How to Talk to Young Children About Racism Without Being Racist (Part 2)
Answering why humans have different eye shapes, eye colours, noses, lips, hair textures, and skin colours.
“Are you made of chocolate?” is a question that countless darker-skinned children worldwide have been asked by other children. Although the question shows children’s curiosity about physical human differences, it also shows their lack of understanding.
However, it’s often hard for children and parents to answer questions about human differences in scientific and non-racist ways. By ‘racist,’ I mean that which upholds, reinforces, reproduces, or perpetuates racism.
Therefore, this article gives you scientific and non-racist answers to questions about physical human differences. It also prepares you for part three, which will be about ‘race’ and racism.
The article is the second part of a three-part series with suggestions on how to have an honest conversation with young children (below the age of six) about ‘race’ and racism without being racist, divisive, dismissive, or instilling fear or shame.
The first part of the series gives suggestions on how to gather relevant information to structure the conversation with the child and what to consider while doing so. I’d recommend you read it before continuing with this article (if you haven’t already).
1. Why do people have different eye shapes?
Luis Villazon says the primary difference in eye shape is how “the upper eyelid meets the inner corner of the eye.” Inuits, East Asians, Southeast Asians, Polynesians, and Native Americans have an “epicanthic fold,” which is a small fold where the upper eyelid joins the inner corner of the eye.
This fold is thought to result from “fat deposits under the skin.” These deposits are believed to have developed to shield the eye from the cold and intense UV rays in snowy and desert areas.
2. Why do people have different eye colours?
The amount of melanin in the iris (the coloured part of your eye) determines your eye colour. Melanin is controlled by your genes. The more melanin you have, the darker your eye colour. Most people on earth have brown eyes (55% — 79%).
Other common eye colours are blue (8–10%), hazel (5%), amber (5%), green (2%), and gray (less than 1%).
Before migrating out of Africa, all humans had brown eyes, and their darker eyes offered protection against UV rays.
However, between 6 000 and 10 000 years ago, people’s eyes are said to have mutated to become lighter once they migrated to less UV intense areas.
In addition, there are claims that lighter eyes help people see better in the dark. At the same time, those with lighter eyes are also likely to struggle with glare during the day.
It must be said that it’s not just light-skinned Europeans who have blue eyes. Darker-skinned people can also have blue eyes, although it’s not as common.
Research shows that over 7 000 years ago, European hunter-gatherers were dark-skinned with blue eyes.
3. Why do people have different noses?
Differences in human noses are determined by the climate in which their ancestors evolved.
Mark Shriver conducted a study that shows that having a wider nose is preferable in humid and warm climates, as it allows you to easily inhale more air.
On the other hand, Shriver argues that a narrower nose is more suitable for colder and drier climates. Inhaling too much cold dry air could cause nose bleeds, coughs, and irritation of nose and throat membranes. Therefore, a narrow nose acts like an oven that warms the air for inhalation.
Studies also show that men generally have more prominent noses than women because they usually have more muscle and therefore need more oxygen.
4. Why do people have different lips?
There seem to be two theories as to why humans have different lips.
One theory points to the climate in which humans evolved. For those in warmer temperatures, larger lips are thought to provide a greater surface area for heat to leave the body. As a result, they evolved to have bigger lips.
Those in colder climates are thought to have evolved to have smaller lips to retain heat.
The other theory argues that different lips evolved to attract a mate or signal fertility. However, this theory is contested because it doesn’t seem to hold for those with thinner lips.
5. Why do people have different hair textures?
James MacDonald argues that different human hair textures result from “selective pressure acting on the genes responsible for hair type.”
Selective pressure is any factor that gives an organism (in this case, a human being) an advantage or disadvantage. Factors can be behavioural, environmental, inherent, and physical.
MacDonald also points to “limited evidence” that in warmer climates, curly hair cools the head. The shape and density of curly or coily hair is said to allow for more air to circulate through the scalp, regulating body temperature.
Once humans migrated out of Africa to Europe and Asia, their hair evolved to become straight. Straight hair is usually more oily. The oil is thought to lubricate and protect the skin while slowing evaporation, which might have been “positively selected” during the cold, dry Ice Age.
6. Why do people have different skin colours?
According to Dr. Dennis O’Neill, skin colour varies from “very dark brown” to almost “yellowish pink.” The skin gets its colour (both light and dark) from melanin controlled by about six genes. Blood flow near the skin also affects skin colour, especially in lighter-skinned people.
The body makes two types of melanin — light melanin called pheomelanin (said ‘fee-o-melanin’) and dark melanin called eumelanin (said ‘you-melanin’).
Lighter-skinned people primarily produce light melanin, and darker-skinned people mainly make dark melanin. However, your skin colour depends more on the size and number of melanin particles in your skin than on the amount of various types of melanin you make.
In addition, your skin responds to sunlight or UV rays by making melanin. This is why you get darker the longer you’re in direct sunlight on a hot day.
North western Europeans who peel and burn instead of tan do so because they produce a faulty skin protein Mc1r (melanocortin-1 receptor) needed to make melanin.
Dark melanin blocks UV rays, helping avoid sunburn and DNA mutations that could cause skin cancer. As a result, dark melanin is most common in people from places with intense sunlight.
However, melanin doesn’t block all UV radiation. Instead, it allows some shortwave ultraviolet radiation (UVB) to go through the skin so the body can make vitamin D.
Lighter melanin is common in people from areas where sunlight is less harsh. Having lighter skin allows those living in far northern latitudes to produce vitamin D from little sun exposure, with Inuits being the exception.
