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The Mysterious Melanin

Ok, so even when we were roaming around as Hominids a.k.a hairless monkeys, our skin has been black. This was supposed to be useful to prevent us from harmful UV rays in Africa, the "dark continent" (not bad, huh) from where everyone of us on planet earth originate. That's old news.

Then, as we evolved and moved around to colder places like Europe and Asia, we didn't have much use of our melanin pigment and so we started developing lighter skin. Adaptation, of course. Somewhere down the history lane, we also started getting an absurd notion of darker skin being seen as being of lowest social value, and lighter skin of highest. No one knows why, but we all know that this paranoia has been the root cause of the evil "racism".

What's most fascinating (maybe only to me) is that apparently how we tend to choose our mates is also connected to our skin color. Natural selection, bingo. Peter Frost's 2005 Fair Women, Dark Men, U. of Washington sociologist Pierre L. van den Berghe summarizes:

"Studies have shown that although virtually all cultures express a marked preference for fair female skin, even those with little or no exposure to European imperialism, and even those whose members are heavily pigmented, many are indifferent to male pigmentation or even prefer men to be darker."

And, as a member of the "this-is-so-unfair-sex", I want to loudly protest this one.
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