Why Not Pink and Brown?
February 20, 2026
We all know by now that white is the Pantone Color of the Year—and that White (meaning its need to prevail) is the color of our political chaos.
White has a weird history.
Staring at a blank cave wall, the first humans reached for limestone and outlined what they saw and felt in white. As clothes became customary, people tried to bleach the flax or wool white, though it never reached more than a light grayish beige. Medieval knights rode out with white and red heraldic symbols on their standards; even the first chess boards were white and red. White became a sacred color, a royal color, the color of the lambs and doves of Christian peace, the color of the magical unicorn woven into the Bayeux tapestries. To mark a day with a white stone was to pronounce it memorable, lucky, and happy. White was innocence: in ancient courts, a white stone signaled “not guilty.” White magic was benevolent.
Then Isaac Newton canceled the color.
The spectrum he discovered in 1666 gave science a new chromatic order, one which had no place for either white or black. They became noncolors, and then they established their own black-and-white world. It was a place of contrasts, a chiaroscuro of shadow and light, while the rest of material culture glowed like a rainbow.
White became the color of modernity, free of tacky brightness and lurid flourishes. First Le Corbusier, then Richard Meier, showed us how pure white buildings could gleam with promise. Entire rooms were white, impractical carpets were white, and God help a condo owner who put up red curtains.
Doctors, nurses, painters, plasterers, millers, bakers, chefs, confectioners, dairy workers, and butchers traditionally wear white. Also polo players, cricket teams, fencing masters. Tennis whites are no longer required, but they were once de rigeur because they did not show sweat stains as readily, thus kept the sport coolly aristocratic. Brides wear white; older women were once forbidden it, as it was the color of youth.
Where am I finding all these bright tidbits, like hankies fluttering in the breeze? In White: The History of a Color, the last in Michael Pastoureau’s brilliant series on the cultural symbolism of colors. In earlier volumes, he was able to explore a color’s positive and negative valences. Blue can be tranquil or sad; red can be love or agita…. But, he writes, “most of the ideas associated with white are virtues or good qualities: purity, virginity, innocence, wisdom, peace, goodness, cleanliness,” not to mention elegance and social power. Also hygiene.
I could point out a few negatives, though. White can be cold, sterile, joyless, empty, blank, ghostly, drained of blood. A fresh white sheet of paper held terror when fed into a typewriter; we now prefer our screens dark. White—the absence of color? all colors at once?—is never simple. Being given carte blanche is lovely, but un mariage blanc is unconsummated. To passare la notte in bianco is to pass the night in white, meaning that you cannot sleep. But eine weiße Weste is a clean slate and a clear conscience.
Pantone found out just how complicated white can be when it christened Cloud Dancer the 2026 Color of the Year. The choice was, according to Pantone, “a soft, lofty white meant to symbolize calm, quiet reflection, and a fresh start in a noisy world.” But rather than soothe our overstimulated sensorium, a white Color of the Year suggested eugenics to some, whitewashing of the past to others, the privileging of whiteness to many. (This is where we are.)
Rather than slam whiteness—which always seems to backfire, regardless of intent—why not be honest? Those of us who are Caucasian cannot claim white’s purity anyway. A few have skin of palest ivory, but most of us are, let us be plain, pink. A light, orangey sort of pink that, because bigotry is arrogant, has long been named “flesh” in the crayon boxes. Well, flesh comes in many shades—none white, and none black, either. Caucasians lied in order to grab dibs on the most prestigious, innocent, elegant color, then labeled those we most wanted to subordinate the opposite color. Would any of the venom drain away if, instead of setting up that stark contrast, we spoke of people as pink and dark brown, then lighter brown, then reddish brown or palest yellow?
Maybe not. At various times and places, gradations of Black skin were given dozens of names, yet the degree of darkness was still used as a measuring stick. But why are there not formal gradations of whiteness? The whitest skin used to signal a life of leisure, with all one’s time spent indoors or beneath a parasol, but it was simply described as “fair,” while darker skin took less pleasant adjectives. These days, until the inevitable squabbling over Heritage Americans breaks out, whiteness is a flat yes-or-no claim.
“In comparison to our ancestors’ perception,” Pastoureau writes (though not in this context), “our modern eye seems decidedly less sensitive to the multiple varieties of white.” We become discerning when we pore over swatches of white snow, gypsum, white sand, opulence, alabaster, or gardenia, but when we look at people, we see only White or nonwhite. Explode those categories, I say. Savor the variation. Soften the contrast.
Take all that supposed whiteness, stitch it into a flag, and wave it.
