Well a fight IS what you should get. This is total utter BS. Even if you subscribe to genetic inheritances ascribed to “WHITE” people you cannot lump them all into the melanin/sunlight argument. And it would take far longer than 5500 years to evolve all the “white” traits including skin pigment.
Some Facts:
Vitamin D is made naturally in the first layers of skin (epidermis). The melanin in skin functions as a filter for light and therefore the amount of melanin in the skin is related to the ability of Ultraviolet B light to penetrate the epidermis and reach the readily available 7-dehydrocholesterol, which is manufactured in normally ample quantities by our bodies. The 7-dehydrocholesterol is converted into Vitamin D3 by this ultraviolet light. Melanin content does NOT alter the amount of Vitamin D that can be produced. Individuals with higher skin melanin content will simply require more time in sunlight to produce the same amount of vitamin D as individuals with lower melanin content. The amount of time an individual requires to produce a given amount of Vitamin D may depend upon the person’s distance from the equator and on the season of the year, because of variations in the amount of absorbably ultraviolet B light. With this “white” argument you could just as easily say tropical Africans developed more pigment because they needed to defend against making too much Vit D because of intense all the time sunlight at the Equator.
In view of what we know about natural Vit D production, one might ask why does MILK today continue to have Vit. D added to it— when we don’t need it. Answer: it was originally done to “help” bone development in the low sunlight peoples of the “northern” areas of the US- that and miners, maybe. Want to get a real overdose headache? Drink a half gallon of Vit D milk and spend all day in the sun at the beach- you’ll get a banger!
This sunlight/D Vitamin theory of race falls apart when you consider outliers, like Asians sub tropical and tropical, Indonesians, Indians etc. It simply doesn’t follow. But it does eat up a lot of research money and annoys people.
Try making the argument of preferential genetic selection for sickle celled red blood cells in tropical Africans— which provided survival in ancient times against malaria which could not destroy the sickled red blood cells. So successful in helping survival the genes were passed on, and now sickle cell anemia is a disease. You can really irritate knee jerk “racist” yellers with that one- even though it is quite proveable.
Why should I get a fight?
Really? I thought the CIA created sickle-cell anemia, right before it created AIDS.