Color terminology for race

In some societies and among some anthropologists, color terminology was used to label races, sometimes in addition to a non-color term for the same race. Identifying races in terms of their human skin color has been common since at least the Physiognomica falsely attributed to Aristotle.

Other scientists were more cautious about such categorization, and Charles Darwin argued that the number of categories, or in this case the number of different colors, is completely arbitrary and subjective. For example, some claimed three distinct colors, some four, and others have claimed even more. In contrast, Darwin argued that there are gradations, or degrees between the numbers of categories claimed, and not distinct categories, or colors.

One of the earlier uses of the concept of "black" as a metaphor for race was first used at the end of the 17th century when a French doctor named François Bernier (1625–1688), an early proponent of scientific racism, divided up humanity based on facial appearance and body type. He proposed four categories: Europeans, Far Easterners, Lapps, and Blacks. The first major scientific model was created in the 18th century when Carl Linnaeus recognized four main races: Europeanus which he labeled the white race, Asiaticus, which he labeled the yellow race, Americanus, which he labeled the red race, and Africanus, which he labeled the black race.

By adding the brown race, which he called "Malay" for Polynesians, Melanesians of Pacific Islands, and aborigines of Australia, Linnaeus' protégé, anthropology founder Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840) divided humanity into five broad classes based primarily on skull shape (craniometry) - each approximately corresponding to a range of skin colors. He termed these five groups :the Caucasian or white race; the Mongolian or yellow race; the Malayan or brown race; the Ethiopian or black race; and the American or red race. According to conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza, "Blumenbach's classification had a lasting influence in part because his categories neatly broke down into familiar tones and colors: white, black, yellow, red, and brown."

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