> If they'd stuck with simple classifications like 'black' 'white' 'man' 'woman'

Interestingly, I was just thinking about the "black and white" issue today. A while ago I watched an interview on Youtube with a young woman who was born in Japan. Her parents were American and growing up she new she was different, but basically it boiled down to "the English teacher's daughter", or "part of the foreigner family". But she didn't speak English very well and her parents didn't speak Japanese very well, so she identified very much more strongly with her friends in the area than her family.

When she was 12, her family moved back to the US. When she went to school the new children were encouraged to say what nationality they were. One person said they were Canadian. One said they were Mexican. When it came to her turn she said, "I'm Japanese". One child in her class corrected her: "No you aren't. You are black." Of course, this was a source of considerable confusion for her.

One of the things that's kind of weird about Japan is that some Japanese people have very dark complexions -- darker than what would be called "black" in the US. Some have very light complexions. In my opinion, considerably more "white" than I am (and most people would call me "white" I think). In fact, after I moved to Japan, I realised that I wasn't white at all. I'm pink. I mean, I'm super pink. I seriously never noticed it until I spent 5 or so years living in a place where nobody else was pink. I literally avoid wearing red now because it makes me look like a tomato.

When I was about 3, my best friend was black. My grandmother asked me, "Do you notice anything different about your fried? Their hair or something?" I didn't understand the question. All of my friends had different hair. Then she said, "Can you tell that he is black and you are white? Or do you not think about it that way?" My grandmother was just curious, but this question completely blew me away. From that time, I realised that people didn't each have their own skin color. Instead, they were categorised and my friend was different than me. I think my friend noticed that I looked at him differently (though not necessarily badly). We stopped being friends for a long time. Somewhat strangely, I just recently realised that he was one of my best friends in high school... I never actually made the connection that my friend at 3 and my friend in high school were the same person until recently. I wonder if he ever realised.

But anyway, there really isn't a classification like "black" and "white". When I have a tan, my skin is darker than my wife's. But she is very tan and so her skin looks brown. When I compare my skin to hers, my skin is still red, even though it is dark. But if I were to compare my skin to an indiginous American, I think their skin will be more red than mine when tan -- and less pink when not. And my wife, when compared to someone indiginous from Africa has more a more of a curry brown than a deep chocolate brown.

As I was saying, Japanese people don't call dark Japanese people "black". They don't treat them as a different race. Neither are very pale Japanese people "white", even though they may say "your skin is very white". They aren't different. What I found interesting about the young girl who discovered that she was black was that she wasn't "black" in Japan. Or, at least, not "black" in the way we use the term in America. Japan does not have that cultural history (it's got enough of it's own baggage, thank you very much ;-) ).

If a computer were to compare skin tones objectively, it would simply tell you the color. If it decided to classify in terms of "black" and "white", it would be classifying based on cultural labels, not color.