Jablonski's Living Color: The Biological And Social Meaning Of Skin Color

This term refers to the assignment of individuals belonging to mixed race or ethnic groups to subordinate groups. This ideology usually exists in a society where certain groups are considered to be dominant or superior to the others. According to the view of F. James Davis in "Defining Race: Comparative perspectives", hypodescent status refers to the social position of the mix breeds of white and black.

Geographical isolation in the past has caused a variation in skin color; natural selection selected specific skin pigments depending on environmental factors. Early humans who moved to Europe were introduced to a place that had less sunlight than their former place of residence. Overtime, light skin (skin with lower levels of melanin) was selected for since there were not as many UV rays that the skin needed protection from. But, what was wrong with having dark skin in Europe? How is extra melanin a disadvantage in this case? One thing to remember is that even though the sun can provide UV rays, sunlight is also a great source of natural vitamin D (Jablonski; Kirchweger). Vitamin D helps bones absorb calcium and is particularly essential for developing embryos in pregnant women. The adaptation for lighter skin was important because the skin needed to absorb as much sunlight as it could in order to receive optimal amounts of vitamin D (Kirchweger). However, too much vitamin D can be fatal. So as high amounts of melanin protected the skin from excessive UV rays in Africa, they also protected it from excessive vitamin D (Kirchweger).

In the article Skin Deep written by Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin, they discuss and look deeper into the diverse differences in skin color. Our skin color has developed over the years to be dark enough to prevent the damaging sunlight that has been harming our skin and the nutrient folate that it carries. At the same time out skin is light enough to receive vitamin D.

Caucasians have the lowest amount of melanin in their skin cells when being compared to other cultures. Melanin is crucial to protecting our skin from UV rays, and so someone with a darker skin tone is better protected.

5. In the film, Dr. Jablonski explains that melanin, located in the top layer of human skin, absorbs UV radiation, protecting cells from the damaging effects of UV. Genetics determines the type of melanin (i.e., brown/black eumelanin or red/brown pheomelanin) and the amount of melanin present in an individual’s cells. Based on this information, write a hypothesis for where in the world you would expect to find human populations with

In a film of “Race the Power of an Illusion, Part I The Difference Between Us”, it talked about the differences of races such as skin, eye, hair color. However, in our genetic, the human is not very different than we think but we had a similar genetic code. In the 1950s, the athlete champions were all black, and they were much better than any other. Maybe because of that some people think there are different structure bodies than other races. In this case, I think it could make sense that black people have better body structure than white. However, it is the wrong stereotype about skin color. The skin tone is continuously changing, and the reason why a human has different physical appearances is that of different genes we have. Depends on the

According to McIntosh’s suggestion, “we should acknowledge enormous unseen dimensions, talk about the obliviousness advantages, and raise our daily awareness on the perquisites of being light-skinned.” McIntosh’s approaches are characterized as reasonable to resolve the issue. By listing down every advantage she takes for granted, she is raising awareness in the society. By

The PBS series “Race: The Power of an Illusion” effectively works to expose race as a social construct and deconstructs the false notions that race is a biological marker. The series first discusses that all human beings originated from Africa but dispersed about 70,000 years ago to various places in the world. As a result of this migration, people were spread to different locations throughout the world with different environmental conditions that affected their physical traits. It was many years after the migration in which people began to display these new physical traits such as slanted eyes, fair skin, and differing hair textures. While the series notes the physical changes that occurred during the migration it also emphasizes that race while it may seem apparent in skin color and other physical features has no real biological basis.

The meaning, significance, and definition of race have been debated for centuries. Historical race concepts have varied across time and cultures, creating scientific, social, and political controversy. Of course, today’s definition varies from the scientific racism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that justified slavery and later, Jim Crow laws in the early twentieth. It is also different from the genetic inferiority argument that was present at the wake of the civil rights movement. However, despite the constantly shifting concepts, there seems to be one constant that has provided a foundation for ideas towards race: race is a matter of visually observable attributes such as skin color, facial features, and other self-evident

As the research continues it becomes ever more important to discuss how exactly the differing pigmentation of one race of people actually occurs, because I feel that it has an effect on the way colorism is handled throughout the African American community. There are two ways in which a person of African descent can be of a lighter complexion; the first being amalgamation, which is the coming together of both the black and white races and reproducing to make a mulatto or mixed race child and the second is the use of cosmetic creams in attempt to bleach one’s skin until they too appear mulatto (Dorman 48). This is relevant because, it shows the extremes that people are willing to go to reach the highest plateau of social acceptance. Many of these creams were painful acidic chemicals slowly burning away the pigmentation as people slept, while others were considered mild abrasive materials used to “gently” scrape away dark pigments (Dorman

To the African American male, a lighter skinned female may be able to bear better-looking children with white features. They are also seen as easier to get along with. The continued success of the light skinned African Americans has created a prejudice against lighter skinned individuals in the culture. Dark skinned males and females are raged because of the fact that they get hired for good jobs. Dark skinned females are mad at lighter skinned females because they are not approached as much as they are. This is a real issue because it is causing bitterness towards one another I the African American culture. The simple fact is that no matter whether one is light skinned or dark skinned, they are still African American. However, because of the features in which a light skinned individual processes, helps them get more ahead, therefore, light skinned African Americans have easier lives than dark skinned African Americans.

Just as in man. Nature was creating changes which created a man who went into Asia. As they adapted to lower sun levels the ones with lighter skin drew more vitamin d from the sun, this caused more people to have lighter skin. They survived better in the new climate of Asia. One pigment used different ways when different opportunities rise. This is very good example of natural selection.

It is a fact that melanin plays a major role in giving us a color for both of our skins, hair, and eyes. For instance, dark-skinned people have a larger amount of melanin that what light-skinned people have. In addition, it is responsible for the tan of our skins that are exposed to the sunlight. Indeed, it is important to start this research by giving some scientific definitions that describe the melanin in detail. First, melanin is a type of cells that controls a wide-range of essential functions in our bodies including control of organs cyclical rhythms, melodious, and energy conversion.

Human pigmentation is influenced by hemoglobins within blood vessels in the skin, carotene and melanins. Melanin, the basis of pigmentation, can be found in the forms of eumelanin and phaeomelanin. Eumelanin is the brown-black pigment located in the skin, hair, and eyes. Phaeomelanin is a yellow to reddish-brown pigment found in small quantities within the skin, eyes, and red hair. Because of these two pigments, to a greater or lesser degree, we have the variation

with high levels of reflectivity, since “Shirley’s” pale skin tone was recognized as the ideal