Melanin theory is a set of pseudoscientific claims made by some proponents of

Afrocentrism Afrocentrism is an approach to the study of world history that focuses on the history of people of recent African descent. It is in some respects a response to Eurocentric attitudes about African people and their historical contributions. It ...

, which holds that black people, including ancient Egyptians, have superior mental, physical, and

paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...

powers because they have higher levels of

melanin Melanin (; from el, μέλας, melas, black, dark) is a broad term for a group of natural pigments found in most organisms. Eumelanin is produced through a multistage chemical process known as melanogenesis, where the oxidation of the amino ...

, the primary skin pigment in humans.

Claims

Melanin theory posits that individuals' responses to social stimuli are determined by the prevalence of the skin pigment

. Historian Stephen Ferguson describes melanin theory as a component of "strong"

, which assigns biological causes to social phenomena such as

white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...

. Proponents of melanin theory ("melanists") argue that insecurity among European males leads to efforts to socially dominate and

emasculate Emasculation is the removal of both the penis and the testicles, the external male sex organs. It differs from castration, which is the removal of the testicles only, although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. The potential medical ...

African males, taking the form of unemployment, incarceration, and political and social marginalization. Some black supremacists, including professor of black studies

Leonard Jeffries Leonard Jeffries Jr. (born January 19, 1937) is former departmental chair of Black Studies at the City College of New York, part of the City University of New York (CUNY). Jeffries is a political scientist, historian, educator, master-teacher/adm ...

and psychoanalyst

Frances Cress Welsing Frances Luella Welsing (née Cress; March 18, 1935 – January 2, 2016) was an American psychiatrist and well-known proponent of the Black supremacist melanin theory. Her 1970 essay, ''The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation and Racism (White ...

, argue without evidence that higher levels of melanin give black people inherently superior qualities to

white people White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as ...

, including supernatural abilities such as

extrasensory perception Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke Universit ...

. According to Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, "the alleged properties of melanin, mostly unsupported, irrelevant, or distortions of the scientific literature, are ..used to justify Afrocentric assertions. One of the most common is that humans evolved as blacks in Africa, and that whites are mutants (albinos, or melanin recessives)". Ortiz de Montellano wrote in 1993 that melanin theory as an ideological movement would increase scientific illiteracy and would contribute to "widening the gap between the races". Welsing states that Africans possess

dominant gene In genetics, dominance is the phenomenon of one variant (allele) of a gene on a chromosome masking or overriding the effect of a different variant of the same gene on the other copy of the chromosome. The first variant is termed dominant and t ...

s in comparison to the recessive genes of Europeans, which, she posits, leads to a struggle by Europeans to maintain their genetic distinctness. Welsing derived her hypothesis partly through a neo-Freudian analysis of cultural symbols rather than scientific evidence, arguing that the motivation for white supremacy is an unconscious response to white genetic and sexual inferiority. Ferguson equates this argument with "white male

penis envy Penis envy (german: Penisneid) is a stage theorized by Sigmund Freud regarding female psychosexual development, in which young girls experience anxiety upon realization that they do not have a penis. Freud considered this realization a defining m ...

" toward black men.

In popular culture

In 2006, the views of adherents and critics of melanin theory were dramatized in Cassandra Medley's play ''Relativity''. In 2020, melanin theory was promoted by

Nick Cannon Nicholas Scott Cannon (born October 8, 1980) is an American television host, actor, rapper, and comedian. In television, Cannon began as a teenager on ''All That'' before going on to host '' The Nick Cannon Show'', ''Wild 'n Out'', ''America's ...

in an interview with

Professor Griff Richard Griffin (born August 1, 1960), better known by his stage name Professor Griff, is an American rapper, spoken word artist, and lecturer currently residing in Atlanta. He was a member of the hip hop group Public Enemy, serving as the grou ...

Public Enemy "Public enemy" is a term which was first widely used in the United States in the 1930s to describe individuals whose activities were seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society, though the phrase had been used for centuries to describe ...

on the Cannon's Class podcast, among anti-Semitic ideas.

References

{{Pseudoscience, state=autocollapse Afrocentrism Black supremacy Pseudoscience Scientific racism Skin pigmentation

Claims

In popular culture

See also

References