Oof, that’s horrible but sadly not surprising.

And yeah, I think being exposed to lots of different people and situations from a young age, as well as being on the margins yourself, helps in opening one’s world view up, but not always, there are unfortunately so many examples of people who either witness or are even directly impacted by bigotry, who go the other way and almost barricade themselves in it because acceptance is easier for them than fighting. It goes to show how pervasive it all is.

As for psychedelics, they’re just not for me (I’m autistic, and other than weed I’m not comfortable with any other drugs, even alcohol and caffeine), but I can absolutely see how they can help some people with opening their mind, and think it would be great if they were more available in a therapeutic and supervised setting exactly for things like this (and working through trauma and other issues) but it’s also important to remember that things like ant-racism are a constant things we have to continue to do every day, not something we unlearn once and are “fixed”.