Willing to admit that seeing women in burkas creeps me out. fight really hard not to put all people of one race in the same basket. Our personal experiences, or the lack of experiences in dealing with people who are different from us colors our view.
The contributor's last sentence hit the nail on the head.
I am 83.
As a teenager, I had very little contact with certain folks.
I used to almost literally cry when I read about the discrimination that was just accepted in the 1950s against them. (For example, Ebony magazine would list the places in each state where people of a certain group could find a hotel that accepted them as guests. Many states had only one listing or even none.)
Then in my twenties, my job brought me into contact with certain folks (specifically, their teenagers).
Boy! Did I quickly stop being a bleeding heart!