# History of using color to describe people/race **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 25, 2025, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-using-color-to-describe-people-race/1025127 "2025-11-25T18:35:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-using-color-to-describe-people-race/1025127/41 "2026-01-05T02:02:48Z")
I don’t have a factual answer, but its interesting we use skin color and not things like eye color or hair color to describe people. Nobody breaks people into groups based on hair color or eye color. Within the US at least, racial divisions were intentionally built into our culture to prevent any kind of lower class alliance. In Bacons rebellion, poor/enslaved whites and blacks united together to fight the aristocrats. So the aristocrats created something called the virginia codes, designed to give black people less status than white people. The goal was to make white people identify based on race instead of class, and to view blacks as inferiors who they would never ally with. This was in 1705 and now its 2025, and its still alive and well. > **[Bacon's Rebellion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon%27s_Rebellion)** > > Nathaniel Bacon '"\`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000003-QINU\`"'#John Ingram > William Berkeley #Herbert JeffreysKing Charles II > Bacon’s rebellion was the first rebellion in the [North American colonies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Colonies) in which discontented frontiersmen took part. A [somewhat similar uprising](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Revolution_(Maryland)) in [Maryland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Maryland) involving [John Coode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Coode_(Governor_of_Maryland)) and [Josias Fendall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josias_Fendall) took place in 1689. The alliance between [European indentured servants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude_in_British_America) and [Africans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_of_Africa) (a mix of indentured, enslaved, and [Free Negroes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Negro)) disturbed the colonial upper class. They responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery in an attempt to divide the two races from subsequent united uprisings with the passage of the [Virginia Slave Codes of 1705](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Slave_Codes_of_1705). > **[Virginia Slave Codes of 1705](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Slave_Codes_of_1705)** > > The Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 (formally entitled An act concerning Servants and Slaves), were a series of laws enacted by the Colony of Virginia's House of Burgesses in 1705 regulating the interactions between slaves and citizens of the crown colony of Virginia. The enactment of the Slave Codes is considered to be the consolidation of slavery in Virginia, and served as the foundation of Virginia's slave legislation. All servants from non-Christian lands became slaves. There were fort The l... However, this is from the US, not globally. My understanding is things like intermarriage between whites and blacks was more common in the 17th century. So intentional focus on difference in skin color is built into US culture to discourage any alliance between the lower classes against the upper classes. But again, that doesn’t explain why its a global phenomena. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-using-color-to-describe-people-race/1025127/42 "2026-01-05T02:46:40Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Nobody breaks people into groups based on hair color Counterpoint: > **[Discrimination against people with red hair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_people_with_red_hair)** > > Discrimination against people with red hair is the prejudice, stereotyping and dehumanization of people with naturally red hair. In contemporary form, it often involves a cultural discrimination against people with red hair. A number of stereotypes exist about people with red hair, many of which engender harmful or discriminatory treatment towards them. > While discrimination against people with red hair has occurred for thousands of years and in many countries, in modern times it has been descri... ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-using-color-to-describe-people-race/1025127/43 "2026-01-05T03:14:41Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Nobody breaks people into groups based on hair color or eye color. Well, there was schoolteacher Jane Elliott’s famous eye-color exercise in the late 1960s, where she divided her 3rd grade class into two groups based on whether they had brown eyes or blue eyes (they were all white, so she had to use something other than skin color to make the point). Initially, she told them that brown-eyed children were superior. The “superior” children grew arrogant and discriminated against their “inferior” blue-eyed classmates. She then switched the roles, so that the blue-eyed children were the “superior” children and the brown-eyed children were the “inferior” children. It was quite effective in demonstrating how something insignificant can lead to baseless discrimination. She took a lot of flak for it at the time. She would probably have been fired and banned for teaching for life today. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-using-color-to-describe-people-race/1025127/44 "2026-01-05T03:18:46Z")
> [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > Counterpoint: There is also the stereotype that blonde women are more attractive but less intelligent than their brunette counterparts. In my experience, discrimination against people with red hair is much more common in the UK than here in the US. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-using-color-to-describe-people-race/1025127/45 "2026-01-05T04:17:54Z")
Speaking as a used-to-be redhead, i wasn’t even aware that anyone discriminated against red-headed people until i was about 50. It’s really not a thing in the US. I suspect it is in the UK because it’s a marker of Irish heritage, but I’m not sure. ETA: the Wikipedia article says there was discrimination against redheads in Germany and Spain because people suspected redheads of being Jewish. I think Ashkenazi Jews have the second highest incidence of red hair after the Irish. But i _am_ Jewish, so if people are discriminating against me because i might be Jewish, I’m going to attribute that to antisemitism, not to anti-red-hair-prejudice. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-using-color-to-describe-people-race/1025127/46 "2026-01-05T04:30:54Z")
I recall being late 20s when my undergrad college chum, a white nth generation American from California like myself, married a young English woman he’d met a few years ago while at grad school in England. Her withering contempt for all things Irish, and her liberal use of “Irish” as a swear / slur word about like a 1960 white American might use the N word was an absolute revelation to me. I was certainly familiar with racial prejudice. But those two groups, English and Irish, were the _exact same color_ and indistinguishable by sight. How could they be discriminatory to each other? Answer: Very easily. That’s how. Color me gobsmacked at the time. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-using-color-to-describe-people-race/1025127/47 "2026-01-05T06:18:01Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I think Ashkenazi Jews have the second highest incidence of red hair after the Irish. It’s higher in Scotland than Ireland. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2026, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-using-color-to-describe-people-race/1025127/48 "2026-01-07T05:01:02Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Within the US at least, racial divisions were intentionally built into our culture to prevent any kind of lower class alliance. In Bacons rebellion, poor/enslaved whites and blacks united together to fight the aristocrats. In particular, one reason they united together was because they felt the government wasn’t killing enough Native Americans. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2026, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-using-color-to-describe-people-race/1025127/49 "2026-01-07T14:00:18Z")
I didn’t know that. But i think the Irish and the Scots are closely related. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2026, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-using-color-to-describe-people-race/1025127/50 "2026-01-07T15:56:41Z")
Lists of facts about Presidents traditionally included their heritage. Scots-Irish predominated. For years I was puzzled by that designation, because I didn’t see it elsewhere. I knew that many Scots had emigrated to Ireland, but it seemed strange that so many Presidents’ families came from that small area. Finally, the penny dropped. Scots-Irish was a code word for Protestant. Irish was the code word for Catholic, although it was never needed until Kennedy. All the earlier Presidents had been from “proper” acceptable religions. Sometimes prejudice can be overt and subtle at the same time. Modern lists have apparently dropped Scots-Irish as a heritage, opting for more specific tags. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2026, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-using-color-to-describe-people-race/1025127/51 "2026-01-15T08:45:12Z")
When the spanish say Moors …its from words similar to, meaning same as , “Mauritania” . its thought to be the local word for the people and area, but the origins are lost to history. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-using-color-to-describe-people-race/1025127.md?page=2)