From The Mind of Merc - Skin Colour

Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today I was thinking about skin colour.

To be clear – I don’t mean about the difference between black and white but the actual concept of ‘skin colour’.

For starters, why is it called ‘skin colour’?

Anything ‘skin colour’ is generally either peach or, at the very least, beige. Yet given the possible variations in the part of a person’s genetic code that determines the colour of the skin – not to mention the other factors that can affect it during a person’s lifetime – there is potentially a limitless number of possible ‘skin colours’. There are 6 ‘skin types’ alone (fair, dark and everything in between). So how can there be one ‘skin colour’?

The main culprit of promoting this idea seems to be the fashion industry. When you’re buying clothes, you’re most likely to see something listed as ‘skin colour’ or ‘nude’ – which always refers only to ‘white’ skin colour and you have to wonder what kind of message is that sending? That ‘this is the only skin colour that’s acceptable’? That ‘this is the only skin colour’ they’ll cater for’? How wrong is that? If ‘skin colour’ refers solely to ‘white’ skin colour then surely that is implying it to be the only/dominant/prevalent skin colour. To me, that is all types of wrong. Technically it could also be said to mean that the entire fashion industry is condoning racism.

Given the number of names for colours, surely it can’t be difficult to come up with an alternative name for it. For example, let’s look at ‘blood red’ which (somewhat ironically) proves my point even further. Blood is always red (regardless of skin colour) but even this can have other names (69 according to a quick Google search). Ones that have been used in various products include: cherry, reddish, scarlet, crimson, carmine, ruby, vermilion, cardinal, claret, rust, brown-red and carnelian. Yet ‘skin colour’ can only refer to white people? Surely ‘skin colour’ should effectively mean transparent so it shows all skin types. (Maybe that would be a better use for the term.)

When the message is that white is the only acceptable colour for skin then all sorts of unpleasantness occurs. When the message is that white is the only ‘real’ colour for skin then, at least subliminally, this implies a superiority of one skin colour over another. A superiority which does not exist.

Maybe it’s time to end this clearly outdated, massively incorrect and undeniably biased and unfair term. Perhaps doing so could be a step in the right direction towards ending racial discrimination. This might sound bizarre or extreme but by no longer effectively stating that people with ‘white’ skin colour are preferable or (consequently) better or (even) the only skin colour then such a simple change could have a significant and/or dramatic effect on people’s perceptions of what is ‘acceptable’/’normal’/exists. The message this sends would be phenomenal. And from such a simple change. Surely it’s worth – and needs – to be done.

After all, if the make-up industry can (even attempt to) accommodate the multiple variations (with foundations coming in shades such as ‘porcelain’, ‘ivory’, ‘amber’, ‘bronze’, ‘truffle’ and ‘mocha’), how hard can it be?