Color Terminology For Race
In some societies and among some anthropologists, color terminology (or colour terminology) was used to label races, sometimes in addition to a non-color term for the same race. Identifying races in terms of their skin color has been common since at least the Physiognomica falsely attributed to Aristotle.
Other scientists were more cautious about such categorization, and Charles Darwin argued that the number of categories, or in this case the number of different colors, is completely arbitrary and subjective. For example, some claimed three distinct colors, some four, and others have claimed even more. In contrast, Darwin argued that there are gradations, or degrees between the numbers of categories claimed, and not distinct categories, or colors.
Read more about Color Terminology For Race: Western Classifications, Symbolism and Uses of Color Terminology, Flag of The Races
Famous quotes containing the words color and/or race:
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“...America has enjoyed the doubtful blessing of a single-track mind. We are able to accommodate, at a time, only one national hero; and we demand that that hero shall be uniform and invincible. As a literate people we are preoccupied, neither with the race nor the individual, but with the type. Yesterday, we romanticized the “tough guy;” today, we are romanticizing the underprivileged, tough or tender; tomorrow, we shall begin to romanticize the pure primitive.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)