I was only twelve years of age when I came to the Netherlands. I do remember arriving at Schipol the airport with my baggage in hand. A stranger in a strange land. The main airport building was so wiped clean that its floors would shimmer. The White folks walking around me appeared angelic, only they had no wings. They appeared to be so friendly that I thought I was in heaven. I boarded the train and headed towards Rotterdam. For those of you who don't know, Rotterdam is one of the cities in Holland. I also have to confess that this was my first time ever on board a train. And boy, it felt strange. I remember our trains back home in Ghana and how particularly noisy they were. Trains in Ghana would shoot up smoke in the air, and you would hear them a thousands of miles coming. However, these Dutch trains were electric, made no noise and rode smoothly. Indeed, everything around me reminded me that I have arrived in a White-man's country.

In the beginning, my ability to communicate in the Dutch language was so poor that I hid myself.

I made no friends as a result. The only friend that I had and knew was the house in which I dwell. I also got teased a lot at school because of my black skin tone. The texture of my hair was also considered a problem-it wasn't European enough. So what did I do? I jerry curled it. Mind you, this was the eighties and the jerry curl hairdo was in. See, I was changing psychologically, but nobody even took notice of this change. Not even my parents. Quite early on, I discovered that White folks prefer fair skinned people to dark skinned people. With that in mind, I started bleaching my skin to gain their acceptance. I bleached my skin with my mother's enormous skin products. And with my hair all curled up and greasy-I was ready to integrate. I looked bi-racial. I even told people that I was black on my mother's side, and white on my father's. Of course, I was lying through my teeth, but only I knew.

Whenever anybody asked me were I was born, I told that person Holland. I was now officially suffering from a very serious form of inferiority complex. I felt ashamed to be an African. See, the eighties were pretty embarrassing for Blacks living in the West. The starvation in Ethiopia was making headline news all over the world. You would turn on your television, and you would see Ethiopian mothers with their emaciated children. You would walk down the streets and White-people would look pitiful on you. Some of them would stop and ask if you're from Ethiopia or not. The Black race in Africa became synonymous to the word starvation. Sir Bob Gedolf organized a huge concert in the Wimbley stadium to raise money for a starving Black continent. In fact, Blacks were portrayed by the white controlled media as a useless bunch of people, who cannot even feed themselves. Therefore, propagating the myth that Blacks are inferior human beings, if human beings at all.

The eighties have gone passed already. However, the stigmatization of Black folks as helpless, stupid, and good for nothing by the white controlled media still prevails. Every time that the White controlled media talks about Black folks, it's always Blacks this and Blacks that. They don't seem to have anything positive to say about us. It's the Blacks who are responsible for our employment rate. It's the Blacks who are responsible for our soaring crime rate. It's the Blacks who are turning our inner cities into ghetto's. Blacks are lazy so don't employ them. However, if you decide to employ them, better keep your eyes on them because they are thieves. Blacks are primitive, uncultured, and their men abusive their women. Therefore, White-women seeking to date Black-men should be warned. Now, I do know for a fact that they know that what they are saying about us Black folks is untrue. So why does the White-man continue to disgrace the Black-man in front of the whole world? What exactly have we done unto them to deserve this? I ask.