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Chapter 24 NOTHING UNDER THE SUN IS JUST BLACK OR WHITE Now it is fashionable to be dark, but only if you are really white, that is tan is beautiful-if you keep it this side of black. Grace Halsell, in Soul Sister If we bring up a dark-skinned child born in Africa in northern France, or if we bring up a light-skinned child, born in France, in equatorial Africa, they will remain, respectively, dark and light. Something fundamental , therefore, must exist in their genetic makeup that determines their basic pigmentation. Scientists call this basic pigmentation constitutive skin color. If our degree of pigmentation varies with our genetic constitution,1 it also varies with the environment. Some of us are lightly pigmented a part of the year and may become more pigmented the rest of the year, depending upon how much our skin is exposed to the sun. We call this increase in skin pigmentation above the level of natural pigmentation a tan. Scientists have another phrase for it: inducible skin color. Today, and particularly in the western world, the pursuit of a tan has become a passion, and there are people who will spend hours sunbathing or in tanning salons. The achievement of a bronzed appearance is believed to signify health and beauty, as long as you "keep it this side of black." The biological side of the coin is that too long and too frequent exposures to the sun (or artificial sunlight) can have very harmful effects in light-skinned, and not so light-skinned individuals. This is particularly true for those individuals who have light-colored eyes, red or blond hair and freckled skin, for many of them do not ever tan. If their skin is exposed to the sun, it reddens, burns easily, blisters and peels. These people are not only susceptible to sunburn but also to skin cancer. Light-skinned individuals who can tan are less affected by solar rays, but should still be cautious about sunbathing , for lifelong exposure to solar radiation has been associated not only skin cancer but also with eye cataracts. And if the threats of cancer or cataracts are not deterrent enough, sunbathers should worry 187 188 Alain Corcos about wrinkles, for sun radiation damages the protein building blocks of skin. The skin will sag, become drier, nodular and pebbly-all changes that we associate with aging. There are many cases of fifty year-old individuals, who, after a long life of sunbathing, look seventy. Skin cancer is increasing not only among the United States population which, since World War II, has adopted the sun-worshipping culture, but also among the light-skinned descendants of the settlers of Australia and even among the descendants of Japanese immigrants in the Hawaiian Islands. Both these islands and Australia are close to the tropics where sunlight is the most intense. The most fortunate individuals are those who are constitutively dark-skinned or who tan very fast. It is important to note that these skin cancer studies could be improved if researchers were to abandon entirely the concept of race in tabulating their data.2 The inclusion of something so artificial as race masks the true meaning of research results, since it is logical to assume that susceptibility to skin cancer is inversely related to the amount of melanin in a person's skin regardless of his or her "race." Researchers have ignored evidence that there is tremendous variability in tanning ability among the light-skinned individuals. If they were to classify people according to their skin color in the summer, their data might be more meaningful than when race enters into the picture. After all, it is reasonable to assume that someone who does not tan easily is more susceptible to skin cancer than someone who tans rapidly regardless of whether he or she is considered black, white, or Native American. The component of sunlight that plays a role in skin burning and the formation of skin cancer is also the one that induces tanning. Herein lies a paradox for those of us who are light-skinned: If we protect ourselves from sun radiation, we do not get burned, but we do not get tanned either. If we expose ourselves to the sun, we often get burned before getting that tan which protects us from burning. The culprit is known as ultraviolet light, which is part of the electromagnetic spectrum and lies between the visible light and X-ray regions (fig...

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