In my opinion, we are all victims of racial misunderstandings and racial prejudice.

Sometimes African Americans do not venture out of our comfort level to experience new things, including interact with people of different races.

In the mid to late 1960s I attended a small New Jersey college. I wasn't aware till I arrived on campus for the beginning of the school year that the college had few people of color enrolled as students {and no professors who were people of color]. In my freshmen year there were only 3 African American women {including myself} and three African American men who lived on campus.

In my freshmen year my roomate was Jewish {only later it occurred to me that this was purposeful-the school placed two "minority students' together]

I vividly remember going to the cafeteria the first day of school with my blond haired, blue eyed Jewish roomate. I noticed that there was a table with about 5 Black students {who I later learned were commuters}. One of the students came over and invited me [and not my roomate]to sit with them. I declined that invitation. I remember thinking [but I'm sure I probably didn't say] something to the effect that I came to college to broaden my experience and not limit it by only hanging with people who were familiar to me {as if all Black people from varied backgrounds were familiar to me! Well I was young}...

But my point in sharing this was by my senior year, as a result of a multitude of racial slings and arrows in the classroom-some of them probably well meaning but still DRAINING such as "What do Black people want? [because I was the ONLY Black person, I had to be the spokesperson for Black people everywhere or in this country? I don't think so..and if I tried then mostly I was met with either uncomfortableness or arguments] and then there were the well meaning but still DRAINING questions such as "Do Black people get suntan?" tan"-short answer "YES". And "Why do you put grease in your hair?= short answer "Because it gets dry if I don't".

Overtime this drip drip drip of questions and prejudicial attitudes
[for instance, I recall how shocked I was that White girls would share with me how they didn't like Jewish people. Prior to going to that college, I thought that Jewish people were White {not having met any Black Jewish people-though I now know some].

My sense was if these White girls didn't like my Jewish roomate who looked just like them [in skin color and hair color & texture],
I KNOW that they didn't like me {who looked very different from them in these regards.

And then there were definite differences in music, and slang, and --overtime, it just got draining....By my senior year, I found that most of my friends were African American, and I was one of those people sitting at the all Black cafeteria table.

But here I am at Mudcat-one of two [?] Black people who are members and active posters. History has a way of repeating itself.

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See this article on a study of cross racial interactions at an American university:

Diversity In Higher Education