As humans, we have an innate desire to put people, things, and concepts into a distinct box – yes or no, right or wrong, good or bad, straight or gay, male or female. Even though everything does not fit so clearly into one neat box of “black” or “white,” we still choose to shy away from the “gray area” in between.
The same principle applies in the language of race. The U.S. Census separates race into five categories: (1) White, (2) Black or African American, (3) American Indian or Alaska Native, (4) Asian, and (5) Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. Ironically, the only races that have an actual color as its descriptor are white and black.
Race as a term was introduced in the English language in the late 16th century. Initially, the term alone was intended to hold a generalized meaning to classify and group similar things. By the 18th century, race was reclassified to sort and rank people in the English colonies. Europeans were ranked as free people and conquerors. Africans were ranked as slaves and sub-human. Indigenous Americans were ranked as those conquered by the English. The first census in the 18th century had three categories: (1) free whites, (2) all other free persons, and (3) slaves. By the 19th century, categories of the census expanded to five categories and relabeled as: White, Black, Chinese, Japanese, and American Indian. The first major wave of Asian immigration was around the 19th century, although many existed in the states since the 16th century. With the reform of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, larger numbers of people of Asian descent arrived in the States, and were later recognized in the 1990 U.S. Census.
To this day, we still use that ranking system for race subtly embedded into many of our country’s operations and systems. White is still seen as superior and by default, black is still seen as inferior. Everyone else unfortunately gets stuck and placed in between. Hispanics and Latinos still do not have their own respective racial category in the census, but instead marked merely as an ethnicity.
"And as we walk this Earth together as a human race, what would happen if we mapped together similar skin tones that truly mirror the colors we see represented in natural elements of this Earth?"?
The terms “white and black,” used to describe a race– like many terms in our English language, were not chosen by coincidence or mistake. Instead, they were chosen so we could identify and see the two races as polar opposites. Technically speaking, there is not a single skin tone on this Earth that is truly white or black in color.
Biologically, we are all of a human race and regardless of skin tone, ethnicity, or nationality, will continue to be of one species. So, what if we converted the way we currently classify race? Instead of describing race through dichotomous language, what if we categorized race as gradients of brown, earth tone families to represent the actual skin tones of humans? And as we walk this Earth together as a human race, what would happen if we mapped together similar skin tones that truly mirror the colors we see represented in natural elements of this Earth?
Our skin tones all appear as gradients of brown from a very pale brown to a very dark brown and everything in between. If the intention is authentically to use race as a way to classify people by the differences in our skin tones, couldn’t the same be accomplished if we were to classify similarly colored skin tones?
Very pale skin tones to olive colored skin could be called the Macadamia Family. This is a family traditionally described as having “white” skin. Like a macadamia nut, the skin is actually an ivory color and can vary in its degree of brown.
The next family of race is the Cashew Family. Like a cashew nut, these skin tones are a yellow-brownish mixture. They vary from a light, pastel brown to a more golden brown. This family could include what we currently know as those of Asian descent, lighter skin “black” people, lighter skin “hispanic” or people of Latin origin, lighter skin Indigenous people, and lighter skin Haiwaiians and Pacific Islanders.
Medium-brown skin tones would fall under the Almond Family. Like the medium brown color of an almond, this family would pull in medium-brown colored “black” people, Hispanic, Afro-latino, Indigenous, and medium-brown toned Asians.
Darker skin tones tend to be a deeper brown, oftentimes with red undertones. This group of similarly colored skin tones could be the Chestnut Family because like a chestnut, it is naturally darker with a brownish to reddish complexion. This family would be composed of darker skin “black” people, Afro-latino, Indigenous, and darker skin tone Asian groups.
"When we group similar skin tones together, we see authentic synergies between the colors of the skin."
Altogether each skin tone is a spectrum of a type of brown, it is not nailed down to a specific tone of brown, but rather a family. When we group similar skin tones together, we see authentic synergies between the colors of the skin. Most importantly though, we can still recognize the commonality of each group as a gradient of brown.
To clarify though, I’m not interested in removing the concept of ethnicity or nationality, as that is what helps us to categorize our homelands and ancestral roots, but the term of race– at least as we currently use it, was created with malicious intent. Black and white is meant to signify the privileged and not privileged, the former conquerors in contrast to those conquered. The original idea behind white was created to separate who was not white and thus, not superior economically and socially.
These groupings don’t take away our desire to categorize folks economically - our credit scores, our jobs, our access will naturally continue to maintain that part of our identity. But, they are meant to disrupt how we see each other socially. The language by which we choose to speak, places us and others in relative existence to one another.
Language is a set of tools we use to describe and make sense of our world. And when we use words to represent polarity, we essentially live out and manifest the polarity of the world. Perhaps, it was once necessary to describe the separation of the two worlds of black and white races of people, but as the gap shrinks between those differences, a revision of the way we see our world should be described with revisioned language.
Words are the colors we use to paint the world before us. And if we only speak about two colors, we are hindering our ability to see the range of colors and the full picture of our current reality and world. So, let’s paint our world with a little more color.
