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Well, I can tell you a few things that may provide insight, although you may not agree with them.

I see you are black and in Mississippi. Well I pass as white and live in West Tennessee, so basically we're neighbors.

I'm sure you are fully aware of black / white race relations here in the South, so I won't waste your time with that, since they are what they are.

My mother was half Asian and looked it, grew up in an era where there was discrimination vs. Asians, as a military brat, when we were at war with Asians. She always taught me to respect other people and not judge people by race. My dad was also not a racist. He played guitar for a living and his role model was Jimi Hendrix.

I lived in the south for a lot of my life and I've seen and heard my share of racism, against blacks and others. I have also lived on the west coast where things are more integrated, but still there is racism in several directions as you probably know. One manifestation I saw there was a lot of whites, blacks, and latinos claiming to be "natives" and hating on Asians as the foreigners who got better grades, better jobs, bigger houses, nicer cars. Since I can pass as white I have heard all kinds of gook this, chink that from people who didn't know my ancestry. My best friend out there was a tri-racial black / white / latino guy and he was like family to me. I spent every day at his house with his family. I still keep in touch with him, 20+ years later.

Anyway back to the subject at hand, I can't deny that I have developed a prejudice against blacks myself living in some urban majority-black areas with high crime, single-parent households etc.

In the end I basically said fuck it and moved the hell away from that element of people. I wouldn't live in a trashy trailer park full of white people, so why should I make apologies for not wanting to live around trashy black people? I don't think I owe any apologies for this.

I moved into a quiet suburban neighborhood where I don't hear gunshots, there are no pitbulls running loose down my street, nobody is racing their rice rockets down my street. My sons won't get jumped at school for looking half-asian.

Actually I moved in between two older black families, two-parent households with adult-age children in college or married with kids and in the workforce. Quiet, no parties, no domestic disputes, no bullshit.

So maybe I'm a racist, or maybe not. I think that in some ways I am. I can honestly say, however, that my parents raised me not to be a racist, and I refused to let the racist notions of stupid people rub off on me. So what made me a racist? First-hand experience with low-class black people.

Here's the thing. I know you're prejudiced against low-class black people as well, because you don't want your family exposed to that shit either, right? So please afford me the same luxury, that's all I ask.