We've been talking a lot about race in AS lately, and it got me thinking about how colors in general affect society. Every single color has its own connotation. White is associated with purity and cleanliness. It contains every color in the spectrum. Red can be anger or excitement or even love and romance. Green is the color of growth, nature, and money. It can symbolize harmony, or even jealously and greed. Blue symbolizes calmness and wisdom. Ask people and many would say that its their favorite color. While black is often noted as a sign of power or authority, and sometimes even evil. In the Western part of the world, it is the sign of mourning.
Colors are everywhere, and many companies use specific colors in their marketing because they believe it will attract certain types of customers. Color plays a key role in the success of advertising. Look at McDonald's. The two colors of their logo are a bright red and warm yellow. The bright red has the ability to appear closer than it truly is and grabs the customer's attention first. Then the warm yellow activates considerations of food, warmth, shelter, and physical comfort, encouraging the customer to come in and eat.
So if colors have the power to make you stop in and have a burger, can they influence how you view others? If the color white symbolizes purity and goodness, does that mean that all white people are good and pure? And that those who are not white, simply are not? Colors might affect your mood, but they should not affect your thinking. And I don't believe the connotations of colors should be completely at fault for the inequalities and tension between races. I think it's how society chooses to react to those colors that affects how we interact with each other.
Jackie,
ReplyDeleteIt is really interesting that white and black are the two colors that have the most opposite connotations and they are both assigned to races in our country. I think its interesting how white peoples' skin is not really white and black peoples' skin is not really black, they are just colors that we chose to use when describing a group of people. I think you are right that the blame is not on the connotation of the color its self. The blame is really on the people who chose to refer to black people as "black" and white people as "white", fully knowing the connotations of the colors.
Jackie, VERY intriguing post! Good job. It is interesting to me that you mentioned the color black to have both the connotation of powerful, and evil. In my eyes, connotation and opinion go hand in hand. I think your coloristic definitions were accurate, yet some would beg to differ. Thus, different colors will have different impressions on people. Maybe white symbolizes purity and goodness in your eyes, yet in mine it symbolizes blandness and boredom. We can not rely on a connotation of a color to define a race. Not only are the differences numerous, but also the variety within race is simply not a "black or white" issue.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Emma, in the fact that it's not the connotations of colors, but the people who "assign" the colors. Not only do our skin colors not match with the colors given, but there's no way one can label a mass of people "white". Even though I'm considered white, I have a totally different skin color than the person sitting next to me. The problem is that people want to draw a permanent line seperating one race from another, not the colors given to the races.
ReplyDeleteJackie-
ReplyDeleteLike all of the above said, you bring up very interesting points! Sarah mentioned her associations with colors differ from yours. Similarly, so do mine. Blue has been proven to cause sadness, yellow: confidence, and white: anxiety. We all know that black has a looming connotation; you accurately mentioned that it is a sign of mourning. It makes you think about what other small actions we make that may have hidden (and subconscious) meanings. For example, calling someone childish. I think kids are great! Being childish could be a compliment. "You play like a girl"- need I explain? Thanks again for such an interesting read.