Pigmentocracy

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A pigmentocracy is a group-based social hierarchy based largely on human skin color, spanning across ethnic, religious, gender, and socio-economic groups.

Especially societies that were colonized by European powers have been characterized by some degree of pigmentocracy. For instance, the British Empire imported labourers (from British India) to the British colonies in Africa and the Caribean. These Indian labourers were free, had more rights and had better societal functions and status than the darker-skinned Africans (who were mostly slaves), but less than the lighter-skinned European colonizers.

[edit] Further reading

• "Nomenclature in a pigmentocracy--a scientist's dilemma.," Bourne DE.
• "From bi-racial to tri-racial: Towards a new system of racial stratification in the USA"; Eduardo Bonilla-Silva; Ethnic and Racial Studies, November 2004, vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 931-950(20)

[edit] See also

• Melanin
• Xenophobia
• Evil albino
• White Man's Burden
• White privilege
• Racism
• Theories about the origins of Pigmentocracy
• White supremacy
• Black supremacy
• Culture of Mexico