Why is black the colour of burden?

Is black the colour of a burden? I once wore a beautiful black shirt, ready to go to church.

Then someone said it was a bad idea to attend church in that shirt because it was black! I shot back, asking: “Okay, what about people who wear black suits to church?”

On January 29, 2025, a US military helicopter tragically collided with a passenger jet that was in its final approach to the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in the US. Upon collision, the jet and the helicopter exploded in a fireball in the night sky before crashing into the Potomac River, killing all 67 people aboard.

Shortly afterwards, President Trump suggested, even though investigations just got underway to unravel the cause of the crash, that diversity, equity and inclusion (D.E.I.) policies implemented during the Obama and Biden years were to blame for the crash. 

White, synonymous with competence?

As reported by the New York Times, when Mr Trump was asked by reporters how he could trace the crash to D.E.I. policies, he responded, “I have common sense, OK…We want brilliant people to do this. For some jobs―and not only this but air traffic controllers―they have to be at the highest level of genius”.

Mr Trump further tried to rationalise his answer, saying, among others, that in the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) during the Obama years, “They came out with a directive, too white.”

Somehow, Mr Trump may have concluded ahead of investigations that the crash happened because the FAA’s competence may have been tainted by the alleged hiring of “non-whites” and others he may have deemed incapable. 

Controversial scientific idea

Mr Trump’s rhetoric has inescapably led to a renewed focus on the historically divisive question of racial (in)equality. The notion of black people, for example, being inferior is not just an ordinary, street idea. It has been a ‘scientific’ idea.

The long-running scientific theories that emerged and coalesced in the 19th century, along the “Black is Inferior―White is Superior” axes, were championed by scientists such as Paul Broca and Samuel George Morton, considering black people to be an “intermediate form” between apes and whites.

Although largely discredited by other scientists, these ideas—generally known as “Scientific Racism”—are sometimes go-to references for “white supremacists”.

But these notions are not only historical; they linger around. Nobel Prize-winning biologist James D. Watson, widely regarded as one of the 20th century’s most towering scientific figures, having helped to uncover the structure of the DNA, the genetic blueprint of organisms, holds views of “white superiority” too.

Watson once remarked that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa”, saying, “All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says, not really… people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.”

In his 2007 memoir “Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science”, Watson controversially wrote, “There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically…

Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.”  

Watson has faced severe criticism for these views, and whether humans belong to racial categories is itself a controversial idea, with some scientists arguing that race is not a biological construct, but a social one.  

So why have these controversial subjects refused to go away?

Consciously or unconsciously, black is regarded as a colour of burden too. In Ghana and in other African cultures and beyond, when people celebrate victory (e.g. when a woman successfully emerges from childbirth) they must wear “white”. And when they go to funerals to bury their loved ones, they mostly must don “black”.

That is, white signifies victory, and black, defeat.

Also, when a company violates a regulation and is suspended from operation as punishment, the company is considered “blacklisted”.

Thus, that company goes to a so-called “black list”, as opposed to a “white list”, where regulation-compliant companies belong.

Similarly, a person who brought disgrace to their family might be labelled the “black sheep” of the family. And then, if a disaster strikes, killing many, the newspaper headlines may scream “Black Monday!” Or “Black Thursday!”, for example. 

Remaining questions

The observations that black is inherently linked to bad (or white to good) are so obvious that they may not originate with me.

Here, I have only tried to shed light on a long-described “phenomenon” to ask some rhetorical questions.

What is the etymology of “blacklist”, ‘black sheep”, and “black eye”, for example? 

And why is “black” inherently associated with “evil”? Some ask if it may be possible to discard these figurative expressions altogether, ridding our writings of them. What if, instead of “black list”, we say “restriction list”? Would that change anything?

Still, others argue that the reason “black” automatically evokes “poverty”, “bad luck” or “ingenuity” is because despite black people occupying some of the most resource-rich regions of the world, these regions are also, ironically, the poorest places on earth, leaving us with the question: “What is wrong with black?”

The writer is a Scientist/Essayist, 
University of Cape Coast. 
E-mail: iagorsor@ucc.edu.gh