They probably do have amnesia. But you have no reason to connect, to jog their memory, or to offer them forgiveness or redemption.

I'm so sorry for what you went through.

I attended a private middle school, and I like to think that the one or two Black students we had as classmates had a better experience. Yes, racism existed. No, it never occurred to me to wonder why I had so few Black classmates in the 1960s and 1970s. I'd say that we kids were largely ignorant of it - most of us did not have openly hateful parents, and if they were racist, they didn't put it on full display in front of the children.

George Wallace was running for President.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace#Democratic_presidential_primaries_of_1976

We kids were unaware that he might have abandoned his racist ways by then; all we actually knew of the man is that someone said he wanted to send Black people "back to Africa." We 6th graders circled the wagons around our one Black classmate, who was our friend and that's all that mattered. We probably would have chained ourselves to him to keep him from being deported, had there been an actual need; we literally talked about doing that, or hiding him somewhere that no one could find him and take him away. (What any of us knew of politics, race, or the ability to "deport" actual citizens at the time could have fit in a thimble, but our hearts were in the right place.)

Valentine's Day is a Hallmark holiday.

The real meaning of it is largely forgotten. It's a day to honor the martyr, St. Valentine. Mostly for being persecuted, beaten, tortured, and beheaded for preaching Christianity. Possibly for performing marriages to aid Roman draft-dodgers, but that's sketchy, at best.

Meanwhile, <3 .