The first hominid, “Homo Erectus” appeared during the Pliocene epoch, which was about 5.4 million to 1.6 million years ago.  During this period, the primary predators of simians (monkeys, apes, etc.), were nocturnal carnivores.  Nocturnal predators, such as hyenas or jackals, are color blind, but they possess excellent low-light vision.  In contrast, although primates, such as humans, originally evolved from nocturnal rodent-like creatures that ate insects, they subsequently evolved to be compulsory diurnal (day) animals.  During simian evolution, a series of retina-expressed mutations that transformed some of the retina's rods into cones, spread, resulting in the emergence of bi-chromatic and eventually tri-chromatic vision.  The selective sweep of these retina-expressed alleles in our evolutionary ancestors is assumed to result from the ancients switching from being insect eaters to fruit eaters.  Color vision, however, came at the expense of low light vision, making fear of darkness a simian-wide fitness-enhancing trait.  The human brain, which processes 100 trillion commands per second, must consolidate and simplify information.  Co-jointly this need, with the evolutionary survival-based need to fear darkness, is conceivably, where the neuro-evolutionary basis for pigmentocracy (our social system that grants advantages on the basis of skin tone) began in humans. 

First and foremost, humans are symbol smiths.  Superiority at symbol usage, e.g., using graphic configurations to create written language, is the singular reason humans are the dominant species.  Thus, creating consensual realities has always been a copious human enterprise because all symbols are consensual realities.  The proclivity for symbolic interaction, predicated by the need of the human brain to consolidate and simply information is conceivably how darkness came to symbolically represent bad and evil in the evolution of human language (e.g., darkest hour, dark personality, black hearted, the black knight versus the white knight etc.).   

The symbolic notion that all that is dark is bad, and all that is light is good for the most part, is so much of a given we do not think about it.  Even if we do think about it, and the implications it has for eroding the self esteem of swarthy persons—that train left the station a long time ago.  What can we really do about it at this point in western society?  There’s a greater issue for the psyche of the American Democrat or bi-partisan voter, who is faced with reconciling—the intrinsic reality that “the best leader for our nation is dark,” with the consensual reality that “dark is bad”.  Technically, the Democratic Presidential nominee is 50% Caucasian and 50% African.  Therefore, in terms of racial admixture, he is as “white” as he is “black”.

The unenlightened, unproductive, corporate-media driven discussions about whether Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama is too white to garner support from the black community in his presidential bid, as well as whether white America is ready to “elect an African American”, reveal that racial identity in America is supposed as a complex issue.  Arguably, it is the product of many factors, from self-presentation, affiliations, perceptions, and expectations.  Curiously, however, in none of the media discussions did the question arise whether Barack Obama “looks” black enough—he definitely looks “black enough”, no one would mistake him for being white—and there in lies the problem.