how do other races get dark?
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Regional History or Period History
Forum Name: African History
Forum Discription: Talk about African History
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=17376
Printed Date: 18-May-2024 at 12:14
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Topic: how do other races get dark?
Posted By: AfrikaJamaika
Subject: how do other races get dark?
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 01:35
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I was wondering is the reason why some races who started off with really light skin able to get their skinned darkend, is it because they have some black african in their genes? People like Puerto ricans, and all hispanics, Cambodians, Filipinos, some middle east people...Are all able to get their skin to be dark is it because they have black African blood? |
Replies:
Posted By: xi_tujue
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 03:26
No it's because geneticly they're quite darker than lets say european people but if theu live in the west like the east coast of the US or europe they don't get as much sun so they get paler but if they go to sunny areas or tan. They get dark realy quickly because there skinn can get darker a couple of shades unlikely to some people of West-european descent who clearly push it and get orange(thats realy funny if you have ever seen one  .(someone correct me if I'm wrong) ------------- I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage |
Posted By: pekau
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 06:58
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Posted By: pekau
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 06:59
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Posted By: Reginmund
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 07:07
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Europeans can't tan their skin darker? Depends on what you mean by "dark" of course, but I live in Scandinavia and there are many here with skin tanned to the extent that it looks brown (I've only seen one or two people with the orange effect xi tujue mentions), either through artificial tanning or simply being outdoors, and yet I doubt we have many africans in our genes.
The only ones who can't get their skin dark seems to be the redheads. Apart from them, everyone can tan. ------------- |
Posted By: pekau
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 07:11
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Yes, almost everyone can tan. I am merely pointing out that Africans and other people living in similar condition became black because of their adaptation to the vast of sunlight. Asians are brownish because we have a moderate climate. Europe, suffice to say, do not get a lot of sunlight but some Europeans are not completely white, especailly for folks in Med. sea. ------------- http://swagbucks.com/refer/Malachi">
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Posted By: Dan Carkner
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 08:52
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It's probably not that they have African blood (well except in the sense that everyone does ;) ) but their skin is dark for the same *reason* as africans-- living in a tropical area for thousands of years. Or the opposite you could say "What makes some people have light skin?" -- Moving out of a tropical area and living with weak northern sun for a few millenia ;) |
Posted By: AfrikaJamaika
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 09:31
Yes your right but im talking about dark as shades of like caramel, brown, dark brown, and even black...Sorry i should have stated that earlier... |
Posted By: AfrikaJamaika
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 09:33
THANX EVERYONE FOR ANSWERING! YOU ALL ARE GREAT!
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Posted By: Adalwolf
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 12:01
I'm not a redhead, but my dad is, and I don't tan well at all. I just get red for a few hours and then go back to my normal, 'white', color. 
------------- Concrete is heavy; iron is hard--but the grass will prevail. Edward Abbey |
Posted By: xi_tujue
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 12:05
Your dad can't get a tan he only gets frekles. am I right? whats the deal with asian people. For instance japanese women are verry light skinned but alot of men are quite darker. and those farmers in all of asia are quite dark ------------- I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage |
Posted By: Adalwolf
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 12:22
Your dad can't get a tan he only gets frekles. am I right? Well, my dad has frekles, but I don't know if he gets them from going out in the the sun. He just gets red, like I do, after spending time in the sun. ------------- Concrete is heavy; iron is hard--but the grass will prevail. Edward Abbey |
Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 12:43
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Well there is only one skin colour in humans. The darkness/fairness of
the skin depends on the amount of melanin pigment. The more melanin you
have the darker your skin will be. For example, in leopards, you may
know of the 'Black Leopards' or 'Panthers' - they are simply normal
leopards with larger amounts of melanin. Melanin acts as a sunscreen in
a way - Giraffe's tongues are purple (lots of melanin) and therefore
act as a 'sunscreen' for the giraffe tongue which is poking out (for
feeding) for a lot of the day. An adverse effect can occur too, where
lack of melanin pigmentation production causes fairness. If you want
more detailed/scientific information let me know - that's just a basic
overview. - Knights - ------------- |
Posted By: AfrikaJamaika
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 12:45
Exactly! How are they able to get dark like that? Because i know some asians that cant..... |
Posted By: xi_tujue
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 13:05
I realy don't know (I would give you the awnser if I knew) ------------- I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage |
Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 15:03
The light skin of some of these asian women has to do with fashion. In many Asian countries it is a beauty ideal to have light skin, so the women will stay out of the sun and use creams and potions to stay light, whereas the men dont care as much and go out in the sun. Farmers I think are darker skinned all over the world because they are out in the open air so much more than others.
