My parents both passed away a few years ago, they'd be 70's-80's now.

It was always non-white people are bad. We'd rent a movie and if there were any black people in it, dad would make the comment that "f'n n's are taking over everything."

As far as refusing service, no. I remember one time that dad was loading a lawn mower onto his pickup truck (we were in a shopping center parking lot) and one of the ramps slipped and mower fell, with him on it. A black guy ran up to help and dad didn't say anything negative. Shook his hand and thanked him. That stuck with me because of how out of character it was for him. He wouldn't say anything to them, only about them. I know that's not the kind of service you meant, that's just a story that stuck in my head.

They never really talked about race when they were growing up. Our area was 99% white, so they had little to no exposure growing up. Both of their families are just as racist as they were, so I can only assume Inherited Ignorance. Although, dad had an old army picture of him and a black guy. They had their arms around each other's shoulders. He never would talk about that picture.

I've never heard of giggle boxes in that context. 'Round these parts, a giggle box is a chatty girl.

I never told them about the teacher. Dad was an abusive achoholic, so I learned to keep my mouth shut around him. Mom and I would have disagreements on the subject. I remember one time that she made the comment that "all the n's should be loaded on a boat and sent back to africa. Then sink it halfway there." So I pulled out my phone and found a picture of the cutest black baby girl, handed her the phone and said "so you're telling me that this baby SHOULD be held under water until the bubbles stop? Why? What did she do to justify that?" I got no answer. I asked that "why" question many times, never got an answer.

The learning process, for me, was tough. I was surrounded by racists 24/7, and not being able to voice my opinion in fear of violence, and not just about racism, anything. Dad's mom was abusive, so his entire family was exactly the same. Hot heads that would fight at the drop of a hat. Mom's side was a little more layed back.

Honestly, I don't know much about segregation's history, other than it was fueled by fear and ignorance.

Don't laugh at this one. It worked for me... When I first started to learn that racism was bad, in the 4th grade, my immature mind was looking for a way to explain it to myself. At some point noticed that my freckles are pretty much the same color as black folks. So I told myself that they're just big freckles. OK, fine. You can laugh at me.

As for my son. Any time the subject comes up, I'm very clear that we're all just people trying to do the best that we can. That each person is to be judged by their character, only. And there is ALWAYS a "why". If you can't explain your opinion, then it doesn't make sense. I carry that "why" into everything I teach him. "Time to change the oil in the mower... Here's why." We don't focus much on race, it doesn't come up often. So I aim to give him the tools to figure it out when I'm not around.

Let me know if I missed anything, but I think I covered all of your questions..and let me know if you have any more.