THE COLOR OF
MAN
Development
of
the Concept:
In 1952, having completed the BA in Art at UCLA, I decided to
produce
a combination animation + live action documentary film for the Master
of
Arts in Motion Pictures. Presenting the contemporary scientific
theories
for skin color differences, the film would consist of white, brown,
black,
yellow & red sections & be titled: "The Colors Of Races."
When my initial research failed to find a single comprehensive work on
the subject, however, it became necessary to review everything
available
under the overall library catalogue heading: "Man, Color of."
Surprisingly, a comparison of dozens of anthropology, genetics,
dermatology,
etc. texts revealed a lack of agreement on the part of even the leading
authorities; each of whom tended to divide mankind into subjective
categories
based on arbitrary criteria. One popular university level
book,
for example, ambiguously described Malaysians as having skin "the color
of dried oak leaves." There was neither a generally accepted
standard
for measuring skin color, nor any published studies defining and
mapping
out the colors of the world's peoples.
At the time most anthropologists separated humanity into "Black, White,
Brown, Yellow, Red, Beige," or "Caucasoid, Negroid, Asian, Australoid,
Polynesian" or other such "racial" categories. But, since the
word
"race," literally meant "descended from a common stock," it seemed
properly
applicable only to groups all of whose members were capable of
interbreeding.
While one could say there is a "race" of dogs, cats, horses, etc., the
term "race" didn't seem accurate for describing biological sub-species
even when based upon constellations of several characteristics such as
color, height, or shape. All people - from the dark skinned
pygmies of the Congo to the tall blondes of Scandinavia - being capable
of intermarrying to produce viable offspring, there could be only one,
"human," race.
The proposed film, therefore, rather than being separated into
arbitrary
"racial" categories, would have to concern itself with the varying
color
groupings within our species. But even the idea of depicting
humanity
divided into separate color groups appeared to be inaccurate since, as
observed by an astute 18th Century French anthropologist, when one
travels
by land from Europe to Central Africa, from the regions inhabited by
the
lightest to the darkest peoples, there exist no lines of sharp
demarcation,
only a gradual, almost imperceptible change. Most of the world's
peoples are of a medium color, forming a bell curve with the lightest
and
darkest at the extremes. "The Colors of Races" was transformed
into
"The Color of Man." The completed 1954 MA Thesis film
demonstrated how, as the descendants of the first humans emigrated ever
northward away from what the fossil record indicates was an intensely
sunlit
African or Asian origin, the interaction of genetic potential with the
weakening sunlight caused, due to the process of natural selection over
thousands of generations, a lightening of skin, hair & eye color.
By late 1957, even with the Supreme Court's 1954 Integration
Decision
leading to a growing civil rights movement demanding desegregation
&
equality for all Americans, there was still no comprehensive book
available
on the subject of human skin color.
Reviewing the research used for the MA Thesis Film, and enlarging its
coverage
of prejudice, discrimination & segregation, became the basis for
the
book THE COLOR OF MAN; published in 1968 & 1972 by Random
House.
Bantam Books came out with a paperback edition in 1972; & the
California
State Department of Education printed a 50,000 copy text edition in
1973.
Although out of print since the 1980s, along with a multi-media kit of
the same title, it continues to be used in many school systems; with
excerpts
appearing in texts in France & Japan. Future plans include an
updated & expanded work to be titled:
"THE
COLOR OF HUMANITY"
Index Film
Brochure
& Study Guide Book
Reviews:
New York Times, Kirkus, Robert Coles
FILMOGRAPHY
RADFILMS
