I recall as a kid seeing old black men that had worked in the fields all their lives. They were coal black from decades in the sun. It’s rare to see anyone that black in the U.S. anymore.
They also didn’t have the extreme skin damage my white grandparents had from their decades of farming in the intense sun. They both had minor skin cancers removed in their old age. They always bore a lot of spots from the Louisiana sun. My grandad was a share cropper much of his life. He finally bought his own farm when he was almost fifty. He worked side by side with these old black men in the sun. They never got burned like he did. He farmed until his stroke when he was eighty-two.
Any scientific research on how well blacks are protected from the sun? Are lighter colored blacks at more risk?
Apparently, yes. This handy page from the CDC compares skin cancer incidence and death rates between races, and whites have about 10x more skin cancers.
It’s not clear from this cite whether there is a difference between fair skinned and dark skinned blacks, but I would be surprised if that wasn’t the case.
Huh, I was just thinking about this the other day. It’s because of the melanin in the skin and the tanning/burning thing, right? Because I’ve never heard of skin cancer being huge amongst Indians, either.
Of note Black Americans also get diagnosed later, at more advanced stages.
Also I suspect that your childhood memories are of Black Americans who were of less mixed descent than most American Blacks are today. Lighter skinned Blacks are at greater risk of skin cancer than are darker skinned Blacks.
I thought the newest research was that due to the hole in the ozone layer, that UV concentration had risen so much that even black skin was no longer a protection, but because blacks “never” got skin cancer, they are not used to using sun screen like whites and so currently have a higher rate of skin cancer than whites who are using protection.
We are not talking about an average admixture of a complete population over the last 50 years. We are talking about a particular subpopulation of Blacks who were the old Black men “that had worked in the fields all their lives” who aceplace57 had seen back when he was a kid, who were “coal black”. People who, presume 40 to 50 years ago, were in their 80s then, who were likely born to recently freed slaves, or even as slaves themselves.
You think that the average admixture of that subpopulation is the same as is the average for the broad self-identified “Black” population today? You think that the average self-identified Black today would get “coal Black” in the sun? I have no evidence to cite, but I doubt it.
That article is stating that they are less likely to get skin cancer but when they do get it that they are more likely to die of it. That’s consistent with other things I have read on this issue. Dark skin is somewhat protective, but not enough that one can disregard sun protection.
What I read as the claim was the false perception that Blacks “never” got skin cancer, so therefore used less protection and were less aware of the possibility they could get it. That link addressed that claim.
People in general worked outside more when I was a kid. Rural people on farms were in the fields by 6AM and worked until dark. Black men in the fields tanned and got much darker. Especially someone that did it sixty hours a week every summer for fifty years or more. I can’t recall ever seeing a black person with a sunburn. It’s probably possible, I just never noticed it.
My grandparents were white and also heavily tanned from the same work, but their skin aged much more from the sun’s abuse. It almost turned to leather with lots of liver spotting. They both had small skin cancers removed when they were in their seventies.
Office workers today don’t get nearly as much sun unless they hang out at tanning salons.
Well the claim made was between Blacks who do not use sun protection and Whites who regularly do. The cite states that “[v]ery dark, black skin has a natural SPF of about 13 and filters twice as much UV radiation as white skin” and that “experts advise people to use sunscreen with an SPF of at least 15.” It therefore seems reasonable to conclude that a White person regularly using a sunblock of over 15 (standard is 30 for most who regularly use) will have less risk than a Black person with the same exposure, even more so if the Black person does not have “very dark, black skin” - which many American Blacks do not have.
(We’ll leave the need for Vitamin D from sun exposure, and relative risk/benefit out of the discussion.)
I’m quite hirsute with a middle eastern background - I’ve got very hairy arms, legs and chest (not on my back luckily!). I was recently having a friendly argument with a black health worker as I claimed my body hair gave me a measure of protection against the sun. He said didn’t agree. Without wanting to hijack this thread I wonder who was right.