African American

First of all I am not a sociologist and this is purely speculation. But I have formed some opinions from long times spent along the I-4 corridor in FL and also the mountains of NE TN and SW VA.
I agree that racism certainly does exist in adult populations at a high rate and is sometimes not even realized. I also have to look at what happens to young people in their formative years and who they seek to emulate. That leads me to wonder how that changes and when those changes begin to take place and become core values of a person..
Let's take upper age elementary through middle school and even high school. During these years I have seen many cross racial behaviors, especially among young whites. I currently live in a 97% Caucasian county in Appalachia. But the dress and behaviors here among many adolescents is very similar to what I observed in more urban settings. Music, dress, speech, societal views and so on. But that seems to be changing in my opinion. At some point many of those patterns diverge along cultural lines and I cannot explain why other than the previously fluid identities become more comfortable among certain groups. Whether this is based on parental/family history or individual self discovery I do not know. You could probably say similar things about gender identification.

This seems to me to have been a normal pattern in America for decades, until media amplification began to filter down into younger ages. It seems to me that the lines are being drawn at much earlier ages and the results are unfortunately somewhat permanent. My youngest memories included separate water fountains and KKK people passing out pamphlets on street corners in Central Florida. But once I was exposed to new ideas at a very major US university I changed completely. I also had the benefit of really good high school with people who were smarter than me. Some were conservative and some were not, but I learned to think for myself which has helped me throughout life.

Young people in the past few decades did not see what I saw. Their bubble is not the same in many cases.


Peer pressure is a very strong influence in building foundations of what our values are and will be. I believe that those foundations are now being forced upon young people earlier in life than they were in my formative years. Unfortunately they tend to stay. That goes a long way to explain why white nationalist movements among so-called well educated college students seems to be on the rise. Their core values have been firmed at an earlier age.

As I said, this is speculation on my part, so if you want to poke holes, no hard feelings. Just vote!