It
is doubtful that a species prone to making value judgments
based on skin colour could reasonably recommend itself to
other forms of intelligent life that will surely one day
drop in (and then quickly out) of our nano-neck of the woods
in the incalculably vast universe. Apparently unable or
unwilling to reject the flawed criteria that privileges
one race or skin pigmentation over another, Homo sapiens
betrays a lack of fitness that should be -- at a minimum
-- worrisome.
Since
one always chooses to make skin colour the basis of inclusion
or exclusion, at the workplace, in schools, in the broad
spectrum of everyday social interaction, why do so many,
especially in their private thoughts, enthusiastically embrace
the colour divide when demonstratively “achievement
knows no colour?”
Could
it be that despite spectacular advances in the pure and
behavioural sciences, what is elemental in skin colour has
not yet been persuasively revealed?
To
reach the truth of anything, philosophy (phenomenology)
encourages us to take away everything from whatever it is
we are examining until what remains is the unadulterated
object or entity in its truth. From a book I can remove
its cover, its title and author page, even all of its print,
but I cannot remove its pages or binding if it to remain
a book. The list would be book-long of the things we could
remove from a virtuous human being – skin colour being
one of them – without compromising his virtue.
Reduced
to its existential absolutes, skin colour is simply a declaration
or statement that describes or tells of one’s historical
relationship with the sun: working under it, deprived of
it, hiding from it, seeking it out.
Whether
beneath a wintry Nordic sky or burning Namibian sun, there
was a time when there was only one skin colour. The tribe
or community would not have recognized or defined itself
through colour. The notion of superiority or exclusion based
on colour, even in the abstract, could not be spoken of
much less acted upon.
If
we go along with the anthropological consensus that Homo
sapiens took his first steps in Africa, that the first humans,
by virtue of their particular relationship with the sun,
were black, for the concept of race based on colour to exist,
there would have had to be a minimum of one other colour.
So
how did black skin evolve into white skin? Anthropology
hypothesizes that out of curiosity, wanderlust, or necessity
in respect to scarcity/adverse climate, the black skinned
nomad left Africa and one day found himself in a friendly
northern land of plenty where he decided to permanently
settle. However favourable were the conditions of life,
he quickly discovered that he was constitutionally ill-equipped
to deal with the brutal winters that characterize the temperate
zone.
To
prevent frostbite and hypothermia, which can be fatal, he
had to learn how to construct cold and windproof shelters
and to protect his body with the skins and furs from the
animals he hunted. For months at a time, due to extreme
cold, only his face -- the main source of Vitamin D -- was
exposed to the sun. Disadvantaged by an acute Vitamin D
deficiency during the shortest days of the year, he would
have suffered difficulty in thinking clearly, bone pain
and frequent bone fractures, and muscle weakness resulting
in deformity and severe fatigue. Without the essential minimum
requirement of Vitamin D, he would not have been able to
survive the long winter.
Since
every colour includes subtle gradations of itself, some
of the Africans would have been of a lighter black than
others, and consequently able to absorb more Vitamin D,
which would have permitted them to survive -- and multiply.
White
skin absorbs Vitamin. D six times more efficiently than
black skin. Over time, natural selection would have selected
those blacks with lighter skin until perhaps tens of thousands
of years hence, their skin would be white. But we note that
it is always the same person, except that his historical
relationship with the sun has changed.
If
we conjecture the reverse paradigm and the first humans
were white and migrated to Africa, the darker skinned whites
would have been favoured by natural selection because melanin,
which acts as a natural sunscreen to protect against the
sun’s harmful UV rays, would advantage them over their
whiter skinned brethren in tropical and equatorial climates.
But once again, it is the same person whose skin is now
black because his historical relationship with the sun has
changed.
Colour
preference would have been strictly based on practical necessity.
In a northern clime, given the choice, a woman of child
bearing age would gravitate towards a lighter skinned sexual
partner to better optimize her chances of survival for both
herself and her offspring. In Africa, this same woman, for
the same reasons would seek out the darker skinned person.
