[Serious] When was the first time you had experienced racism?

I think I was probably 7 or 8 years old.

I was a white kid from Canada, grew up in a pretty white area. The most diversity I saw in school was a single Vietnamese kid in my class. My idea of racism before this was my old grandmother, which got the "it was different times" label.

My family decided to take a trip down to Tennessee. We'd been once before and had a great time at Dollywood and seeing some local tourist attractions around Gatlinburg. One of our favourites from our first trip was going horseback riding through the Smokies at a small ranch.

They were always so friendly to us and really accommodating. The first time we'd gone I had a broken arm and they took amazing care to ensure I was safe.

We heard that the ranch was doing a cookout and show in the evening so we decided to sign up. However, to get to the cookout you had to take a hayride across a small part of their land.

We got there, admittedly close to the departure time, but not late. They'd already left, and the ranch was totally empty. As we tried to figure out what to do, another group pulled in and was in the same situation.

They were a group of four as well, two young couples. We were so disappointed, but they were so optimistic and tried to figure out a way to the cookout. They suggested that we make the short hike out to the rest group, since it wasn't too far at all. We thought that was a great idea, so we set off to meet the others.

It was a lot of fun. They were incredibly friendly, and great with my sister and I who were both young. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe they were from the New Jersey or New York area. There were some difficult parts of the hike, like crossing a small river, which they actually carried my sister and I across.

Eventually we were coming close and could see the group gathered around fires. We started waving as we approached and were immediately met with men on horseback riding towards us. They came up to us, guns on their hips, and started yelling at us.

"You're trespassing!" and "You're not welcome here." Things along those lines were what they told us. I didn't understand what was happening. I thought we'd done something wrong and we were being told off, but my parents were just about as angry as I'd ever seen them in my life. They pointed out that we were there with kids, we weren't exactly a threat. But they wouldn't have it. They kicked us off the ranch and made us make the hike back to our vehicles.

The mood had shifted since the first hike. The other group was quiet now, and my parents were apologetic about what had happened. We eventually made it to our cars and were on our way back to the hotel, and I was still confused.

On the drive, my parents began to have an open conversation about what had happened. That the ranch owners were aggressive because of the skin colour of the other group. How horrible and wrong it was to act like that to anybody, especially over the colour of skin. It still took some time to process, since it was the first time I'd ever seen such behaviour. But eventually I started understanding the reasons for those actions that frightened me so much. The hands on the holsters, the yelling, the sudden shift from them being so kind to us to treating us like enemies. It really was because the colour of somebody's skin.

To this day I don't think I've seen racism to that extreme.

/r/AskReddit Thread