I grew up in a small town filled with white people. There were very few true haters and spotting them was very easy if we ever interacted. There were many others who had never really spoken to a black person before or who had stupid ideas in their heads. Simply meeting and talking to these people was usually enough to make a difference. The overwhelming majority of the time I was treated like everybody else.

If you've been reading the woke literature around blackness, you might have the impression that living as a black person is a constant struggle for survial. An endless nightmare where danger lurks around every corner. This isn't true. Generally speaking, I'd bet my life is just like yours. Some people are nice, some people are assholes, it's often difficult to know WHY they were assholes.

Attacking your ignorance is an excellent place to start, but that isn't achieved by dramatising the lives of black people or saying things that you know perfectly well don't make any sense. Start by thinking of black people as regular human beings who can understand nuance and danger and can make judgements of intention just as well as everybody else. Resist the media encouraging you to think of us first and foremost in terms of trauma. Work outwards from there.