Here’s how I first became aware of race: I was four. My father and I were at the checkout stand in a liquor store. A dark-skinned old man in denim overalls took a place in line at the counter next to me. I had never seen anyone that color before. The old man smiled at me, and I smiled back. I turned to my father and asked, “Who’s that?” He hissed: “Shhhh, I’ll tell you later!”

Later, he patiently explained that although the old man looked like a person, he wasn’t, really. He was something called a n-----. N------s weren’t people, he explained, they were animals who walked on their hind legs and wore clothes to look like us. But they weren’t like us at all, and I must never have anything to do with one. I was puzzled because I had felt the old man as a person; I had felt his kindness. My father, whom I had adored up to that minute, was wrong.

Soon, my somewhat less adored father also had occasion to explain about Jews, who were responsible for an astonishing array of evils, starting with murdering Jesus. I could read by then and pointed out that the Bible said the Romans did it. But my father insisted that I learn to “spot” Jews because they were so dangerous. He ran his finger down the pages of the phone book: “Any name that ends in –berg, or –owitz, or –stein. Any name that’s a color, like Green or Brown or Black, especially Gold and Silver. Any last name that’s a first name, like Simon or Arthur or . . . .” He went on and on.

By the time I was 11, I realized he was nuts. When I resisted his “instruction,” he hit me and shouted a lot. That was its own mess. Worse than that, though, he had programmed me to notice my fellow creatures in these demeaning ways. I couldn’t look at a list of names or a group of faces without noticing . I had this reflex, like a tic, and every time it went off, I felt sick with shame at what was going through my mind. Even though I didn’t believe any of it, I was mortified .

It took a long time, and it was hard, but eventually I rooted out the garbage in my head. I knew I'd done it a few years back, when I looked at a list of names and didn’t notice . One day, I realized I didn’t know whether there were any Jews or African-Americans in my class. (I was a teacher.) Right there in the elevator, I burst into tears because I was free. I still am. At last, my father is completely dead. And Barack Obama will be my president.