I’m Black On The Outside, And Black is How I Feel On the Inside

I wear black on the outside, ’cause black is how I feel on the inside.

— The Smiths

Well, I am black on the outside, and black is how I feel on the inside. I’m feeling this way because I’m finding it hard to understand where all the hate is coming from. Hatred beyond 400 years ago, all the way back to slavery. I’m finding it hard to understand what Black people did throughout history that was so bad to warrant this level and amount of hate and disdain.

In the United States of America, Black people were:

• Kidnapped and stolen from their homelands in Africa
• Brought to America in chains at the bottom of ships
• Forced into slavery
• Forced to work on white plantations to build white wealth
• Forced to learn a new language and culture and denounce their own
• Terrorized and brutalized during slavery to keep them obedient
• Jailed unjustly by the hundreds of thousands after they were freed
• Hunted and lynched by the thousands
• Bombed and massacred after building their own system of wealth
• Forced to endure unconstitutional Jim Crow laws