Reconstructing Black
The colour BLACK has had a bad rap in western culture and European colonialism promoted western culture to the detriment of black culture, ensuring that even people of African descent see BLACK and subsequently black people as being universally associated with negativity.
We now know that BLACK is not the colour of anyone’s skin but assuming we still accept the definitions of the races along colour lines, here are some facts that should aid our perceptions of BLACK.
Universally, BLACK is associated with power, Nubian, African, mystery, silence, strength, elegance, solidarity, authority and seriousness.
Cultural Perceptions of BLACK. In Japanese culture, kuro (black) is a symbol of seniority, nobility, age, and experience. Thus the black belt is a mark of achievement and seniority in many martial arts. In the Maasai tribes of Kenya and Tanzania, the colour black is associated with rain clouds, a symbol of life and prosperity. Native Americans associate black with the life-giving soil. The Hindu deity Krishna means “the black one”. The medieval Christian sect known as the Cathars viewed black as a colour of perfection. The Rastafari movement sees black as beautiful. In Japanese culture, Black is associated with honour, while in Western fashion, black is considered stylish, sexy, elegant and powerful and seen as a wardrobe staple on the basis that black is always fashionable.
Cultural Perceptions of WHITE. WHITE on the other hand is associated with European/Caucasian, emptiness, lack, snow, ice, frost, milk, virginity, weakness, bones, winter, leprosy, serfdom, youth, and naiveté.
Numbers 12:10 (Amplified Bible)
And when the cloud departed from over the Tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow.
Across most of Africa and parts of Asia, white is a colour of mourning and death. In these cultures, white is the colour worn during funerals. In Shotokan karate, a white belt is a rank-less belt that comes before all other belts.
