When I first had to learn to use a computer at work my teacher was a young black guy who was from Oakland. He used to tell me stories of the horrors he went through because he applied himself early and wanted to go to college.
He was beaten and had his school work destroyed so many times that his father who was a navy vet arranged for him to go live with a former shipmate in the central valley. He said his junior and senior years were trouble free even though he was one of only a few black students in his school.
He laughed when he told me the hardest part of his adjustment was because he was not a jock. Everyone just assumed he could run a 9.5 hundred and dunk from the top of the key.
When my parents divorced in '66, my siblings and I were thrust face first into the civilian black community, which was almost completely alien to us. To say our re-adjustment was difficult would be a massive understatement. In many ways, we never did fully meld with our black peers.
Quite honestly, you're from where you're from, and there's no faking it. In time I learned not to, and became quite popular by just being myself. I also had to earn respect by standing my ground, and never backing down from a fight, though I never once started one. I definitely finished plenty.
My teenage years were one helluva learning experience for me. I don't necessarily fear being in areas with high cocentrations of blacks, but it's only because I developed an acute and highly tuned situational awareness during my time in the ghetto.
More than that, I developed what I can only describe as a psychic response mechanism. When some black predator locks onto me, I instinctively send back a matching wave that lets him know I'm a dangerous target that's best avoided.