The Colour Bar

[The Spectator does not necessarily agree with all the views of the writers contributing to this series on the Colour Bar. Our object in publishing the series is to attempt some explanation of why the Colour Bar exists, and to emphasize the importance of the problem for the British Commonwealth. Next week Mr. H. W. Peet will write on " The Colour Bar in the United States."]

Skin Colour

L. W. LYDE.

BY PROFESSOR

THE two main forces behind our persistent Colour prejudice are fear and vanity, but the strength of both is largely dependent on habit and on ignorance.

* If—as is widely taught—the yellow were due simply to the ahaeuce of busok, the White man should be yellower than the Yellow man ; but this theory ignores the relation of the really temperate climate of the White man's race-home to the need for both pigment and fat.

Skin colour is the oldest and the commonest, because the easiest and most obvious, basis of racial classification; but it is almost valueless as a racial test except when correlated with other tests, because the colour is fugitive.

The ignorance is about the character and the functions of the human skin ; and, of course, at present we are concerned only with its four " dyes." hi itself, as seen from the inner side, all human skin is " white " ; but the white is always tinged with yellow—from fat.* Wherever the blood shows through, we have a red colour ; and wherever this is impossible, the cause is a cover of " black." The Black man is literally " born to blush unseen."

The yellow is most abundant naturally where fat is most needed , i.e., where the extremes of temperature are greatest ; and this is not in polar latitudes, but in so-called temperate latitudes under continental condi- tions. The vast continental plains in the " temperate " latitudes of our largest continent were, and are, the race- home of the Yellow man ; and their extreme range of temperature equals that between ice and boiling water.

In the case of the Black man this yellow is masked by the melanism—a thin layer of butter covered with a film of ink ; but there are black freaks, too, amongst mam- mals, e.g., black tigers and black leopards. Under the influence of albinism or fright or old age or even forest shade, the Black man bleaches to a yellowish tinge (peculiarly unpleasant to look at when the man has fainted), such as is normal on the " shaded " parts of his- body, e.g., his palms and his soles, and at birth. The Yellow man, under the influence of shade or increase in relative humidity (within temperate latitudes) bleaches to real white, as in the case of the Japanese and the Finns— if the latter are really Yellow men in origin.

All races alike, then, have White skin, red blood, and black pigment. Even in the crudest champion of the Colour-bar there is probably 15 per cent.—possibly more —of black ; and he is certainly not much more than 50 per cent. white. On the other hand, the Black man is certainly 5 per cent. white ; and the British albino is at least as remarkable in the opposite way.

It is, of course, the entire absence of pigment in the albino which allows the red blood to show through the white skin in the very disagreeable pink eyeball ; and the poor eyes are always blinking because they have no pigment to filter the light. There is certainly nothing disgraceful in _ being ,under-pigmented any more than there is in being over-pigmented, but is the entirely unpigmented White man, e.g., an English albino, really more pleasant to look at than a very highly pigmented White man, e.g., a Sikh ?

Not only have all races, even the blondest, in their epidermal cells the universal brown pigment of primeval man; but this would actually have been black if he had not been an arboreal primate, and lived in forest shade. And this dark pigment is shown visibly in the uniformly dark hair and dark eyes of all races outside Europe— with its uniquely temperate climate, in which both heat and light are relatively harmless and positively beneficial.

Even the " weak " red (red, yellow, orange) light burns, and so forces the skin to protect itself by a veil of pigment ; and this explains why the Yellow man sun-burns in the dry, cloudless winter more than in the damp, cloudy summer. But once the pigment has been developed, it collects and arrests the " blue " light that is so dangerous to nerves, though so valuable as a " food," especially in low latitudes if taken in from the air and not directly from the light itself.

The amount of pigment, of course, varies with the need, being at a maximum on unforested tropical plateaux, where we get the beautiful lamp-black of the Hausa ; and no race can survive naturally, still less flourish, in any climate without sufficient pigment to exclude—or trans- form into a less dangerous state—all rays the wave- length and frequency of which—as registered in the air temperature—can shatter human protoplasm, with its normal temperature of under 99° F., as you can shatter an electric-light bulb by prolonging a violin note just underneath it. The climatic differences from region to region produce differences in the relative activities of lungs and intestines ; and, as the activity of the latter increases, the pigment increases, and so the protective adaptation to the conditions is surer.

The vanity referred to above is based on ignorance of all this, and on the further conviction that we arc not subject to exactly the same controls as other animals and even plants. But all rays, whether concerned specifically with light or with heat, have an essential identify, as all protoplasm has, whether in plant or in animal ; and, as this protoplasm is based on nitrogen, it is very unstable, so that any vibration— even by infra-red rays—may produce changes in its character and its behaviour if it is not protected by a sufficiently pigmented cover or some equally effective shield. The marine origin of life would suggest the immense value of a water shield.

Now, under trying temperature conditions the White man normally shows collected rivers of sweat pouring off him or large isolated drops standing on his skin ; but the Yellow man or the Black man is normally covered with a complete and continuous film, and this means a maximum surface for evaporation—in which quantities of heat are consumed—a maximum reflection of light, and. maximum protection against nerve injury. The White man, therefore, here is an infinitely inferior animal.

The Yellow man, like a tawny lfon on tropical savanna, is nearly as well protected as the Black man from light, and as the White man from heat ; and here is the real economic danger of the Yellow man.

But he has a good deal of pigment buried in cells close to the nerve ends ; and when this is heated, it greatly stimulates the sweat glands, and the evaporation of the sweat absorbs much heat. At home, however, he is in temperate latitudes, and his film of moisture is a splendid protection against light ; but he does feel the heat, and so habitually carries a fan. He would be less troubled by the heat if he were white-skinned, but more troubled by the light. Which, then, makes the more for peace and progress : to be slightly coloured or to be a mass of - nervous irritability and instability which makes you a nuisance to every man and beast with whom you come in contact ?

There remains the question of fear. It is fear of a double kind. It seems to be partly due to the more or less unconscious realization that the Black man has been the curse of the world hygienically. From him the world has caught all the most deadly and most disgusting diseases, e.g., cholera, typhus, smallpox and syphilis. But it is partly due to experience of lands where the natives are naturally pigmented. The change of colour in the complexion of a White man in Nigeria may be due to the skin becoming more opaque ; but, of course, it is often due to real ill-health, e.g., tropical anaemia.

This fear, though inarticulate, probably has been, and still is, more harmful than even the vanity of any belief in racial superiority ; but the ignorance on which both are based has been excusable till quite recently.