LONDON The human race, according to a Chinese legend, was created by a divine potter who left his clay figure of a man too long in the kiln. When it came out burned and black, he threw it away as far as he could - and it landed in Africa. The second one he pulled out too soon: It was too white. So he threw that one away, more gently, and it landed in Europe. Now he knew the correct timing. The third man was a gorgeous yellow, and from him the East Asian races descended.
Such fanciful tales are found in many cultures. They assert the primitive, if understandable, proposition that one's own skin color is best. Until recently, many white Westerners have presumed that they are more guilty of such racial prejudices than are the other races of Asia and Africa.
Research is only now showing what Westerners living in the Third World had guessed: that the formation of racial perceptions, stereotypes and prejudices is common to all civilizations.
An important breakthrough was the publication this spring of a book about Chinese race perceptions by a Dutch anthropologist, Frank Dikotter. In "The Discourse of Race in Modern China," he shatters conventional notions about China's being relatively free of racism.