It is almost hard wired. Most people are comfortable with things being the way they are accustomed to them being, and vice versa. What I became accustomed to changed dramatically during the period I described above, and so did what I became comfortable with. I shift in and out of phases regarding what seems "familiar" in my daily life. What feels familiar no longer jumps out as seeming somehow different. That can be speech patterns, that can be fashion, that can be "loud" vs "sedate" public behavior.
Having been through this dance numerous times in my life by now I watch it happen on a meta level even while I am reacting in real tine. Based on my degree of familiarity with something I encounter, it can seem "off" in some way to me, until I spend a lot more time around it - then it becomes "normal".
I never forget that I am and have been from my youth on a near first generation "hippie"; not just in appearances, but in values also. I remember how hard I was to fathom to so many around me back in the late 60's to early 70's in particular (but also more recently as I risk being visually dismissed today by strangers who don't know me as a caricature of a "burnt out hippie" - even though I haven't done any drugs in decades and remain pretty damn sharp and competent.)
So yeah, I had a visceral negative first reaction to gangsta rap, and lumped a whole lot of hip hop in with it. Gold chains always seemed gaudy to me, pants that drooped well below the waist seemed frankly ridiculous. Surface shit knee jerk reactions - they can always flood back in, making me unconsciously susceptible to truly racist shit infiltrating my unconscious reality. Examples? OK here: I saw a part of me infiltrated by fears of increasingly "amoral black gang youth" who, "due to excessive exposure to violence in their own young lives", were "hardened to the effects of violence on others". I could feel it happen at the time, and I knew damn well it was crap. I fought against it in my real life, literally. A worked first as a community liaison for the Chief Juvenile Probation Officer in San Francisco, working closely with community leaders in black neighborhoods who were passionate advocates for their youth. Later I started an Ombudsman program for youth detained inside the San Francisco Juvenile Justice system. You see, I always knew better, so I was able to consciously over ride and counter racist messages seeping invisibly into me. And because I was blessed with the opportunity to closely work with and know real people in real life who exploded racist myths with their elegant humanity, regardless of their income levels at the time, that variant of racism failed to establish any real foothold in me. I thank each and every one of those incredible African American individuals who I got the chance to work closely with for that.
I thank each and everyone of those
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