COLUMN: Of Moths and Men - The Extinction of White People

From Darin Smith's "The Balding of?," Fall '94 Melanin, of course, is the substance in the skin which determines the outward shade of said skin, and the human spectrum ranges from a milky white to a deep rich brown, with many gradations in between. Those humans with pale skin are melanin-deprived, while those with darker complexions are melanin-enriched. The more melanin an individual has, the greater his ability to ward off the deleterious effects of the sun. As time passes, this ability will be very highly regarded by the forces of natural selection. Natural selection works to weed out traits in species which are not successfully adaptive to the environment. During Great Britain's Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth century, the skies and the trees and all the land took on a gray pallor they had formerly lacked, as a result of industrial waste emissions. A certain species of moths that until then had thrived with white wings suddenly found itself more easily spotted and eaten by the predatorial birds a notch above them on the food chain. Within a relatively short time, the gene for white wings was being selected against, while darker colored wings became more common, and the moths were not so easily seen. The species survived because it was able to adapt to the changing environment, not intentionally perhaps, but successfully nevertheless. The obvious parallel to this biohistorical situation is that pale skin will be selected against in the coming generations. Because human lifespans are so much longer than those of moths, the reproductive turnover is considerably slower and therefore genetic drift is more difficult to track. However, given what is projected about the irreversible future of the ozone depletion, it is scientifically reasonable to suggest that very white people will be extinct in three hundred years. In the jargon of "survival of the fittest," they simply are unfit. Survival of the fittest is the phrase used to describe the way natural selection works -- genes that are adaptive will survive, genes that make an organism unlikely to flourish will not survive. The more genetic diversity an individual organism has, the more likely some of its genes will be adaptive and consequently passed on to the following generation. According to Darwinian theory, this is the aim of each individual organism -- to have its genes passed on to those who follow, and to thereby stake a claim in the history of the species. And of course, to participate in the doing of It. The problem white people face is that, should they hope to have their genes survive, they will need to start doing It, and having children, with people darker than themselves. A pure white baby will be like the cute white moth on the now-dark bark of a beech tree, highly susceptible to the natural forces that can enact her undoing. The greatest hope for the survival of a white person's genes will be to lie dormant or less overtly expressed inside a person with darker skin. The choice is either to maintain white skin, thereby dooming the offspring to boils, lesions, and a slow agonizing death by sunburn, or to sacrifice the alabaster complexion in favor of allowing some other typically white-linked genes to survive, like the ones for writing showtunes and playing ice hockey. Of course, this plan may require some clever negotiating on the part of the white people. They will need to propose some pretty worthwhile incentives to all peoples with non-white skin, just to get them to consider saving the white-linked genes. People of African, Asian, Latin American, Native American, Middle Eastern, Pacific Islander, even the swarthier Mediterranean heritages will have to be courted. Perhaps an elected position in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government can be offered. Maybe a treaty to end the gentrification of the inner cities. Possibly something as simple as true respect as equals under the law. Whatever the demands, white people will have to meet them for the sake of their genetic legacy. Any continued de facto policy of ethnocentrism in reproduction only spells doom for the white population. Only distributing their genes among those peoples who stand a chance in the future environment will preserve any semblance of this once-proud, soon-to-be-extinct heritage. Darin Smith is Records Supervisor at the University's Undergraduate Financial Aid Office and a 1993 graduate of the College. The Balding Of... will appear alternate Wednesdays.