A Scientific Study of Skin Color
In 1975, a cosmetic cream was released to the Indian market that highlighted a major societal issue. The cream was called “Fair and Lovely” and marketed itself as a cream that would give young women in India lighter skin and make them more appealing to men.
While most of us are familiar with the concept of racism and the discriminatory practice of favoring members of the community based on ethnic origins, we tend to slide colorism under the rug. Colorism is discrimination solely based on skin tone. Colorism presents the idea of a conscious or subconscious bias towards those with lighter skin tones, and unlike racism, it often takes place within an ethnic community.
This concept is often talked about in regards to the African American community in the United States. Historically, while oppression was universal, light skinned African American slaves were given more indoor domestic tasks, while dark-skinned slaves were given more demanding tasks, often farm work. However, colorism dates back millenia. In China, the practice of skin whitening was common, as those with lighter skin were assumed to be wealthier. Women with lighter skin were also considered more feminine and beautiful. Similarly, in Japan, a whiter skin color was said to “make up for seven defects” meaning that a lighter skin tone would cause men to overlook other inadequate features in a woman. In Hinduism, there is a direct correlation between social caste and skin tone; those with lighter skin tones are often in higher castes, while the lower castes contain darker skinned individuals.
Around the world, the practice of colorism linked those with lighter skin tones to positions of power and wealth, creating a bias that would carry into our modern era and affect all aspects of the human social system including government, business, the legal system, education, media, and beauty standards.
As it turns out, skin tone is simply the result of an evolutionary process that allowed humans to inhabit and survive around the world. Our species, Homo Sapiens, originated 200,000-300,000 years ago, in East Africa- and they were all dark skinned.
As humans began migrating around the African continent, and eventually to areas in Europe and Asia, our species was forced to adapt. In order to understand why different skin tones emerged, it is important to understand what causes the range of skin tones we see around the world.
Melanin in a group of pigments in the skin that lead to an array of skin tones. It acts as a barrier that prevents high amounts of sunlight, and therefore UV light, from entering the body through the skin. Too much UV light can cause a deficiency in folate, which can lead to an increased rate of birth defects. On the flip-side, a decrease in UV reduces the production of Vitamin D (an important mineral related to bone health) as exposure to UV light induces the production of Vitamin D in the body.
In areas that receive a lot of sunlight, such as East Africa where our species originated, individuals evolved to have higher levels of melanin to protect the skin against UV light. As humans moved away from the equator, to places with lower UV levels, skin color began to change to provide a healthy balance of melanin and Vitamin D. In areas with high UV, natural selection favored those with high melanin, whereas in areas with low UV, those with lower melanin were favored. The image shown below illustrates this idea.
In our modern era, with a rapid increase in globalization, skin color is creating not only social issues, but health issues for many. Nina Joblonski, a leading expert on skin color explains that as people migrate away from their home countries, “their skin has not had the time to adapt” and we are often “unaware that we’re living in an environment to which our skin is inherently poorly adapted”. For example, light skinned individuals in areas near the equator with high UV levels are at a much higher risk of having babies with birth effects as they have less melanin to block the destruction of folate. Individuals with darker skin tones in northern areas such as Europe have a higher risk of vitamin D deficiency as they are not receiving the amount of UV light that they need. This is a significant health problem for millions of people that are not even aware or conscious of it.
Strictly biologically speaking, skin tone should not have an effect on one's wealth or status. However, thousands of years of colorism have created a world in which people are treated differently based on the color of their skin. In the past few decades especially, this practice is slowly beginning to be questioned, as science has proven the true meaning of skin color.
In 2020, the brand “Fair and Lovely” was rebranded to be called “Glow and Lovely” and advertises itself now as a line of products meant to keep the skin healthy and glowy, a contrast to their original purpose of lightening skin tone. While this rebranding was the result of outside pressure to fit with societies newer standards of equality, this new marketing is a sign of a step in the right direction for skin color equality around the world.