There’s a nice old black PhD at my gym, who nonetheless shuts down and wins any conversation about any random topic with exactly the phrase:
“As a poor black child raised in the Jim Crow South …”
He doesn’t seem to understand how he harms his cause pulling out that Trump card so that everyone just walks away.
I would tell him I see his background as a plus. Much more beneficial than a poor black child raised in the hood.
His doctorate degree is a testimony to how much better he had it back then than black kids in the good.