<p>I think I started categorizing people based on their race/phenotype starting in 4th grade when I moved to a new country. There, my sibling and I were pretty much the only kids at the school who were not white. It obviously didn’t help, in addition to the fact that I was the new kid, that I was physically bigger than most of them, and that the teachers seemed to favor me (no idea why, race might’ve played a factor).</p>
<p>On the first day of school, some kid made fun of my manner of talking (my slang) and I was pretty shocked. After that, some of them bullied me for the rest of my time there, and, since I was so young in a new country without any friends, I could only respond passively. It was probably around this time that I started to notice race and how others treated me based on that. I saw that people wanted to hurt me, and saw a maliciousness that I had never seen before (pretty similar idea to enfieldacademy’s point).</p>
<p>Sometimes I do envy how younger kids don’t seem to have the same media influenced judgement of their parents - ignorance is bliss I guess.</p>