[Blue Ocean]

From the limited amount of history I know, it seems that racism has predominantly been 'inflicted' upon those with a relatively darker complexion than the majority group. For example, I know that in some Asian cultures, being 'fair-skinned' is considered a compliment on beauty, whereas darker-skinned people were looked down upon.



Can anybody suggest a reason for this (or if there is already an accepted reason that I'm not aware of, I'd like to know)?

[sherkanner]

Can anybody suggest a reason for this (or if there is already an accepted reason that I'm not aware of, I'd like to know)?

More difficult to see at night? People are more easily frightened by things they don't see (or too late)

[willis888]

@Blue Ocean

I have a crackpot theory with little evidence to back it up.

About 10,000 years ago there was a huge flood that decimated most civilization around the fertile crescent. It left light skinned, war-like tribes that were living further north on higher ground in a position to militarily conquer their more peaceful but previously well-defended neighbors to the south. The flood victims were traumatized and feared for their lives, and many were comforted by the presence of light skinned warlords who offered protection from starvation and roving bands of looters and scavengers. This introduced an opportunity gap that favored light skinned peoples for positions of power, leadership, and prestige that over time radiated to eastern Asia and western Europe.

The flooding my have been due in part to massive earthquakes that sent tsunamis speeding to all corners of the globe. Many lowlands dwelling people were placed in terrifyingly precarious situations, where strong male leader archetypes would be embraced as saviors while compassion and self-sacrifice were unfavored by natural selection - only the most ruthless survived the immediate aftermath. A firmly established global patriarchy and rampant misogyny are lasting effects from time.

[Eylrid]

From the limited amount of history I know, it seems that racism has predominantly been 'inflicted' upon those with a relatively darker complexion than the majority group. For example, I know that in some Asian cultures, being 'fair-skinned' is considered a compliment on beauty, whereas darker-skinned people were looked down upon.

Can anybody suggest a reason for this (or if there is already an accepted reason that I'm not aware of, I'd like to know)?

@Blue Ocean

I have a crackpot theory with little evidence to back it up.

About 10,000 years ago there was a huge flood that decimated most civilization around the fertile crescent. It left light skinned, war-like tribes that were living further north on higher ground in a position to militarily conquer their more peaceful but previously well-defended neighbors to the south. The flood victims were traumatized and feared for their lives, and many were comforted by the presence of light skinned warlords who offered protection from starvation and roving bands of looters and scavengers. This introduced an opportunity gap that favored light skinned peoples for positions of power, leadership, and prestige that over time radiated to eastern Asia and western Europe.

The flooding my have been due in part to massive earthquakes that sent tsunamis speeding to all corners of the globe. Many lowlands dwelling people were placed in terrifyingly precarious situations, where strong male leader archetypes would be embraced as saviors while compassion and self-sacrifice were unfavored by natural selection - only the most ruthless survived the immediate aftermath. A firmly established global patriarchy and rampant misogyny are lasting effects from time.

I have no idea about the racism. The sexism comes from basic biology.

Let me see if I can explain it without butchering it or accidentally coming across as sexist myself:
Women have a much higher inherent investment at stake in reproducing than men: nine months of pregnancy, as well as feeding and often doing most of the caring for the baby after it is born. Men, by comparison, have a minuscule amount of inherent investment.
As a result, women are a lot more selective about who they have sex with than men. This leads to a wide variation in how many partners men have: those with the highest status have a lot, the rest have only a few, if any. The variation and competition encourage the evolution of things such as strength and dominance.
This also explains why promiscuous men are looked up to and promiscuous women are looked down on, as well as why women typically want a relationship and men just want to sex.

Disclaimers: Much of this applied more to the hunter gatherer societies we evolved in for thousands of years. (It also applies to a number, but not all, of other animal species.) In no way does it mean that men are better than women. There is a lot more to it than I shared here. It doesn't excuse sexism, it merely explains it's origins. There are plenty of people of both genders who defy their stereotypical roles.

Source:
Jay Phelan, Introduction to Life Sciences, UCLA as seen on academicearth.org: Introduction to Life Sciences | UCLA Video Course

I don't remember which lectures covered it.

[Hermes]

Can anybody suggest a reason for this (or if there is already an accepted reason that I'm not aware of, I'd like to know)?

It could have something to do that the more wealth or power you have the less you would have to work in the fields and so you would have a lighter/less tanned skin colour. Of course something like this is mainly cultural based as times change the identifiers of wealth change as well, which is one of the reasons being well muscled, skinny-ish and tanned is considered to be the 'look' (in Western countries at least) as they are all signifiers of wealth and power.

Also eventually if the same groups of people stayed in the sun they would slowly develop a darker skin complexion over time thus showing that they come from a poorer, weaker family line then some one with a lighter skin tone.

*Please note the above is very generalised.

[greensprout]

C may be grammatical but it imparts exactly the opposite information than it's supposed to.

[lolthevoidlol]

Question: Is it your experience or perception that you feel just as much as anyone, but your threshold for expression and/or action is much higher than most other people?

I was talking with an F type the other day about feelings in general and found myself explaining that the reason I can seem more logical about emotional situations or don't seem to feel much strongly or often is not because I don't actually feel much strongly or often, but because those feelings must be vetted before being brought to bear on the external world. That is, I must decide if they have a legitimate place outside of my own head. For example, am I really this upset that my date was late and need to talk about it with them, or is it just that this is the umpteenth inconvenience I've encountered today and had it been the only thing I would not give a hoot? Again, this is not questioning whether having a feeling is legitimate, just whether it has a legitimate place in the outside world such that it could be productively expressed and/or acted on. Furthermore, the expression or action of a feeling must be determined to have an appropriate motivation. For example, I do not find it appropriate to express things in order to hurt or change someone. I do find it appropriate to express things in order to inform a person of the potential consequences of these feelings. So, expression or action in regards to feelings requires that I determine their actual significance, motivation, and appropriateness. This is the threshold that must be surpassed before my feelings leave my head and enter the external world through expression or action.

