Now, race is one of those TOPICS in America that makes PEOPLE extraordinarily uncomfortable. You BRING it up at a dinner PARTY or in a WORKPLACE environment, it is literally the conversational equivalent of touching the third rail.
The unknown MAKES people uncomfortable. And EVEN living in a CITY that's as cosmopolitan as New York City is, there's so many things I don't know about other cultures, even though I encounter other cultures - maybe even 18 or 19 of them - when I get on a subway car EVERY day.
I THINK we always VIEWPEOPLE who make us feel uncomfortable and appear to intrude on our middle-class cozy SPACE, we view them with, if not hostility, at least SUSPICION, discomfort, embarrassment.
With a free afternoon, I'd probably PUT on a onesie, find something like a really DARK, uncomfortable documentary on NETFLIX, and order pizza with a lot of RANCH on the side.