Yes skin pigmentation is a result of proximity to the equator and race is a social construct. There are also strong theories about why societies world-wide probably developed east-west/west-east than south-north, having to do with constancy of climate and many other environmental realities. Race is stupid, surely not the human race at its best. But right now, in the Western World, race matters immensely. No matter how far we may feel progressed from race personally, we still live in a world where black kids are serving four times the amount of prison time for the same amount of drugs. We live in a society in which people go to prison at all for drugs because of racist drug laws. We live in a society in which having a “black-sounding name” on your resume lessens one’s chance of getting a job. Trump right now is trying to roll back rules put in place to end red-lining and other discrimination in housing to appeal to white people. We live in a society where a white congressman feels free to accost a woman of PR descent, who is also dutifully elected, and call her a “fucking bitch.” Do you think he would have done that to a white woman?
The list goes on and on. So, bottom line, our ideas or awareness of the racism of race, don’t matter a whole lot. And yes, skin color makes a bigger difference than hair color. Sheesh.
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