Appeal to Melanin: If a brown person says it it must be true – but only if it supports my argument. Example: “My Mexican wife hates illegal aliens.”

Note: In this post “brown” means anyone not white.

Nezua the Unapologetic Mexican says it:

tweaks the Appeal to Authority until it glows bronze. This is an attack wherein a non-brown person attempts to negate the argument / complaint / insight of a brown person by claiming the non-brown opinion is a) Backed up by a black or brown or chinese or filipino or puerto rican etc friend who feels the same way, or that b) Their word is free of any racist taint simply because they have, for example, paid for the lunch of a mexican ten times, or maybe put a black person through school, or are even sleeping with or married to a brown person. But as any person familiar with these dynamics knows, a White Supremacist viewpoint can exist in any of us. Even those of us with friends as dark as night. Melanin may make skin prettier and stronger, but it is not a guard against the programming that American culture carries.

Examples: When white people quote:

Martin Luther King on judging people by the content of their character not the colour of their skin, excusing their own colour-blind racism, never quoting him on anything else.

Jesse Jackson on being afraid of black men on a dark street, excusing their own fears, never quoting him on anything else.

on being afraid of black men on a dark street, excusing their own fears, never quoting him on anything else. Chris Rock on the two kinds of black people.

on the two kinds of black people. Morgan Freeman on stopping racism by not talking about it.

Rented Negroes make a living on the Appeal to Melanin: Their body provides the melanin, their mouth provides the necessary words:

Thomas Sowell

Clarence Thomas

Michelle Malkin

Juan Williams

John McWhorter

Marco Rubio

Dinesh D’Souza

Booker T. Washington

Barack Obama

Brown best friends and lovers are pressed into service. “Tell them, damali, how I’m not racist.” As if there is no such thing as microaggression, internalized racism or just having friends with known faults.

BET and hip hop videos are used too. As if they were fact-checked PBS documentaries on Black America. As if black artists have no thought of appealing to white audiences to get rich.

Note that brown people:

lighten their skin,

use slurs directed at their own race,

hate their eyes, lips, hair, nose,

produce films, videos and books with cringeworthy stereotypes,

kiss up to white people,

have taken part in blackface, minstrel shows,

etc.

Because melanin protects against the sun, not against internalized racism.

Notice that none of this works the other way round: quoting a white friend, white actor, white comedian or white leader is just quoting a personal opinion. It proves little about whites in general. Because whites are individuals. But the truth is, so are brown people.

Caution: Those who Appeal to Melanin do not care about the truth.

See also: