Mississippi conservative turns on Trump after abandoning racism: ‘He proves to be more of an idiot every day’

Laurie Myatt grew up in rural Mississippi, where she absorbed the white supremacism and racist language that permeates the culture -- but, as an adult, she realized she could do better.

The 49-year-old Myatt moved away from rural Raleigh, where she said the N-word is still commonly used, years ago to attend Mississippi State, where she began to learn that much of those absorbed lessons were morally and historically wrong, reported The Guardian.

“You repeat what you know, saying the N-word until forming your own opinion about things,” Myatt told the newspaper. "Not something I’m proud of.”

Myatt, who describes herself as a “very conservative person," admits she voted for President Donald Trump, but she's unhappy about the direction he's leading the country.

“He proves to be more of an idiot every day,” Myatt said. “He brings more divisiveness than unity.”

Myatt began asking deeper questions about her own race relations and views on the Confederate flag after reading a Guardian article published in August about Mississippians who still fly the divisive banner.

She spoke to reporter Donna Ladd for a follow-up article on white Mississippians who had abandoned and disavowed their own racist pasts, and shared a complicated anecdote about what she had learned as a child.

Myatt's father managed a garment factory and integrated hiring when she was a child, but her family still embraced white supremacy on a personal level.

She recalled running into a former family housekeeper in a grocery store, and the elated black woman lifted the white girl and her siblings into the air and kissed them.

That public display angered Myatt's mother, a history teacher, and she left her shopping cart in the aisle and took the confused children directly home to scrub their faces.

Myatt said she's made efforts to reach out to black neighbors and colleagues to form stronger personal relationships, and she says other white southerners can unlearn the racist lessons they absorbed as children.

“You do what you’re taught, what you see, until you see something else and realize, 'Hey, this isn’t right,” Myatt told The Guardian.