I grew up in the racially charged South Side of Chicago, an area with definitive lines separating white from black. Many of the families in my suburb fled the city neighborhoods in which they grew up because they feared living in an integrated neighborhood, believing they would be under siege from those "colored" people. The exodus was called white flight. It was exacerbated by unscrupulous real estate agents who would cold call and announce that "they" were moving into the area and ask if the homeowner would like to sell before property values plummeted. It was not until I attended University, where, immersed in diversity, that I was able to purge myself of the infected thinking rooted when surrounded by homogenous thought and petty prejudices that I assimilated by osmosis.
