On the phone today, my mother told me she has never been racist and, in fact, I was racist when I was a kid. This came amid a rambling and loud defense of Donald Trump. She’s tired of “liberals” thinking she’s racist and stupid.

If the shoe fits, mother.

No doubt, I was a racist (and homophobic) kid. The truth makes me cringe, and feel shame.

How would you expect a toddler, child, and teenager to think when —

We fled to a “better” neighborhood because “the blacks” were moving in. My grandfather and uncle routinely used racist and homophobic slurs with a perverse sense of pride, to pronounce their superiority.

The conversation bothered me. I’ll write more about it. I’m letting my thought trajectory settle.

I’m grateful I moved at 19 and never looked back. I became a different person the second I left my hometown — 26 years ago.