For as long as I can remember I have hated the idea of the white man being superior to the black or red. In school, we were taught that the British and the French colonized a considerable portion of West and East Africa; the French with their Assimilation policy and the British with Imperialism. In movies, I saw how badly the black man was treated in America - a slave or worse, an animal. I read about how he and consequently his descendants had lost their identity and adopted the name of their master.I understood that the white man thought the black man was dirty, worse than a dog, probably a monkey, of lesser intelligence. Words like blackmail, blacklist, blackmarket, etc, were created or re-created - not sure which.
On those rare occasions that an "oyinbo" was doing their shopping or just driving by, I would get disgusted at any blackie like me staring at them for too long or treating them like they were from another planet. I often wondered aloud whose skin actually looked better. I am not a racist or anything; it is just my subconscious reacting to senseless prejudice, past or present, experienced or imagined.
