This is Origin Stories, the Leaky Foundation podcast.

I'm Meredith Johnson.

Throughout most of human evolution, our naked, mostly hairless, sweaty skin has been our primary interface with the physical and social

environment. Our skin is our largest organ. The average adult has 21 square feet of it,

containing more than 11 miles of blood vessels. Our skin protects us, and through it we experience an incredible range of sensations.

It's an interactive barrier between us and the elements, and it sends signals to our fellow

humans. It flushes with excitement or embarrassment, bruises when we're hurt, changes as we age.

Our skin provides a canvas for us to

decorate with tattoos and makeup. So it's not surprising that our skin is such an important element

of our experience of being human. And one thing that everybody can see is that our skin comes in a

gorgeous spectrum of colors. How and why did this variation

evolve, and how did it come to pass that this natural human variation would be used to put people

into harmful and false categories known as race? On today's episode of origin stories, Leaky Foundation

grantee Dr. Nina Jablonski explains the

evolution of human skin color, the history of color-based race concepts, and how these concepts

have been used in the service of colonialism, oppression, and discrimination.

Nina Jablonsky is the Evan Pugh University professor of anthropology at Penn State

University. She's a member of the Leakey Foundation Scientific Executive Committee and the

National Academy of Arts and Sciences, among many other honors. She's been researching the evolution

of human skin and skin color for around 25 years.

She's the author of several books, including Skin, A Natural History,

and her recent children's book, The Skin We're In.

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