I’ve noticed that many racists argue that “blacks,” whatever that means, show evidence of systematic tendencies towards delinquency and lack of education. I won’t bother to link to the threads where these people make these arguments, because they are generally distasteful and unpleasant.
However, the answer that “it’s all society” seems to suffer from a bad case of false dichotomy. The evidence for racial tendencies in intelligence are basically zero, but that doesn’t mean that society is the only other possible explanation. And so, I propose this wildly uninformed question:
What if humans as a species are genetically predisposed to distrust darker skinned people?
It’s fairly well accepted that humans, on the whole, associate certain colors with certain moods and emotions. Couldn’t something similar be at least partially responsible for the various way society seems stacked against the dark-skinned? Is this a testable hypothesis? Has this hypothesis been tested? Would we be able to distinguish a genetic cause for subconscious racism from a societal one? Is this question even interesting?
I don’t know if it’s scientifically tested, but I have read that even Africans associate light with good and dark with evil. It seems to be a universal human trait that we’ve evolved. We fear the dark.
We maybe don’t like people who can hide in shadows? (Flip Wilson on Laugh In, many years ago: “It was a very dark night, and I didn’t smile.”)
Hm… It’s at least somewhat less unpleasant than the idea that blacks “can’t compete” for grades, income, etc. It’s also more directly testable.
But is it one-way? Wouldn’t a society made up all of very dark-skinned people be equally uncomfortable seeing for the first time a very pale stranger?
So, okay, we don’t want to dilute ourselves from race so very completely that we can’t say, “Blacks can withstand direct sunlight longer without sunburn,” when that’s pretty much the sole purpose of melanin in the skin.
But we also have some VERY good historical reasons to be worried when people start saying that racial differences in behavior are genetic or innate. It seems like a kind of speculation that doesn’t do anyone any good, even if it is true.
I’ve always understood that babies and young children don’t show any hesitation with people of darker skin, thus the saying that “Racism must be taught.”
I’m not even sure where I heard that and so I’m not sure if it’s accurate.
I think this is a well-established psychological principle: ingroup/outgroup bias. So in the US, if you’re dark-skinned, the majority (whites) will view you with suspicion or fear. Whether it’s because you’re “dark”, or whether it’s because you’re “not-white,” the bias functions the same way.
I doubt a genetic bias against dark brown skin is universal. It would be quite a handicap in places like Africa where the majority of people have dark brown skin.
I think Grotonian raises a good possibility. Maybe there’s a genetic trait for humans to be biased towards the majority, whatever the majority happens to be in their society. So racism might be a universal human trait but it would manifest differently in New York and Lagos and Tokyo.
Personally, I see more proof on the SDMB that humans are genetically predisposed to proposing genetic predispositions on pure perception alone. :dubious:
I’ve wondered this, because I’ve noticed that even in countries where people with brown skin or darker-than-white skin are the majority (take some Asian countries, for instance, or Haiti, etc.), people value lighter skin. Some people carry parasols, apply whitening creams to their skin, wear long sleeves to guard against suntan, etc. There are even Asian mothers who won’t let their children eat soy sauce, for fear that it’ll turn their skin darker (I don’t think soy sauce would do that, but that’s the folk belief.)
So I do think that humans, naturally, tend to prefer lighter skin. And even societies where darker-skinned people are the majority, tend to prefer lighter skin. Frankly, I find this societal attitude rather irritating.
We do have a big example of darker skinned people meeting light skinned people for the first time. The result? The darker skinned people thought they were gods. See: Aztecs/Cortes
It is well established that among darker-skinned people, lighter skin is preferred. It’s called colorism:
This probably had nothing to do with skin color, and everything to do with big impressive ships, firearms, shiny metal armor, and riding horses. If Cortes was black, I think the natives’ reaction would have been the same.
And it’s pretty well established that this is, at least among African Americans and many Africans, an unfortunate remnant of slavery and colonialism in which the masters/colonist-overlords actively promoted this idea that lighter skin was preferable and superior, to the point of giving lighter-skinned black people privileges and even authority over their darker-skinned brethren.
It’s a worldwide problem. Which means it’s probably just human nature to prefer the lighter skinned.
As for Cortes, the Aztecs thought the conquistadores were gods because their legends said the gods were light-skinned. Which makes sense if that’s how human nature works.
Bullshit that it’s just “human nature”. That same argument was used to justify slavery when it was a “worldwide problem”.
Unless you’re a mind-reader of Moctezuma, bullshit – you don’t know why exactly they reacted in the way they did. The “they viewed them as gods” is not exactly historical fact – it’s much closer to the “urban myth” variety of history. They were certainly blown away by sailing ships and horse-back riding, but likely just viewed them as very powerful but enigmatic visitors:
Slavery has long been part of natural human activity. What was unique was ending it. It shows that we can transcend our base natures. But there’s no question that slavery has been normal throughout the vast bulk of human history.
Sure, it’s just as likely. I’m not ruling out other factors. And I did not know it was urban myth. My school textbooks said that they were viewed as gods because of Aztec prophecies about light-skinned gods.
Nonsense. As long as the purported social reasons for dark-skin bias are also world wide issues “probably just human nature” is nonsense.
One culture in the world (as far as I know) with light skin gods, while others either don’t bother mentioning skin color or have the occasional inhuman color. I’d put a lot more money on the Aztecs considering light skin otherworldly or having the same cultural bias that underlies the expression blue-blooded than on a pan-human predilection against dark skin.
Other evidence of it being cultural: the quick and complete shift from “rich and healthy people are pale because they don’t have to work in the sun all day” to “rich and healthy people are tan because they can lay in the sun all day and aren’t cooped up in dark factories” that took place in the West in the last century.
It is quite common in parts of Africa - possibly elsewhere as well - for body parts to be removed from Albino people because they are considered powerful good luck charms. Although clearly not such good luck for the Albinos who get mutilated.
Here is a story about Tanzania moving to protect Albinos from practisers of witchcraft
It MIGHT work that way, but it can’t be proven. It’s just the more comforting hypothesis. All we know for sure is that whether people are white, yellow, or brown, they prefer lighter-skinned people. Why that is is a subject of debate that will probably never be settled.
We don’t know that “for sure”. For one thing, we have plenty of evidence that racism (and colorism) is taught, and not inborn – babies don’t have racial preferences.