DECONSTRUCTING SKIN COLOUR
by
ROBERT J. LEWIS
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It is
doubtful that a species prone to making value judgments based
on skin colour could reasonably recommend itself to other forms
of intelligent life that will surely one day drop in (and then
quickly out) of our nano-neck of the woods in the incalculably
infinite universe. Apparently unable or unwilling to reject the
flawed criteria that privileges one race or skin pigmentation
over another, Homo sapiens betrays a lack of fitness that should
be -- at a minimum -- worrisome.
Since
one always chooses to make skin colour the basis of inclusion
or exclusion, at the workplace, in schools, in the broad spectrum
of everyday social interaction, why do so many, especially in
their private thoughts, enthusiastically embrace the colour divide
when demonstratively “achievement knows no colour?”
Could
it be that despite spectacular advances in the pure and behavioural
sciences, what is elemental in skin colour has not yet been persuasively
revealed?
To reach
the truth of anything, philosophy (phenomenology) encourages us
to take away everything from whatever it is we are examining until
what remains is the unadulterated object or entity in its truth.
From a book I can remove its cover, its title and author page,
even all of its print, but I cannot remove its pages or binding
if it to remain a book. The list would be book-long of the things
we could remove from a virtuous human being – skin colour
being one of them – without compromising his virtue.
Reduced
to its existential absolutes, skin colour is simply a declaration
or statement that describes or tells of one’s historical
relationship with the sun: working under it, deprived of it, hiding
from it, seeking it out.
Whether
beneath a wintry Nordic sky or burning Namibian sun, there was
a time when there was only one skin colour. The tribe or community
would not have recognized or defined itself through colour. The
notion of superiority or exclusion based on colour, even in the
abstract, could not be spoken of much less acted upon.
If we
go along with the anthropological consensus that Homo sapiens
took his first steps in Africa, that the first humans, by virtue
of their particular relationship with the sun, were black, for
the concept of race based on colour to exist, there would have
had to be a minimum of one other colour.
So how
did black skin evolve into white skin? Anthropology hypothesizes
that out of curiosity, wanderlust, or necessity in respect to
scarcity/adverse climate, the black skinned nomad left Africa
and one day found himself in a friendly northern land of plenty
where he decided to permanently settle. However favourable were
the conditions of life, he quickly discovered that he was constitutionally
ill-equipped to deal with the brutal winters that characterize
the temperate zone.
To prevent
frostbite and hypothermia, which can be fatal, he had to learn
how to construct cold and windproof shelters and to protect his
body with the skin and furs from the animals he hunted. For months
at a time, due to extreme cold, only his face -- the main source
of Vitamin D -- was exposed to the sun. During the shortest days
of the year, disadvantaged by an acute Vitamin D deficiency, he
suffered the following symptoms: difficulty thinking clearly,
bone pain, frequent bone fractures, muscle weakness and soft bones
resulting in deformity and severe fatigue. Without a sufficient
supply of Vitamin D, he would not have been able to survive the
long winter. Since every colour includes subtle gradations of
itself, some of the Africans would have been of a lighter black
than others, and consequently able to absorb more Vitamin D which
would have permitted them to survive -- and multiply.
White
skin absorbs Vitamin. D six times more efficiently than black
skin. Over time, natural selection would have selected those blacks
with lighter skin until perhaps tens of thousands of years hence,
their skin would be white. But we note that it is always the same
person, except that his historical relationship with the sun has
changed.
If we
conjecture the reverse paradigm and the first humans were white
and migrated to Africa, the darker skinned whites would have been
favoured by natural selection because melanin,
which acts as a natural sunscreen to protect against the sun’s
harmful UV rays, would advantage them over their whiter skinned
brethren in tropical and equatorial climates. But once again,
it is the same person whose skin is now black because his historical
relationship with the sun has changed.
Colour
preference would have been strictly based on practical necessity.
In a northern clime, given the choice, a woman of child bearing
age would seek out a lighter skinned sexual partner to better
optimize her chances of survival for both herself and her offspring.
