When I made my way to college, I was truly astonished to find teachers who appeared to derive their primary pleasure in the classroom by exercising their authoritarian power over my fellow students, crushing our spirits, and dehumanizing our minds and bodies. I had chosen to attend Stanford University, a predominantly white college (primarily because the financial aid packages were better than those offered by black institutions), but I never once considered what it would be like to study with teachers who were racist. Even though I had attended a high school with outspokenly racist teachers who were contemptuous and unkind, I had romanticized college. I believed it would be a paradise of learning where we would all be so busy studying that we’d never have time for the petty things of this world, especially not racism.

HOOKS, B. Teaching critical thinking: practical wisdom. New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 2.