SKIN by Paul Sharad P

Author:Paul, Sharad P [Paul, Sharad P]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-04-22T20:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

Mendel and Mouse Porn

Let it be borne in mind how infinitely complex and close-fitting are the mutual relations of all organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life. Can it, then, be thought improbable, seeing that variations useful to man have undoubtedly occurred, that other variations useful in some way to each being in the great and complex battle of life, should sometimes occur in the course of thousands of generations? If such do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection.

~ Charles Darwin1

A number of scientific breakthroughs are the result of clear-eyed thinkers using simple inexpensive means to extract priceless information. The origin of skin colour, that skin colour was ‘bred’ by nature and circumstances, is an uncomfortable conversation to have. The idea that all skin colours just developed independently might be wrong, but it was socially convenient.

In the 2000 Republican Primary in South Carolina, a desperate attempt was made (deliberately or unwittingly) by the George W. Bush campaign to discredit Senator John McCain. A whispering campaign was allegedly organized, with telephone polls and posters asking, ‘Would you vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered a black child?’ Republican strategist Karl Rove was considered the instigator of this vicious campaign. It was particularly distasteful because John McCain and his wife have an adopted daughter, Bridget, a dark-skinned child from Bangladesh with a cleft palate. She had been seen on the campaign trail with John McCain, and this made the smear both possible and plausible. As Vanity Fair reported in November 2004:2

‘This whole thing, it was orchestrated by Rove, it was all Bush’s deal … It was pretty rank,’ said [Roy] Fletcher [part of McCain’s campaign management], ‘and they had an institution that was peddling all that shit, and it was a university, Bob Jones University. I’m telling you, if there was a campaign headquarters in South Carolina, there it was.’

I quote this story to illustrate our prejudices and moral precepts when it comes to colour. Until this story came up, McCain had a sizeable lead, which this ‘black child’ campaign not only reversed, but transformed into an easy victory for Bush.

Colour bias is widespread in India even though most Westerners would consider Indians to be a mostly homogeneous populace. Anyone who knows India understands that the word ‘fair’ in India actually means ‘fair-skinned’. The Hindu, a major Indian newspaper, reported on matrimonial advertisements in India:3

After being rejected, ‘100 billion times’, [Sapna Sera Abraham, 32] informed her parents that she was tired of searching for the perfect partner. ‘The mothers of the grooms are the ones who reject me immediately,’ she says.

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