Skin color is one of humankind’s most important physical traits, because it affects so many aspects of our health and social well-being. It is also one of the most interesting attributes to study because of its dynamic evolutionary history and its cultural transformation, in recent times, into a determinant of human interactions and destinies. So why don’t more people, especially scientists and educators, talk about it?
Skin color is one of the most actively avoided topics in polite conversation, and it effectively doesn’t exist as a topic of instruction or discussion in most classrooms. Recently, before I began a lecture to an audience of middle- and high-school teachers from a major urban public-school system, I asked the teachers how often each week they formally introduced issues related to race, including skin color, into classroom lessons. I also asked how many times per week kids in their classes raised questions related ...
