Environmental Factors Influencing Human Skin Color
Some readers have expressed the view that if (to use a recent post) I write that Brazilians have a very different concept of race from people in the U.S.--a true statement--and that Brazil prides itself on its ideology of "racial democracy"--another true statement--that means that I am saying that racism doesn't exist in Brazil, or is weaker in Brazil than in the United States.
Not at all!
As I described this blog in the very first post, "...I'll be discussing issues related to race and culture--broadly defined. Topics will include the concept of race in the U.S. and other cultures, [and] comparisons of what is known about human biological variation with everyday beliefs about ‘race'..."
The Brazil example attempts to examine, clarify, and explain the way Americans and Brazilians think about race. Although Looking In The Cultural Mirror may occasionally deal with issues of discrimination, that is not a primary aim of the blog, and there is no shortage of discussion of these issues elsewhere. There is, however, little understanding of, many misconceptions regarding, and many false implicit assumptions concerning the race concept. And there is little informed discussion of the concept of race aimed at correcting these shortcomings.
While much knowledge has accumulated over the last half century in the relevant fields of sociocultural anthropology, biological anthropology, and evolutionary biology, this knowledge has had little impact in psychology, sociology, political science, and the other social sciences-not to mention with the general public.
So the point of writing that Brazilians have a very different concept of race from people in the U.S and that Brazil prides itself on its ideology of "racial democracy" is just that--no more, and no less. It is simply to compare and contrast the ways Brazilians and Americans think about race. And if Looking In The Cultural Mirror is successful, it will help readers over time to see that the American race concept is a cultural concept masquerading as a biological one, and that other cultures have quite different concepts. Perhaps it might even reduce some cultural miscommunications and misunderstandings about "race."
Image Source:
Emmanuelle Bournay, UNEP/GRID-Arendal ,2004; map updated in 2007
Chaplin G. , Geographic Distribution of Environmental Factors Influencing Human Skin Coloration, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 125:292-302
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Globalindigenousskincolorm...
http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/skin-colour-map-indigenous-people
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Jefferson M. Fish, Ph.D., is the author or editor of eleven books--most recently The Concept of Race and Psychotherapy--and numerous other publications on race, culture, therapy, drug policy, and other topics. He is a retired psychology professor.
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