However,
at some point in human evolution, colour came to mean more
than one’s historical relationship with the sun as
especially the developed world began to irrationally (prejudicially)
include or exclude others strictly based on skin colour,
which begs the question? What prompts a culture or people,
en masse, to subscribe to a value system that is
demonstrably counter-productive?
It
ranks high among the indisputable facts of human endeavour
that the
great advances in civilization took place in the temperate
zone, and were perforce accomplished by people
who were white skinned by virtue of their particular relationship
with the sun.
Much
like a 4-colour palette favours a more developed art than
a 1-colour palette, the 4-season temperate zone climate
– and not the tropics or equatorial zone -- appears
to favour the development of civilization. The northern
mind -- having to deal with a more complex and lethal climate
-- of necessity will be more active and inventive than the
equatorial mind that responds in kind to year-round friendly
temperatures and easy access to the necessities of life.
But we must always bear in mind that if an equatorial dweller
were transplanted to a northern clime, in response to the
more challenging environment, he would develop the wherewithal
to deal with it and his dark skin, over time, would evolve
into white skin, and he would come to measure and know himself
as belonging to the collective mind that supplies the raw
materials out of which his civilization is fouunded. And
of course the reverse holds true in respect to accomplishments
that are unique to the tropics and are associated with black
skin. In tropical and equatorial countries, depression and
loneliness are not nearly as problematic as they are in
the temperate zone because local culture and tradition instill
a more profound understanding of what is essential (non-negotiable)
in life: connection and community. However, if a temperate
zone dweller were transported to the tropics, over time
his white skin would turn black, and he would come to measure
himself as belonging to the collective mind that creates
a continuum of community values upon which every humanity
depends.
If
in the early history of man, the scientific and technological
differences between the temperate zone and equatorial dweller
were minor, over time, in response to the challenges of
the 4-seasons, a rapid succession of discoveries and inventions
created what appeared to be two worlds apart, and it became
a matter of course and habit that the temperate zone dweller
came to regard himself as superior to his equatorial counterpart,
a belief that would have been re-enforced by the presence
of First World competence and equipment in Third World countries
owed to either export or colonialism, the imposition of
an advanced culture on a lesser one. We soberly note that
as it concerns moral development, there remains no distinction
between developed and undeveloped nations, all of whom have
been remiss in providing for their less fortunate.
Since
we have already determined that it is always the same person
(black or white according to his relationship with the sun)
responding to his particular environment, are we not forced
to conclude that the spectacular rise of western civilization
is a function of location – and not skin colour? Surgeons
have long argued there are no such separate and distinct
entities as black and white people – only white and
black skin and its variations.
Blacks
who privately wonder why Africa hasn’t kept pace with
the West, who harbour civilization related inferiority complexes,
are judging themselves in bad faith, the central one being
that civilization is the product of a people different than
themselves, which it isn’t. Just as whites who subscribe
to the conceit that they (their advanced civilization) are
superior to people of colour are in bad faith conveniently
confusing colour for location.
We
acknowledge that it is DNA writ for humn beings to hierarchize
themselves amongst their kind whenever the opportunity presents
itself. Class distinctions are as old as man. But we must
distinguish between natural and rational distinctions that
serve the common good as opposed to irrational ones that
in many instances undermine the best interests of a community
or people. Excluding a genius because of his skin colour
is self-evidently irrational. But the more skilled trapper,
the more capable manager, the more proficient supply chain,
are easily verifiable, and the hierarchies that derive from
them have a firm basis in reality and should be the basis
on which we make our positive and negative or inclusionary
or exclusionary value judgments.
_______________________________________________
If
we decide that exclusionary value judgments based on skin
colour, ethnicity, race, religion, class and sexual orientation
are counterproductive as it concerns the cultural and productive
life of the species, what exceptional thinking is required
to call into question that which is now accepted as normal
or inevitable? And what elected discipline (from the arts,
sciences and humanities) is best positioned to create and
disseminate values which do an underperforming species proud?
