actively ostracized for their race were those who were a) hard to communicate with and/or b) didn't try to mingle with the rest of us. Poor Aaron didn't know any English except please and thank you when he joined us in grade 8, but by grade 11 he was everybody's friend.
We were taught racism was bad (mmkay) and so yesterday, so it didn't really affect us.
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