Yup can attest! I lived in (rural, mostly white) Virginia for about a decade and I've heard all of these! Add to the list "affirmative action is unfair," "the Civil War wasn't about slavery it was states' rights," and "the Confederate flag is heritage not hate." What gives me chills is to think that I could have turned out like that too if I hadn't been fortunate to attend diverse public schools or read books by authors of different ethnicities and backgrounds.

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but when I was really little I sometimes heard my dad use racial slurs; I couldn't really comprehend the full meaning, but it always made me uncomfortable because he'd be really angry when he said them. Then when I was six, I did my very first book report, on a biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.- and immediately knew that the man in the book was right and my dad was wrong. Imagine having that powerful of a message, that you can influence a first-grader's mind like that! MLK has been my hero ever since.