As a child, I was led to believe that Blackness was inferior. And I was not alone. The idea went deep: Call it a vague invalidation: It wasn’t something that most if any would articulate in that way, let alone knowingly propagate. Rather, it was in the air, in the culture. We had been trained in it, bathed in it, acculturated to hate ourselves. To hear Charles tell it, black kids were raised feeling rotten: It happened for children in the most inconspicuous of ways: It was relayed through toys and dolls, cartoons and children’s shows, fairy tales and children’s books.