Light skin of UVA can penetrate deeply into the dermis in persons with light skin pigmentation with little protective melanin pigment. The characteristic of fair skin, red hair, and freckling is associated with high amount of pheomelanin, little amounts of eumelanin. This phenotype is caused by a loss-of-function mutation in the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) gene. However, variations in the MC1R gene sequence only have considerable influence on pigmentation in populations where red hair and extremely fair skin is prevalent. The gene variation’s primary effect is to promote eumelanin synthesis at the expense of pheomelanin synthesis, although this contributes to very little
Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out "Showing Our Colors" explores the way by which Afro-Germans were historically attributed shameful, negative or patronizing characteristics with regard to their "non-white" skin color. Because so many negative connotations were associated with "blackness" at the time, many Afro-Germans identified that what was found to be more threatening to Germans at the time than the idea of deviation from the norm or "whiteness" was the idea of "intrusion" or destroying this white norm. "Showing Our Colors" notes that, apart from their appearance, many Afro-Germans labeled as "exotic" had nothing "foreign" to offer in that they spoke German perfectly, had German names