The term black people usually refers to a racial group of humans with dark skin color, but the term has also been used to categorise a number of diverse populations into one common group. Some definitions of the term include only people of relatively recent Sub Saharan African descent (see African diaspora), while others extend the term to any of the populations characterized by dark skin color, a definition that also includes certain populations in Oceania, Southeast Asia and South Asia.
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The term black people usually refers to a racial group of humans with dark skin color, but the term has also been used to categorise a number of diverse populations into one common group. Some definitions of the term include only people of relatively recent Sub Saharan African descent (see African diaspora), while others extend the term to any of the populations characterized by dark skin color, a definition that also includes certain populations in Oceania, Southeast Asia and South Asia.
Dark skin
The evolution of dark skin is intrinsically linked to the loss of body hair in humans. By 1.2 million years ago, all people having descendants today had same the receptor protein of today's Africans; their skin was dark, and the intense sun killed off the progeny with any lighter skin that resulted from mutational variation in the receptor protein. This is significantly earlier than the speciation of Homo sapiens from Homo erectus some 250,000 years ago.
Dark skin helps protect against skin cancer that develops as a result of ultraviolet light radiation, causing mutations in the skin.Fact: date=June 2008 Furthermore, dark skin prevents an essential B vitamin, folate, from being destroyed. Therefore, in the absence of modern medicine and diet, a person with dark skin in the tropics would live longer, be more healthy and more likely to reproduce than a person with light skin. White Australians have some of the highest rates of skin cancer as evidence of this expectation. Conversely, as dark skin prevents sunlight from penetrating the skin it hinders the production of vitamin D3. Hence when humans migrated to less sun-intensive regions in the north, low vitamin D3 levels became a problem and lighter skin colors started appearing. The people of Europe, who have low levels of melanin, naturally have an almost colorless skin pigmentation, especially when untanned. This low level of pigmentation allows the blood vessels to become visible and gives the characteristic pale pink color of white people. The primary difference in skin color between blacks and whites is however a minor genetic difference accounting for just one letter in 3.1 billion letters of DNA.
In sub-Saharan Africa
see: Demographics of Africa
Owen 'Alik Shahadah argues that the term sub-Saharan Africa has racist overtones:
quote: Sub-Saharan Africa is a racist byword for "primitive", a place which has escaped advancement. Hence, we see statements like “no written languages exist in Sub-Saharan Africa.” “Ancient Egypt was not a Sub-Saharan African civilization.” Sub-Sahara serves as an exclusion, which moves, jumps and slides around to suit negative generalization of Africa.