It seems like some people have a much lower threshold/ more lenient vetting process for deciding what should be expressed. I suppose if you imagine a spectrum running from (I feel it so it must be expressed)<---------->(My feelings shall never be expressed), my approach is towards the right side of the spectrum, which can make it look as though I'm not feeling even though I am. (Someone who actually never feels anything would look like the right extreme of the spectrum as well, but of course is entirely different) So again, this is not about how much one actually feels, but how much one expresses such.

[Monkey Fritz]

From the limited amount of history I know, it seems that racism has predominantly been 'inflicted' upon those with a relatively darker complexion than the majority group. For example, I know that in some Asian cultures, being 'fair-skinned' is considered a compliment on beauty, whereas darker-skinned people were looked down upon.

Can anybody suggest a reason for this (or if there is already an accepted reason that I'm not aware of, I'd like to know)?

It is not just Asian cultures. From the 14th through 17th centuries European women with fair skin were also considered more beautiful (thus the term "fair skin" itself, meaning pleasant looking). As Hermes suggested, the general theory is that it applied to status and stature, hard working women would have darker skin, and due to their life style would be more ragged in appearance, whereas the higher status women would not only be of fair skin, but also tend to be less raged and more cleanly, obviously by comparison a tanned, dirty and worn-down serving wench from the pub would be far less attractive than a tea swilling prissy thing.

This came to a degree where women would use powder to lighten their skin even further, also removing blemishes and so called imperfections which eventually led to the modern usage of makeup. In Asian cultures this tradition of fair skin = beauty remained, as many traditions of Asian culture have survived far longer than their western counter parts, which instead evolved into what they are today.

Women with "average" sized breasts were once considered far more attractive as well, I would assume because childbirth and nursing increases breast size, so the poorer class women gave birth earlier and more often (remember one in three children died before their first birthday, the most common recourse being: try again) leading to larger breasts, and was most likely seen just as much as part of the "wear" on a woman's body as dirt, grime and wrinkles. While the rich/fair skinned women had less concern for marrying off and giving birth to slave labor forces, and an even bigger factor, tended to have nurse maids.

So ultimately, the "cleanest" healthiest women tended toward pale skin, narrow hips and small breasts. Leading men to be attracted toward such traits. (Physical attraction is very much attributable to environment, as the psych is very easily influenced in such matters (one can become aroused by anything by simply wanting to be aroused by it).)

[Monkey Fritz]

As for the differentiation between the sexes, it is really just nature.

The primary social value of women is in giving birth to perpetuate the species. This is inherent an extremely valuable service. However it comes at a cost, from carrying the child to term, to the wear of childbirth, to the inherent dangers of childbirth prior to antibiotics and pain killers, to the time and energy required for caring for the child the first six months to a year. This negative effect is far more than any one individual can account for. In spite of the single mother feminista movement in our spoiled life of modern convenience, even a hundred years ago it was virtually impossible for a woman to take care of herself and a child, most especially during the first six months to a year of the child's life.

This leads to a serious demand whereby the woman needs someone to provide for them for at least six months, if not up to a year and a half. While the service of providing a child may be worth a man entering into a contracted position of taking care of the woman during this time period, it is still a major drain upon his resources. It works out better that during this time the woman handle those duties which do not require excessive labor, IE handling all the affairs which take place within the home, while the man handles the actual provision and anything which takes place outside the home, where the drain upon the woman during this time would be too great.

Again it is simpler to maintain this contract at all times, rather than change the nature during childbirth and after.

Ultimately this is an equal partnership with mutual gain. Feminists tend to view any difference as a failure of equality. There is no reason for men and women to be treated EXACTLY the same. Think of children and house chores, it is terribly inefficient to have them both do exactly the same work, instead you divide the chores equally among them. This is the nature of the marriage contract, an equal division of the labors necessary for provision and child rearing which is designed to automatically accommodate for the weakened position of a child-rearing woman. The only reason that men do not traditionally stay home and care for the children while the women work is really because it is inefficient with the childbirth period in the woman's life. A single margin of inefficacy, even only a couple of weeks, is enough to lead to starvation of the entire family unit. The man, however, maintains his provisional capacity throughout the childbirth period, making the man a far better candidate for the provisional role.

100 years ago one half of the population worked (I am sure there are inconsistencies, but lets just say half). Now with the feminism movement at least half the women in the western world have joined the work force (At least forty percent of women actually believe in the stay at home mom, though it is becoming increasingly difficult to do so). So now approximately three quarters of the western population are working. That means that the number of workers in the current economic structure has increased by %50, which also means the value of the individual worker has decreased by the same margin, which is why in most instances it takes both members of a relationship working full time to support themselves. This is not progression, it is a regression of the basic economic structure of the family unit.

Modernization has removed %80 of the work necessary to keep a home running now, leading to a complete lack of understanding of just how much work women used to put into their half of the deal.

But it's okay if we all have to work twice as hard, at least women are better than men now... Wait, what???

[Blue Ocean]

@Monkey Fritz

Those were some excellent responses - thanks very much. So would you say that black people, having darker skin, were historically seen as being more working class because of the whole 'work=darker skin' theory, and therefore discriminated against?

I'm not sure who got the idea of comparing sexes from though - I never asked for that! I thought the reasons for that were more or less obvious (to me anyway).