In Africa, this same woman, for the same reasons would seek out
the darker skinned person.
However,
at some point in human evolution, colour came to mean more than
one’s historical relationship with the sun as especially
the developed world began to irrationally (prejudicially) include
or exclude others strictly based on skin colour, which begs the
question? What prompts a culture or people, en masse,
to subscribe to a value system that is demonstrably counter-productive?
It ranks
high among the indisputable facts of human endeavour that the
great advances in civilization took place in the temperate zone,
and were perforce accomplished by people who were white skinned
by virtue of their particular relationship with the sun.
Much
like a 4-colour palette favours a more developed art than a 1-colour
palette, the 4-season temperate zone climate – and not the
tropics or equatorial zone -- appears to favour the development
of civilization. The northern mind -- having to deal with a more
complex and lethal climate -- of necessity will be more active
and inventive than the equatorial mind that responds in kind to
year-round friendly temperatures and an abundance of food and
natural resources. But we must always bear in mind that if an
equatorial dweller were transplanted to a northern clime, in response
to the more challenging environment, his dark skin, over time,
would evolve into white skin, his mind would become more active
and inventive, and he would come to measure and know himself as
belonging to the collective mind that supplies the raw materials
out of which advanced civilizations are founded. And of course
the reverse holds true in respect to accomplishments that are
unique to the tropics and are associated with black skin. In tropical
and equatorial countries, depression and loneliness are not nearly
as problematic as they are in the temperate zone because local
culture and tradition instill a more profound understanding of
what is essential (non-negotiable) in life: connection and community.
However, if a temperate zone dweller were transported to the tropics,
over time his white skin would turn black, and he would come to
measure himself as belonging to the collective mind that creates
and embraces a self-perpetuating locus of community values upon
which every humanity depends.
If in
the early history of man, the scientific and technological differences
between the temperate zone and equatorial dweller were minor,
over time, in response to the challenges of the 4-seasons, a rapid
succession of discoveries and inventions created what appeared
to be two worlds apart, and it became a matter of course and habit
that the temperate zone dweller came to regard himself as superior
to his equatorial counterpart, a belief that would have been re-enforced
by the presence of First World competence and equipment in Third
World countries owed to either export or in the case of colonialism,
the imposition of an advanced culture on a lesser one. We soberly
note that as it concerns moral development, there remains no distinction
between developed and undeveloped nations, all of whom have been
remiss in providing for their less fortunate.
Since
we have already determined that it is always the same person (black
or white according to his relationship with the sun) responding
to his particular environment, are we not forced to conclude that
the spectacular rise of western civilization is a function of
location – and not skin colour? Surgeons have long argued
there are no such separate and distinct entities as black and
white people – only white and black skin and its variations.
Blacks
who privately wonder why Africa hasn’t kept pace with the
West, who harbour civilization related inferiority complexes,
are judging themselves in bad faith, the central one being that
civilization is the product of a people different than themselves,
which it isn’t. Just as whites who subscribe to the conceit
that they (their advanced civilization) are superior to people
of colour are in bad faith conveniently confusing colour for location.
Which
isn’t to say that it is not natural for men to hierarchize
themselves from their fellows whenever the opportunity presents
itself. Class distinctions are as old as man. But we must distinguish
between natural and rational distinctions that serve the common
good as opposed to irrational ones that in many instances undermine
the best interests of a community or people. Excluding a genius
because of his skin colour is self-evidently irrational. But the
more skilled trapper, the more capable manager, the more proficient
supply chain, are all factually ascertainable, and the hierarchies
that derive from them have a firm basis in reality and should
be the basis on which we make our positive and negative or inclusionary
or exclusionary value judgments.
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If we
decide that exclusionary value judgments based on skin colour,
ethnicity, race, religion, class and sexual orientation are counterproductive
as it concerns the cultural and productive life of the species,
what exceptional thinking is required to call into question that
which is now accepted as normal or inevitable? And what elected
discipline (from the arts, sciences and humanities) is best positioned
to create and disseminate values which do an underperforming species
proud?