Whats Melanin?

hat is melanin? your body contains melanin, which is responsible for the color of your hair, eyes, and skin. Your skin, hair, and eyes will be darker the more melanin you create. Genetics and the quantity of sun exposure your ancestors received are two factors that affect the amount of melanin in your body.

In order to guard against the damaging effects of the sun’s UV radiation, humanity first evolved dark skin in Africa. Some populations that migrated to other continents developed lighter skin to generate vitamin D more efficiently in places with little sunlight. They discovered numerous, grouped around six distinct genes: SLC24A5, MFSD12, DDB1, TMEM138, OCA2, and HERC2. And they demonstrated that in the three countries under study, these variations account for a total of 29% of the diversity in skin tone. That’s a sizable percentage! As a point of perspective, a comparable but much larger study found hundreds of genes that influence height, but that together only explain 16% of the variation observed in large populations. Tishkoff and her team turned to Africa, the place where humans is most physically and genetically diverse, to remedy this imbalance. In Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Botswana, they enlisted 1,570 volunteers from 10 different ethnic groups, and assessed the amount of the black pigment melanin in the skin of their inner arms. In order to determine which variants are linked to a person’s skin tone, the team then examined more

The genetic variety of these tribes reflects their physical diversity. The first gene to be implicated in human skin color, MC1R, is highly variable in European populations but strikingly constant in African ones. According to Tishkoff, based on this trend, some geneticists have come to the conclusion that because of the high evolutionary pressure for dark skin in Africa, any genetic variations that affected skin color were ruthlessly eliminated by natural selection. Tishkoff asserts, “That’s not accurate,” but this is what occurs when you only look at skin tone in Western nations. “There’s a lot of variation when you look at this African-centered approach.”

For instance, variations of the MFSD12 gene, which are connected to darker complexion, are more prevalent in East Africans with darker skin than the San, who have lighter skin. MFSD12 also demonstrates how discovering pigmentation genes can provide fresh information about the fundamental biology of our skin. The gene, which two years ago had no name at all, was connected to vitiligo, a disorder in which people get white patches on dark skin. Tishkoff’s colleagues demonstrated that the gene regulates the equilibrium between light and dark pigments by eliminating it in fish and mice.

A version of the SLC24A5 gene, which is also present in Western European populations, has historically been regarded as being “European” due to its strong correlation with lighter skin.

However, Tishkoff’s group demonstrated that the variety arrived in East Africa from the Middle East several millennia earlier and long before the time of colonization. Today, it is widespread among Ethiopian and Tanzanian populations but uncommon elsewhere. Importantly, the variation does not brighten skin tone to the same extent in East African races as it does in European groups. According to Jablonski, it serves as a harsh reminder that “a person can inherit a gene that imparts a certain feature in one population and yet not obviously show signs of that trait themselves.” It serves as a reminder that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions about a suspect’s skin color based just on the presence of a single genetic variant.

The results, says Carlson, “turn the tables” on the racist groups who “frequently gather around the patently incorrect idea that Africans are more genetically related to primordial hominids than Europeans.” “Europeans are really more likely to be genetically similar to big apes” at numerous genes that affect color of skin.

The University of Michigan’s Jedidiah Carlson, who has been monitoring how white supremacist organizations misuse genetic findings, concurs. “White nationalists interpret these qualities as a surrogate for better intelligence because physically recognizable traits widespread in modern Europeans, such as pale skin tone, are also assumed to have developed within European populations,” he claims. The history of SLC24A5 serves as a reminder that “Europeans are not the only people to have light skin pigmentation or, most likely, other ‘European’ features. As long as the human species has existed, human populations have interbred.

Key Contemporary Human Rights Issue

People of African descent’s current circumstances must be considered in light of both the heritage of slavery and ongoing discrimination, which promotes unfair and marginalized conditions. Even though slavery is now de facto still practiced in many parts of the world, despite the fact that it is now de jure prohibited in all nations.

A diverse group with a variety of histories, experiences, and identities is those of African descent. Their daily struggles and living situations are different. However, they are all connected by the fact that they have long been deprived of the opportunity to fully exercise their human rights, and it is feasible to identify a number of pressing problems that need to be resolved.

Structural and institutional racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance;

• Inequality, marginalization and stigmatization;

• Low levels of participation and underrepresentation in political and institutional decision-making processes;

• Lack of adequate representation in the administration of justice;

• Barriers to and inequality in the enjoyment of key human rights such as access to quality education, health services and housing, which results in the intergenerational transmission of poverty;

• Inequality in access to labour markets;

• Disproportionate presence in prison populations;

• Racial profiling;

• Limited social recognition and valuing of people of African descent’s ethnic and cultural diversity and contribution to society;

• Intolerance against religions of African origin.