That was certainly my experience. What I learned about racism up through high school was basically, "This stuff happened, but long ago and far away, unconnected to what's going on around you."

And it's no coincidence that I learned this in a suburban school with a student body that was 1% black. In a state that was 14% black. And that had a long history of racial exclusion and white flight.

I'm shocked now at how one-sided my initial education was on this. Shocked, but not surprised.