Few have the talent to put complex things into simple words so that everyone could understand. Take Bill Nye the Science Guy as an example: he takes hardcore science with all of its facts, numbers, and figures and translates them into concepts and analogies that are not only accurate, but also much easier to grasp.
Last time, Bored Panda covered a TikTok video of him explaining the importance of wearing face masks and the differences between the various types of face coverings. He did so in response to the increasing number of people who refuse to wear face masks despite there being a global pandemic.
This time, Bill Nye came out with a video covering another important topic that needs to be discussed—the problem of racism. Throughout the video, he gives a scientific explanation as to why people have different colored skin and why being mean to each other about it doesn’t make any bit of sense.
Leave it to Bill Nye to use the power of science to explain just how much racism makes no sense
Image credits: billnye
Check out the 1-minute video of his explanation below to get the full rundown
Bill starts off by explaining how Earth is separated into zones of different UV light intensity
He proceeds to show how this affects our skin with an analogous single-colored map
Our skin color is largely dependent on how much sunlight it gets
So, it basically boils down to the difference in how much sun we got being the reason why people are treated differently, which makes absolutely no sense
Image credits: billnye
Bill starts off by explaining on his handy-dandy map how the Earth has zones with differing amounts of UV light landing in them, each represented in a color showing what’s hot and what’s not. This coincides with another map of his—a map of the same continents, except in just one color—the typical color of people’s skin in specific territories around the globe.
Now, as Bill explained, these are related because our skin makes vitamin D from the ultra-violet rays it gets from the sun. If there isn’t enough of it, the skin becomes brighter, and if there’s an abundance, it breaks down into folates and hence becomes darker. So, in other words, our skin changes color depending on how much sunlight we get.
Since the cradle of humankind is Africa, there’s significantly more sunlight throughout the year there, and so people’s skin is dark. As people moved away from this epicenter, over time their skin became brighter.
“And that’s it, everybody! That’s why we have different colored skin, but we’re all one species. But we’re not treating each other fairly—not everybody’s getting an even shake [of vitamin D]. So, it’s time to change things,” exclaimed Bill Nye in the conclusion of his video.
Bill concluded the video with a call for change
Image credits: billnye
Bill’s video points out how ridiculous racism actually is—someone at some point in history effectively decided that the amount of UV rays that a person gets dictates how they should be treated. Now, sure, they weren’t thinking in those terms, but that is what it essentially boils down to.
The video blew up on the internet. The video managed to get nearly 19 million views on TikTok with over 4.4 million likes and 74,000 comments.
One person shared the video with the caption “bill nye just ended racism” with many praising Bill for stepping up and pointing it out. There were, however, some who questioned how to explain the difference in hair texture and physical features and claimed that this is an oversimplification of the matter as there’s more than just sunlight involved.
Regardless, it doesn’t change Bill’s message that treating someone unfairly just because of the color of their skin is wrong and it doesn’t make sense as we’re all a part of humankind.
What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comment section below.