I’m a white guy who grew up in the PNW. My city is often described as the whitest major city in the country, but the high school I went to had the one of the highest percentages of black students in the district, it’s been quite a while now, but it was somewhere around 15-20%. I didn’t know anyone who was seethingly racist, but racist jokes were common. As I went through grades, I had fewer and fewer black students in on my classes. I was mostly taking advanced placement classes my junior and senior year, and it seemed like the biggest determinant of who was in the was taking those classes was social class rather than attitude or effort.
I wouldn’t say I was necessarily any more “woke” than any of my peers, a lot of the realizations I’ve had about that time came later as an adult.
Frowning up in a liberal environment with liberal values definitely made me predisposed to accepting the left position on these issues, but there was also some tangible things that really connected to me, like the fact that ruby bridges is still only 67 years old. The past really isn’t all that far away.