You know, when white American children learn about Jim Crow in school, they don’t get the full reality. We learn about separate water fountains and segregated lunch counters. We learn about having to pass a reading test in order to be able to vote, which maybe doesn’t sound so bad? (From the perspective of a bored high school student who takes reading for granted.)

Jim Crow gets sugar coated. It gets civilized for contemporary white ears, so we don’t have to internalize the emotional horror of it.

No wonder so many people don’t see systemic racism. They never learn about it! They think they’ve learned about Jim Crow but they haven’t.

Accounts like yours need to be what our children learn in school.