I am very fair and I tan badly, but if I stay out in the open in summer long enough, even one as light as me will eventually become tanned (I just never bother about it as it takes too much time and is bad for your skin anyway.) But my father and brother, who are blond as well, will tan in just a few days without trouble... ------------- 
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
Posted By: Emperor Barbarossa
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 20:08
I am in a similar situation. My grandmother was a redhead, and she could not go out in the sun very often, because she would freckle. However, I think because I am half-Italian (from the Southern boot of Italy), even though I am paler than anyone in my family, the body hair protects the skin a little bit. Anyways, I would agree with the thesis that the sun has made the peoples of Africa darker. This has always been my theory. ------------- 
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Posted By: Cywr
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 21:11
Popular misconception. The worst case of sunburn i've ever seen was on a black American who went skying in Austria in a t-shirt with no sunblock. Incidently, in some countries, people with darker skin have a lower chance of surviving skin cancer, because they assume 'only white people can get it', when they notice the early symptoms, dismiss it untill its too late. Everyone burns, just some quicker than others, and the same inevitably applies to skin cancer. -------------  Arrrgh!!"
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Posted By: pekau
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 22:23
Well, many Asian women were to stay at home doing housework while men went outside to farm, work, fight and so on. For instance, women with small feet were very popular in China because with small feet, women can't walk for a long time...hence making easier for men to restrict women's role in society. Men's dominance over women, whether it was justified or not, was quite common in Far East and... well, practically almost everywhere in the world...
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Posted By: Reginmund
Date Posted: 27-Jan-2007 at 14:01
Well this is obvious; the amount of sunlight they're exposed to. That being said, I can't say Japanese men are any darker than the women, at least not that I have noticed among the Japanese I've met. As a curious side-note I could mention that one of the palest boys I've ever met was a an Asian (not sure from where) I played Magic: The Gathering with, his skin was pure porcelain. Personally I must confess to some vanity when it comes to tanning. I really don't like being pale, and I think most people look healthier with some colour. ------------- |
Posted By: think
Date Posted: 28-Jan-2007 at 01:24
| Depends how pale you are. Most people arent "pale" as in pure White anyway. I just burn, so ive never been concerned about tanning. Besides if i did decide to get a tan, I would get skin cancer ive already got a mole that i gotta watch. |
Posted By: AfrikaJamaika
Date Posted: 09-Feb-2007 at 12:04
oh ok what i want to know is how did the light skinned people of ancient times the the Arabs, and the Caucasians not get sun burnt back then while they were in Africa? NOTE TO EVERYONE: With the Global warming approaching i think its best that everyone of all races where some time of sun block at all times ITS GONNA GET HOT! From what i hear.... |
Posted By: Decebal
Date Posted: 09-Feb-2007 at 12:29
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depends which "Caucasians". People from Northen Europe could get a sunburn very easily, those from Southern europe (like the Italians, the Greeks or the Spaniards) and the Arabs have a different hue and they tan more easily. Due to the tilt of the Earth, the amount of sun that someone gets in the Greek summer is not all that different from what someone would get in Africa. Bottom line: pale skin is an adaptation to climates where a person does not get much sun, because pale skins produce more vitamin D during exposure to the sun, which is essential for regulating calcium deposition in the bones. Otherwise, people living in northern areas would have brittle bones. Dark skin is an adaptation for sunburn. Certain areas, between 30 and 45 degrees latitude get throughout the year both periods of intense sunburn and periods when they need their skin to produce vitamin D. That's why most people in these areas have "olive" or light brown skin, which becomes quite light in the winter but can get very tanned in the summer. Such people would not burn easily in Africa. I think you have this misconception that since people are originally from Africa, then all of them, including the ancestors of say today's Swedish people, must have looked the same bacj then, in Africa, as they do today. In truth, these differences in pigmentation arose as an adaptation, as the various peoples of the Earth migrated out of Africa and adapted to their new conditions.------------- What is history but a fable agreed upon? Napoleon Bonaparte Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.- Mohandas Gandhi 
