Thanks for sharing this very personal experience, ~springrain!
I can feel ART's "discrimination" lecture coming on, so I'm going to pre-empt it
There's a difference between discrimination based on legitimate characteristics - this person performed better than that person on a standardized test that is a predictor of college success; this person plays an instrument more skillfully than that person - and discrimination based on arbitrary and meaningless characteristics - melanin content in the skin, pigmentation of the eyes.
Like it or not, human beings are discriminating machines. We want to categorize, find patterns, make shortcuts so we don't have to deal with too much complexity in a situation. Evolutionarily it makes sense: if you learn that tigers are dangerous, you don't have to evaluate the situation every time you meet a tiger - you know that "tigers are dangerous" and you just run.
However, humans also have the ability to examine motivations and to make judgments based on context. We live in a racist society, with a racist history, a racist media; we are all to some extent racists, whether we care to admit it or not. Acknowledging it and being aware of it is what gives you power over it. Recognizing the context in which beliefs and behaviors are formed - both in terms of racial/cultural tendencies and personal judgments about those tendencies - is crucial to making informed and realistic judgments about the world around us.