“Honestly, who would want to be black? Who would want people to be terrified of you and not want to sit next to you on public transportation?  Who would want to have this dark skin, broad nose, large thick lips, and wake up in the morning being despised by the rest of the world?”  These are the questions that roam around the minds of many who accept the socially constructed identity of blackness and they are being asked by Canadian Orville Lloyd Douglas.

In a recent article, he addresses the lack of storytellers as it relates to the socially colored black male’s struggles with self- hatred and writes why he hates “being black”.  A man after my own convictions, he writes, “I can honestly say I hate being a black male. Although black people like to wax poetic about loving their label I hate “being black.”  I just don’t fit into a neat category of the stereotypical views people have of black men.”  Is that so?

Will there be another?