Race Wheel

A note to the beloved reader: photos enlarge when clicked

Above is an image of the 1973 Thanksgiving issue of the popular cartoon series, "Peanuts"

     Imagine taking your date to a dance club to have a brown paper bag held up against your skin. The security guard holds his arm out as your partner walks right in. As recently as 50 years ago, this form of segregation known as the “brown paper bag test” was applied. Shockingly, this method was used most prominently by African-Americans (JBHE 46). After emancipation, black people still obviously saw the line drawn in the sand. A more elusive divide, however, was within their own race. Studies done throughout the 1900s indicate a clear, tested correlation between lighter skin and privilege. Decades after the civil war the black elites were almost exclusively light-skinned  (JBHE 46). The roots of this date back to slavery, where lighter skin meant higher prices on the market and less demanding jobs in the house. Darker slaves were sent to the fields while lighter slaves even attained access to education and were much more likely to be freed. (Newsweek n.p.). At one point in the 1800s, over 80% of the freed slaves in Louisiana were mixed race (Herring 761). Even after slavery ended, every opportunity favored lighter skin black people ranging from education to basic aspects of human rights. Below are the results of a study from the American Journal of Sociology that illustrate this correlation.

 

The goal of this post is to try to understand how something as minor as slightly darker skin can lead to such demeaning treatment. How does something as rudimentary as having darker skin cause such drastic socioeconomic discrepancies in a supposedly united nation? To begin answering these questions I'll discuss the origins of the symbolism behind the colors black and white.

     For ages, white has been viewed as a symbol of cleanliness, purity, and even status. Priestesses in ancient Egypt wore white while Shinto and Islamic religious pilgrims wear all white garments. The pope has been dressed in white since 1500 to symbolize sacrifice and purity (Humphries 1). Originally only royal brides would wear white, but Queen Victoria set the modern trend for white wedding dresses in the 19th century. Now, every bride can feel like a fresh, untapped queen (Holmes 1). White has physical purity in its balance of all colors but the flawed concept that it is “cleaner” than others is deeply rooted. Stains occur easier on white and appear more prominently than on other colors. Therefore, if one could keep a fully white outfit, others would know they are wealthy and likely live a leisurely lifestyle (Holmes 1). This is the origin of the phrase “white collar jobs”. At a certain point, white garments were even believed to clean the body, pulling out dirt and impurities from the skin (Wray n.p.).  Science seems to support that teeth bleaching is awful for your teeth, but it is still a very common practice. These color associations are so ingrained that people are willing to jeopardize their health for a cosmetic effect as simple as whiter teeth. People are so convinced that they even demonstrate higher levels of confidence and happiness after the procedure (Lewis n.p.). Pure looking white soap is inferior at killing bacteria than older, cruder types of soap that looked less appealing and bleached white sheets could actually be harmful to skin (Humphries 2). Recently, Nivea had to pull one of its ad campaigns as its blatant statement of this association and its correlation with its product offended many: 

   
The ruining that Nivea is describing is the soiling of the white, perhaps spoiled with black. The phrase "new-fallen snow" does not just imply white, it implies something virginal, something untampered with, like the wedding dresses discussed earlier and the women wearing them. If white and black are a dichotomy, it follows that black is dirty, and not only does it discolor the white, it taints the pureness (Timeo 83). Old soap ads depict white women bathing black boys, changing the scrubbed parts from black to white.

Some scientists speculate that an innate fear of contagion and dirt inform these negative associations with the color black. The most devastating plague of all time was dubbed "the black plague". Right around the time these notions of color were catching on in Europe, white explorers were seeing Africans for the first time. Labelling the races opposite colors with contrary associations of cleanliness and morality put as much perceived space between the two groups as possible. Despite various modern societal strides towards acceptance, two psychologists from UVA used a variation of the Stroop test to determine if these unintentional yet troublesome links live on today. Subjects were required to recite the color of the word listed (black or white in this case) and not the word. Delays in response time indicate cognitive disconnect or conflict (Wray n.p.). Results clearly showed a trend of automatic association for white with clean and moral words, and black with dirty or immoral words. As modern labels for race are colors, these color associations turn in to racial stereotypes. Darker skin due to more outdoor work done in a less developed place was seen as a less sanitary and inferior way of living.  These notions were the seeds of racism that led to the eventual removal of over 25 million people from their home continent (Adi 2).  The UVA study indicates that those same old and fallacious color associations have trickled into the deep parts of modern day minds. 

As mentioned in blog and seen in above image,
categorization of humans leads to losing vital aspects of
who they are.

