Skin Color Evolution

* Fair skinned people; blonde, red, or light brown hair, and blue, green or gray eyes,

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).

Anthropologists and geographers have studied and overtime come to the conclusion that distribution of skin color is not random. Darker skin color has been found to typically come from near the equator and lighter skin colors are typically coming from closer to the north and south poles. Over the years, researchers have found that darker skin colors has protected the

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

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.

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

Could the color of your skin really affect who you will evolve to be? Maybe not as much now but definitely over 100 years ago before the modern period occurred. The world has transmuted so much from segregation to integration and diversity is now seen more as auspicious. The beginning of this transformation unlocked new opportunities for black cultures and their arts, music and writings as the Harlem Renaissance emerged. However, the expedition to acquire this great change was filled with tribulation. Glancing back, it is perspicuous that the years 1914-1945 made a vast alteration in our nation’s outlook from the skills and talents of the valiant African-Americans; along with the authors that wrote to divulge their struggles such as Langston Hughes, Zora Hurston and Countee Cullen.

Also, it even was effected in sports because back then it was just whites playing baseball and games like that. Now it is a mix of different skin colors that play today. I know that because when I play sports I either play against different skin colors or I play on the same team as them.

In the podcast “Race Doesn’t Exist. Or Does It?” talks about what we can really say about race and what genetics can tell us about race. They begin to talk about how our race and genetics are very similar, but there is a small difference between us. We all started in same place together which was Africa, but then humans began to leave to different areas across the globe. DNA is being copied, but sometimes the coping isn’t perfect which creates coping errors. They have identified 180 little variations in the DNA that people who share the same ancestry. DNA can’t specifically tell you a lot about the color of your skin, but it can rule out different skin colors by looking at the different ancestral percentages. DNA can tell you your eye color though.

Race is not a biological reality because there are no indications of some biological DNA that would have a certain outcomes of a race. The variation in skin tone comes from the mix of certain races. For example, the mix of black and white would result a skin color of Latino. However, the mix of white and yellow (Asians) will most likely result a child having more essential characteristics of white people. It is impossible to classify humans into races because human is making a new race every single moment from the combination of two people who come from different races. Light skin and dark skin have a lot to deal with the temperature, latitude and langtitude of the region. It could be characterized by a regions, instead of ethnic groups. Race

Samuel Morton measured the features and the capacity of human skulls; he concluded that there were five “races” or species and blacks had the smallest brain capacity. To support his argument he suggested that God must have’ intervened at the time of the flood to reshape mankind.” (Farrow p. 186) Josiah Nott published an article supporting an 1840 census and declared, “Slaves lived longer” and was less prone to lunacy than free northern blacks. (Farrow et al. p. 186-187) The most damaging research produced by Morton, Agassiz and Nott were their theories that declared “Caucasians and Negros” as different species and defined blacks as subhuman species. (p.186) Agassiz and Nott further warned against the mixing of races, claiming the purity of white race could be contaminated by the black race. “These influential scientists not only helped justify slavery, they helped solidify the myth of black inferiority” (Farrow, et al. p. xxviii)

What does influence skin color variation is the size and distribution pattern of melanosomes as well as other factors.

We often connect ourselves to the world through our appearances. One of the first characteristics we notice about another human is the color of their skin. It is unavoidable, as the largest organ of the body, it covers and highlights our individual features and forms a protective wall against the elements. There is no escape from the social repercussions our pigmentation causes no matter what range of the very broad spectrum of color we fall into. I have never thought so much about the genetic and social evolution of skin and its properties until I read Nina Jablonski’s Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color. This book encompasses, in great detail, how our skin has evolved, adapted and mutated throughout time and in what