The first time my son met an African American kid, he was shocked.
“The sun is extreme here,” he told me, “Look at that kid’s skin.”
My five-year-old has been playing for hours with this boy he met on a beach in Puerto Rico. It was his first encounter with someone with black skin. We had just moved from Argentina where less than 2% of people have dark skin.
My son didn’t perceive the other boy’s as different because of his color— he was only concerned about the sun effects on his skin. This observation taught me a lesson. Race is a social concept; it’s not part of our DNA, we learn it as we grow up.
Our mind is race agnostic until society teaches us that not all skin colors are equal.
The Color of our Minds

Kids naivety aside, the color of our skins are indeed determined by the sun. I’m not talking about getting tanned. Nature is wise; human skin has adapted over centuries as our early ancestors migrated across our planet.
There’s a direct correlation between skin color and latitude. The closer to the Equator, the darker the skin of those populations — the body creates a shield to protect itself from ultraviolet rays. In areas where winters are more extreme, and sunny days are limited — like in Chicago where I live now — a whiter skin helps produce more vitamin D.
All people alive today are Africans — like it or not, that’s how everything started.
The Homo Sapiens species evolved in Africa. We are all descendants of that continent as explained in this fascinating National Geographic piece. Modern genetic research has shown that all humans are closely related. We all have the same collection of genes, but slightly different versions of some of them.
The color of our skin has nothing to do with race — it’s a byproduct of adaptation.
Science has proven that the different types of skin are a consequence of how our ancestors dealt with sun exposure. However, when we think about race, the first thing that comes to mind is skin color. And, what’s even worse, not all are equal— white skin seems more special than the rest.
This hierarchy is artificial though. Someone got the science wrong, and many people conveniently took it as true. Hint: it helped start a war.
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My kids playing. They worried about the sun, not skin colors.Science Debunks Race Myths

“The concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis.”
— Craig Venter, DNA sequencing pioneer
The article mentioned above sheds light on how science created a racial hierarchy.
Studies performed by Dr. Samuel Morton wrongfully concluded, by studying skulls from various ethnic groups, that some races were superior to others.
Back in the 1820–30’s this Philadelphia physician collected and measured hundreds of human skulls to confirm that there were differences among the races — in particular, a difference in brain size.
Morton assigned the highest brain capacity to Europeans — with the English highest of all. Second was the Chinese, third was Southeast Asians and Polynesians, fourth was American Indians. The smallest brain capacity was assigned to Africans and Australian aborigines.
In the decades before the American Civil War, Morton’s ideas were used to justify slavery. Also, his belief that Native Americans could not integrate into modern industrial society was central to Andrew Jackson’s policy of Indian Removal.
Modern science has debunked the myth that certain races have more gifted brains than others. However, many people still take that belief as true. Our society is still paying a high price for it.
One Color Doesn’t Fit All

There are several manifestations of racism. Understanding them will help you understand how other minds work when it comes to the color of your skin.
Internalized racism refers to the feelings of self-hatred among oppressed groups. Their traits have been devalued in Western societies.
Colorism is discrimination based on skin color — darker-skinned groups are treated worse than lighter skin ones by whites or even members of their own race.
Subtle racism is described as a person who has implicit racial or other negative attitudes towards another group. It doesn’t always include acts of bigotry; it also involves everyday behaviors such as ignoring, ridiculing or treating people as less worthy of respect because of their race.
Regardless of the prejudice degree — many people are suffering the color of their skin, rather than feel proud of it.
Most recently, reverse racism has also gotten the media attention. Whites, who have been historically privileged, feel left out when society is trying to level the field for minority groups. However, many social activists challenge this notion.
Shadism and colorism are two phenomena that have flourished because of social pressure too. People feel insecure about their aspect and want to adapt to social ideals. Like the skin-whitening app on Facebook, that Vaseline launched in India, to allow users to whiten their profile pictures.
The Art of Intolerance

“In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.” —Toni Morrison
We have a hard time understanding and accepting those who are different — either because of how they look or think.
Intolerance is natural, rejecting the unknown is part of a self-mechanism. However, considering the limitless access to education and information, it’s hard to believe that racism continues to be so prominent. It’s unacceptable that, in the 21st-century leaders continue to manipulate people by turning a (racial) group into a common enemy — they’ve turned intolerance into an art.
Rather than taking people for who they are; we are told to judge them by the group they belong to.
Professors at San Francisco State University released a study titled “When an Educated Black Man Becomes Lighter in the Mind’s Eye” exploring a concept they call “skin tone memory bias.”
The study provides evidence for the subconscious bias where educated black men are remembered as having lighter skin. The results also imply that successful black people are thought of as exceptions to their race.
Implicit Bias — also referred as Unconscious Bias — include the positions we hold about others. It’s a filter that clouds our conclusions about other groups or races.
Past experiences shape this filter — we jump to conclusions without reasoning or thinking.
By the age of six, we start to make unconscious associations. Though scientists link racial bias to the activation of the brain’s amygdala — which governs our fear response — stereotypic images play a more prominent influence.
Movies, magazines, the news, to name a few, feed our mind with distorted symbols that shape our definition of race.
Color Blinded, not Color Blind

What we don’t know we don’t know, gets us into trouble.
Your biases are not evident to you. However, your blind spots are always visible to others, as I wrote here. Awareness is important but is not enough.
The incident at Starbucks is a perfect example. The Chicago Tribune said the event wasn’t about ‘unconscious bias,’ but about racist behavior in America. It wasn’t that the employees weren’t aware of their biases; they acted upon them.
The paradox of racism in the US is that people are more prejudicial than they want to admit.
During the past decades, measures of explicit bias have declined. Take interracial marriages for example — only 11% of respondents said it disapprove it (Gallup, 2013). However, people are not as accepting and open-minded as they self-report on surveys.
Americans care about being perceived as non-prejudicial.
Starbucks recently announced that it would close its stores to train all its employees on what is being called “racial-bias education.” The problem with the implicit-association test (IAT) is deceiving. Most people feel deflated after taking the test; they feel guilty about their associations (i.e., darker skin with violence).
Also, as David French explains in this piece, the IAT results are also unreliable. The author and many others claim to have taken the test many times and their results varied between ‘woke’ and ‘bigoted.’
Moreover, the correlation between implicit bias and discriminatory behavior is weaker than we think.
Recent research shows there’s little evidence that modifying Implicit Bias, drives behavior change. Being aware that you are a compulsory eater, won’t make you stop eating in between meals. You get the point.
The worst part is that putting all the responsibility on the Unconscious Bias removes ownership. People can assume it’s not their fault that they being blinded by the color of someone else’s skin —the Implicit Bias should be blamed for it.
We cannot leave people off the hook.
The notion of equality doesn’t help either. That’s why I prefer inclusion or, even better, acceptance.
Equality is about being color blind — we are all the same. The problem is that, rather than celebrating our differences, it feels we are trying to wash them away. We are all unique, not special as I explained here. Being different should make us feel proud, not ashamed.
We must overcome being blinded by our intolerance, not to become blind to our differences. Diversity of thinking makes a society more interesting, pluralistic, and prosperous.