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Yeah, my parents definitely didn't do that. I heard all about my mother's ongoing struggle with teachers and the ASD's administration over my education since preschool, and by 4th grade, I'd already corrected my teachers too many times on math and science mistakes to assume competence. I vividly remember a junior high vice-principal telling me outright I had "no business being that smart," and if he could, he'd've had me denied access to math or science classes until my age-peers could "catch up." I had a teacher tell me to 'quit pointing out that you're smarter than me.'
(Well, it also didn't help that my mom, even now, describes her late mother to people by starting with "remember the meanest teacher you had in school." This was a woman who taught Special Ed primarily because learning-disabled kids are easier to bully.)
My brothers and I also got our own version of "the Talk" about police, and to always be perfectly compliant and deferential to them… because they are all trigger-happy petty tyrants who will go out of their way to wreck your life if they think you don't respect their authoritah.
My parents are also fond of that Reagan quote our education secretary tried to turn on its head. "Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together." Bullshit. Government is not "us," government is "them." Government is that asshole up in the castle sending the Sheriff of Nottingham out to squeeze you dry.
Perhaps this comes down to me growing up at the bottom edge of the working class — materially poorer than the neighbors on government handouts. Did you ever have to hunker down in an apartment bathtub at age seven or so with your brothers because it was the safest place from a stray bullet, waiting for the gunshots to stop?
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