     
     This type of elegant racism does not manifest itself clearly like a hate crime, it resides in the subconscious of the majority and it is the biggest obstacle between society and equality. A system of categorization that works as simply for things as minor as deciding if a flower is green or blue and as serious as lumping together groups of diverse human beings is especially problematic when certain color associations are so potent. The Other Race Effect demonstrates a detachment from those who are different. As you perceive and assign someone to an "out group" like a race different than yours, you subconsciously associate them with the stereotypes you hold of that group  (Timeo 97). Severe differences in opportunity emerge when someone is labelled into a certain demographic and much of ones character can be missed if a person refuses to look further than skin tone. As Allison Samuels explains, a black minority often finds themselves trapped within the confines of what other people expect them to be: "I learned that no matter my accomplishments, my dark brown skin would be my resume in certain areas of life" (Samuels n.p.). Categorizations result in shallow understandings of people and the group as a whole.

     The Himba and Warlpiri people handle color differently than the western world. They label what they see based on the context around the shade, the pigment, and everything in sight. For instance, "kunjuru-kunjuru" is a visual descriptor in Warlpiri language and would directly translate to smoke-smoke, but is is glossed as dark blue, smokey, and purple in their dictionary. This labelling gives a point of reference/idea for what is being observed, allowing the observer to create their own perception of what they're seeing when they see it. We learned that our categorical treatment of color might cause us to miss some subtle shade differences in a painting, but this is no where near as destructive as our tendency to apply this same simplistic treatment of color to human beings. If our society could adopt a more nuanced, shared understanding of race similarly to how the Warlpiri or Himba disregard any preconceived boundary of a color, coexistence would skyrocket. Instead of detrimental generalizations, people could be exposed to vastly more ways of living, see things they didn't see before, and encourage positive change and acceptance for everyone.

Works cited:

Adi, Dr Hakim. "History - British History in Depth: Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. "BBC October 05, 2012. Accessed May 23, 2018.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/africa_article_01.shtml. (Wiley Online Library)

Herbert, Wray. "The Color of Sin--Why the Good Guys Wear White." Scientific American. November 01, 2009. Accessed May 23, 2018. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-color-of-sin/. (EBSCO)

Holmes, Rachel. "Why White Is a Colour of Purity That Might Just Have Killed You." The Guardian. September 21, 2015. Accessed May 23, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/sep/21/why-white-is-a-colour-of-purity-that-might-just-have-killed-you. (Proquest)

Humphries, Courtney. "Have We Hit Peak Whiteness? - Issue 26: Color." Nautilus. July 30, 2015. Accessed May 23, 2018. http://nautil.us/issue/26/color/have-we-hit-peak-whiteness. (Plos one)

JBHE Foundation. "Brown Paper Bag Syndrome: Dark-Skinned Blacks Are Subject to Greater Discrimination." The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 37 (Autumn 2002): 46. Accessed May 19, 2018. doi:10.2307/3134276. (JStor)

Keith, Verna M., and Cedric Herring. "Skin Tone and Stratification in the Black Community."     Compiled by The University of Chicago Press. American Journal of Sociology 97, no. 3 (November 1, 1991). Accessed May 19, 2018. https://search.proquest.com/docview/1289830464?accountid=14522. (Proquest)

Lewis, Danny. "The Color White Has a Dark Past." Smithsonian.com. August 14, 2015. Accessed May 23, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/color-white-dark-past-180956274/. (Proquest)

Peplow, Mark. "The Reinvention of Black - Issue 27: Dark Matter." Nautilus. August 13, 2015. Accessed May 23, 2018. http://nautil.us/issue/27/dark-matter/the-reinvention-of-black. (Plos one)

Samuels, Allison. "The Ugly Roots of the Light Skin/Dark Skin Divide." Newsweek. May 19, 2010. Accessed May, 2018. http://www.newsweek.com/ugly-roots-light-skindark-skin-divide-213518. (NCBI)

Stepanova, Elena V., and Michael J. Strube. "The Role of Skin Color and Facial Physiognomy in Racial Categorization: Moderation by Implicit Racial Attitudes." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48, no. 4 (July 2012): 867-78. Accessed May 18, 2018. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.019. (NCBI)

Timeo, Susanna, Teresa Farroni, and Anne Maass. "Race and Color: Two Sides of One Story? Development of Biases in Categorical Perception." Child Development 88, no. 1 (2016): 83-102. Accessed May 17, 2018. doi:10.1111/cdev.12564. (NCBI)