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Color: Black

"In the Western world, black is most often used with a negative connotation. The reasons for this are various, but the most widely accepted explanations are that night is experienced by humans as negative and dangerous. A secondary reason is that stains are most visible as dark additions to pale materials. In traditional class-based Western cultures 'pale' skin indicated genteel domestic or intellectual indoor-work as opposed to rough outdoor labor in the fields. Aspects of this black/white opposition are not unique to the West, as, for example in the Indian varna system. African, Afro-Caribbean and African-American writers such as Frantz Fanon, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and Ralph Ellison in particular identify a number of negative symbolisms surrounding the word 'black', arguing that the good vs. bad dualism associated with white and black provide prejudiced connotations to colour metaphors for race."

--Wikipedia, "Black"

 

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