COLOR THEORY

The Yellow Cardinal

The yellow cardinal was discovered in South America by ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot. Until I saw these images surface I had never heard of a yellow cardinal and had rarely seen a traditional red bird.  However, it seems there is another explanation for the bird people have recently spotted.  The yellow variant of the species has been observed in the United States which should be far from its native savannas and grasslands of Paraguay, Argentina, Uraguay, and Paraguay. The term yellow cardinal may also describe a northern cardinal that has a condition called xanthochroism. These birds lack the usual enzyme which converts yellow pigments in food into the traditional red pigments in its feathers.

Yellow Number 5

Yellow number 5 or Tartrazine contains the carcinogen benzidine. Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban artificial food dyes because of their connection to behavioral problems in children a new CSPI report, Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risks, further concludes that the nine artificial dyes approved in the United States likely are carcinogenic, cause hypersensitivity reactions and behavioral problems, or are inadequately tested.  The issue that concerns me is that any amount of carcinogen is unacceptable, so why are these products even available.  The fact is that most people don't know the artificial dyes we consume are derived from petroleum.  Petrol derived substances are everywhere including breakfast cereals, candy, snacks, beverages, vitamins, and even fresh produce at times has been treated with these dyes to enhance appearance.  In the past benzidine was used to produce dyes for cloth, paper, leather, and manufacture plastic.  Since 1955, three dyes Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6 accounting for 90% of the dyes used in foods. These dyes contain benzidine, a carcinogen permitted in low, presumably safe levels in dyes.  In 1985 the FDA stated that the ingestion of free benzidine increases the cancer risk to about 1 in 1 million people. However, routine FDA tests often overlook the dangers of benzidine. The chemical comes in many forms and has been linked to bladder cancer during occupational exposure. so we could be exposed to vastly greater amounts of carcinogens than FDA’s is admitting to especially considering we are ingesting multiple dyes and other added chemicals in foods.

The Yellow Peril

The Yellow Peril is a racist metaphor used to describe Asians as an existential danger to the Western world. The racist ideology of the Yellow Peril characterizes Asians as childlike apes, primitive subhumans, or psychotic magical deviants. The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy (1920), by Lothrop Stoddard, was nothing more than a declaration of fear and cowardice. The book describes the so-called collapse of white supremacy and colonialism due to population growth among other ethnic groups, rising nationalism among colonies, and industrialization in Asia. Stoddard advocated restricting anyone who was not white from migrating to European nations and also limiting Asian migration to Latin America and Africa.  People are crazy!