Human skin color Human skin color Human skin color ranges in variety from the darkest brown to the lightest hues. An individual's skin pigmentation is the result of genetics, being the product of both of the individual's biological parents' genetic makeup, and exposure to sun. In evolution, skin pigmentation in human beings evolved by a process of natural selection primarily to regulate the amount of ultraviolet radiation penetrating the skin, controlling its biochemical effects. The actual skin color of different humans is affected by many substances, although the single most important substance is the pigment melanin. Melanin is produced within the skin in
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