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Posted By: Maharbbal
Date Posted: 09-Feb-2007 at 15:51
Guyz, I'm freaking out have you ever heard about Darwin? Lets go back in time, before Darwing some guys (namely Lamarck) had already some ideas about evolution with the difference that there was some kind of learning by doing process going on. In our case it would be: daddy and mum are very white but for some reason they move to Africa get very tanned and when I'm born I've got the message and I'm somewhat darker than them. Of course you have a problem here and demonstration that this theory's wrong has been made: Jews get circomsized for generations none of them's born circomsized... So tried to reproduce this type of evolution in a lab, generation after generation they were cutting rats' tails, expecting that at one point some would be born without a tail... they are still waiting. Then Darwin arrived. Tu tu! His theory's simple: individuals (not only humans, all beings) reproduce and at each reproduction some drifts happen (your DNA is not 50% from mum 50% from dad but 49,5% from mum, the same from dad and 1% from either that just changed a little bit). Then the fittest survives and can spread those very special genes that made him fitter than the others. In the case of the rate of melanin, if two brothers go south with their wives, one of the brother's darker than the other, the lighter brother is x% more likely to died of skin cancer or subitt sunburn, if he does, he darker brother will have more children as he will get those with his wife and those with his brother's wife. Mahematically you get this: if one darker individual has enough time before dying to have three kids and a lighter one can only have one, then after three generations you have 1x3x3x3=27 dark ones and 1x1x1x1=1white one. So you'd consider that what was three generations earlier a 50% pale population became a 96,4% dark population. But it is not all. Sexual partners will seek the most successful individuals to mate with. You have imidiate consequences: if your boyfriend's rich you won't starve to death, and you have remote consequences incontiously, each partner's picking the gene pool (i.e. the individual) that as the most chances of survival. This is only logical you want your kids to survive, you know darker ones have more chances to survive, hence you go for the darkest individual you can find. Possibly it is even trickier: if you assume that some individual are genetically more attracted by some kind of features in an individual (i.e. some type of genetic features) and if these features help to survive there going to be a feedback effect. For instance, if dad brings dark genes and mum I-like-dark people genes, your population is likely to get darker twice faster. This is called sexual selection and this is the second and most-forgotten branch of Darwin's theory. That said I personally believe that Lamarck was not 100% wrong and that something (very slight genetical change) may happen in-utero. Lets leave the classroom now and see the world's populations: people living close to the equator are consistantly darker. It is not because they are more tanned but because natural selection "picked" the fittest feature to survive in such a sunny environment: a high rate of melanin. Send a couple of Englishmen in Mauritus, let them there for say 10,000 years and you'll get three possibilities: they all died out because of the sun and because the necessary genetical change didn't occure, or they became more tanned, or they've reinvented the umbrella (thus change their environment). Many genetic features can be directly related to the environment: - Small people where it is warmer, so the ratio mass/surface of skin (i.e. sweat, i.e. water consumtion). - Some type of genetic disease that strenghten the imune system against malaria. - High rate of lactose tolerance in cattle-growing peoples. etc. What may confuse some is that often same environments bring similar genetic change eventhough there is no direct connection between the two. It is called convergent evolution, you can see it in humans: - Large lungs and high rate of oxygene in the blood for mountain people - Dark skins for people in sunny places - high ration of fat-producing per calorie digestited for people with poor diets But once more this type of convergent evolution doesn't mean they have anything in commun. Effectively the very dark South Indians are genetically more similar to North Indian than to Aborigenes with whom they only share their melanin rate. But saying they are connected makes as much sens as saying that a dolphin is genetically closer from a fish than from say a dog, because it looks more likke a dog. Nature just selected features that suited an common environment: the sea. Some other features are disconected from the environment and thus from natural selection. Take the redhair for instance, we can quite safely assume that having red hair doesn't give you any advantage upon individual having blond one, but it is not a problem either, so none of them will disappear. ------------- I am a free donkey! |
Posted By: AfrikaJamaika
Date Posted: 10-Feb-2007 at 10:38
| thanx Maharbbal |