I grew up with a schizophrenic narcissistic mother as a parent. My father was absent for much of my childhood, and during the time he was around, he made it clear that he hated me so much that he wouldn't speak to me and wouldn't allow me to be in the same room with him. I blamed myself for this, in spite of the fact that I never did anything to my father. My parents divorced while I was a child because my father wanted my mother put back into a mental hospital that she had been in and out of during my childhood.

My mother was given custody of me. She had an obsession with black people. She had her hair curled tightly and dyed black, and told anyone who would listen that she was an albino black woman. She forced us to live in all-black ghetto neighborhoods and attend all-black churches and all-black schools. It was a very difficult childhood for me, being a boy with reddish-blonde hair and blue eyes. I was bullied constantly by the black children, and none of them would be friends with me or even speak to me except to tell me that they were 'going to kick my white ass.' The black people told me that I was ugly, stupid, and a bad person for being white.

I still remember living in the all-black ghettos. We had to stay inside all of the time because it was like a war zone outside. We couldn't go outside to play. I heard gunshots more than once, and the dumpsters were regularly set on fire. There was a bullet hole in the wall of one of the public housing units we lived in for a while. Drug dealing and gang activity was going on constantly, day and night.

I can remember sitting in an all-black church with my mother, and listening to the preacher talk about the evils of the blue-eyed devils. He was a financially well-off black separatist preacher, and I was a white child who was starved, beaten, and verbally abused every single day of my childhood. I passed out a few times in church because I hadn't eaten food and often went without food for days at a time. I wanted to die or for someone to kill me so that the insanity would stop.

I have seen black-American culture up close. I don't like it. I am not a racist, but to this day, when a black person comes near me, I move away from them immediately, whether it's on a trolley or bus or on a sidewalk. I am not going to be bullied, harassed, threatened, or beaten again for having the wrong skin color. I will not be the victim anymore.

Is there anyone else is this group who was taught to hate themselves because of physical characteristics they are unable to change? I couldn't change the color of my skin, hair, or eyes, so I was a bad person as a child. I couldn't look at myself in a mirror. I couldn't smile or laugh or have fun. I still have a hard time with smiling, laughing, and having fun. But at least I am now able to look in a mirror when I shave now.