You have a better level of experience than some, but you are still not black nor have you lived in black neighborhood.   My relations were mostly assoicated with my education.  These were most guys recruited in St. Louis, Kansas City and amazingly several from New York.  They had been in street violence, some rough neighborhoods.  I also stayed a week in a St Louis projects area, there only by permission of local gang agreement through a church in that interacted with my college professor.. Gunshots heard at night were common.   But that was 1975 and things change.   It was a short experience a long time ago.

So anyway, what did you learn from those black guys in the army.