so from jump y’all lay it all on the table?
Uh, yeah. I can only speak for myself, but I was raised with FULL knowledge. I don't mean 8/9/10 'raised', I mean 3/4/5. (I started ballet at 3 with rich white girls, moms had me in the museums, I lost my first tooth at a steak dinner right before an off broadway play, city life.)
If I hadn't known the real, I would have been
lost.

As it was, I almost had a cheat code bc I was able to predict their racist behavior. I was never surprised and, in fact, always planned for it. Never failed. Later on, when I started going to school with them, I knew my lane well enough to play within the lines, to bend the unspoken rules. I knew an afro latino boy who crashed out before 7th grade, frustrated by the unfairness. I knew ppl who stayed with it, maybe even got into an independent hs, but couldn't make it any further. They distinctly felt their otherness, to a degree that they just wanted to be somewhere else,
anywhere. But I fully expected it. I was pleasant, polite, even friendly, but I knew then what you should all know as adults: they hate you and want to see you fail. That knowledge was armor.
New blacks will be the death of us. Old folks knew how to prepare us to enter hostile spaces.