Porthole

"The comment about skin tone is interesting.

My father was 'pink' as is my sister. Noon day summer sun? Can you say burnt strawberry?

My mother on the other hand could tan sitting in front of a window in March. She knew she had English-Irish-French-German roots. What she didn't know was that the Franco-German just wasn't. It most likely was Iberian-Greco-Roman-Slavic. At least that's what the DNA tests said! So much for family secrets...

Now when I see a picture of her, age 28 with curly black hair and olive skin, I see that. My father on the other hand was definitely English-Scandinavian-Finnic but his German blood was most likely Slavic. Again... what people don't know or forget. He looked like a Swede. [My sister] and I look Swedish as well. People in Sweden assumed I was Swedish. People in Norway when I tried to speak Norwegian thought I was Swedish. I don't speak Swedish.

My mother had yellow undertones. She looked sallow in yellow and worse in green. She looked great in ice blue or pink. She had enough color that she could wear white without looking like a ghost or black without looking like a corpse. Was she olive skinned? Pale olive maybe. My memories of her when she was younger cannot be relied on. She's now 98, so whatever she was then doesn't really matter.

Neither she nor her mother (lived to be 93) became crinkled though like Arizonans or many people here in Montana.

As for the meat of your post... we are all brought up within family or community in a time and place (or families, times and places) and that skews our point-of-view. Just because I believe in the Oneness of Mankind doesn't mean I don't have blind-spots or that I'm totally detached from my childhood or my past."