I am not afraid to side with darkness or the dark side.

Not because I am reckless, but because I have taken the time to know myself. I have learned to distinguish between beauty and evil, between fear and wisdom, and between the stories we are told and the truths we must discover for ourselves. I have learned to choose my parts—to base them on my own truths, and to put things into perspective when the time, place, and mood are ripe and right.

And yet, I have also witnessed how darkness has been weaponized. I have seen people shun fellow people for the colour or tone of their skin. Dark skin, black skin, brown skin, white—so often the darker, receiving the most dehumanizing discrimination, the cruelest injustice, the endless litany of ills. Those who shun, shame, and destroy, use the idea of darkness as a strategic tool to divide, exploit, defame, and break cultures, traditions, unities, and even entire bloodlines. They have been meticulous and persistent, to the extent of demonizing nearly all things black—without ever pausing to ask if the whole picture is truly that simple.

It is not.

 

The Soil Beneath Our Feet

Consider the earth from which all our nutrition comes. The best soil for growing food is not pale, grey, or yellow. It is dark brown or black—chernozem, mollisols. That rich, deep colour that comes from high organic matter called humus and responsible for decomposing plant and animal material that has returned to the earth to give life again.

This dark soil provides nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur—nutrients without which no living thing can thrive. It improves water retention and drainage. It encourages beneficial microbial life. It creates a crumbly structure that roots can easily penetrate. In contrast, pale soils indicate low organic matter, excessive leaching, or poor drainage—all of which reduce fertility. Even the very red soil of the tropics, though rich in iron, often lacks organic matter due to intense weathering.

So ask yourself: What are humans, or any living thing, without nutrition? We owe our very existence to the fertility of darkness.

And yet, we have been taught to fear the very colour that feeds us.

 

The Serene and Beautiful Truth

The truth about darkness begins here: darkness is not the absence of life, but its factory, its cradle, and its reset button.

Think of the night sky. It is not empty blackness; it is the only context that makes stars visible. Without darkness, we would have no concept of infinity, no awe for constellations, no silent companionship with the Milky Way. Darkness gives the universe its jewelry box.

Think of your own body. Every cell understands a truth your mind often forgets: melatonin—the sleep hormone—requires darkness to be produced. True, deep darkness is the physiological signal for repair, dreaming, and healing. It is the gentle hand that closes the day’s eyelids.

Think of a forest at 2 AM, a snow-covered field under a new moon, the bottom of a deep lake. That darkness is not frightening. It is muffled, soft, and total. It absorbs frantic energy. It offers the ultimate introvert’s peace—a world stripped of visual clutter, forcing you to listen, feel, and simply be.

And think of this: in darkness, skin colour, wealth, and status are invisible. The CEO and the janitor are just two shapes in the gloom. That anonymity can be a profound equalizer—a raw, unpretentious connection that daylight, with its harsh judgments, rarely allows.

 

Darkness A Tool, Not A Threat

Beyond beauty, darkness is functional and necessary.

Seeds germinate in dark soil. Roots grow stronger reaching through blackness. A butterfly must struggle inside the dark cocoon to push fluid into its wings. Darkness is where weakness is forged into resilience. Without it, nothing matures.

When sight is removed, your hearing sharpens, your intuition awakens, your sense of touch becomes exquisite. Meditation in darkness forces you inward, amplifying the subtle signals of your own mind and body that daylight drowns out.

The ocean’s deep trenches, cave ecosystems, the interior of a rainforest canopy—these dark places are biodiversity hotspots. Light bleaches coral, dries soil, and degrades certain molecules. Darkness is the original preserver.

 

The Unfair Stories We Tell

To see clearly, we must name the lies we project onto darkness.

First, that darkness is evil. This is our oldest, most primal lie. We fear the unseen predator, so we paint darkness as malicious. But a wolf does not hunt because the night is evil; a child is not afraid of the dark itself, but of what could be in it. Darkness is neutral. It is a mirror reflecting our own fears back at us.

Second, that darkness is empty. We call it void, nothingness. This is spectacularly wrong. Darkness is full of infrared light, radio waves, neutrinos, gravitons, and 95% of the universe’s mass—dark matter and dark energy. Our eyes are simply too weak to see it. The emptiness is a limitation of our biology, not reality.

Third, that we must conquer it. Our culture demands we light every corner, sleep with nightlights, avoid silence. This creates a pathological fear of the natural cycle. The truth? You do not conquer darkness. You learn to sit in it, breathe, and realize you were never in danger.

 

The True Opposite Is Not Light

Here is the crucial pivot. The opposite of darkness is not light. The true opposite of the beautiful, useful darkness is harsh, unrelenting glare—a fluorescent light in a windowless interrogation room at 3 AM. That does not illuminate truth; it causes migraines, anxiety, and insomnia. It is tyranny.

The opposite is the absence of rest: constant light in cities that prevents migration, confuses trees, and destroys human circadian rhythms. Not a candle, but the sleep-deprived madness of Times Square.

The opposite is willful ignorance. The “darkness” of not knowing is a fertile, humble place—the darkroom of learning. The opposite is dogmatic certainty: a harsh, blinding light that refuses to see nuance or shadow.

 

A Word to Those with Dark Skin

So let me speak directly to you who have been made to feel that your darkness is a burden.

Your skin is not a curse. It is the colour of the richest soil—the soil that feeds nations. It is the colour of the night sky that reveals the stars. It is the colour of rest, of resilience, of the deep earth from which all life springs. When the sun touches you, you do not burn the same way; you deepen, like good humus. That is not a flaw. That is fertility made visible.

Do not let a world that has learned to fear darkness teach you to shun yourself. You are not the villain in someone else’s story. You are the ground where things grow.

 

A Word to Those with Lighter Skin

And to you who have never had to carry that weight: this is not about shunning your own skin either.

Your truth is not found in denying darkness, but in befriending it. You have shadows in your own life—your own need for rest, your own unknown depths, your own moments of not knowing. To reject darkness is to reject half of your own existence. You do not need to become darker. You only need to stop treating darkness as the enemy. Because when you do, you will stop treating people who wear it naturally as enemies, too.

The goal is not to trade one supremacy for another. The goal is to see that darkness and light are partners, not opponents.

 

Embracing the Cycle

The real, complete truth about darkness is that it is the yin to light’s yang. The cathedral’s-stained glass is invisible without the dark interior behind it. A single candle is just fire until the dark room transforms it into a miracle.

Yes, darkness can hide a threat. Acknowledging that is wisdom, not cowardice. Fear is a tool for survival, not a moral judgment on the dark. But usefulness, beauty, and rest are also there waiting for us to stop running.

So, stop trying to light up every shadow in your life. The goal is not to eliminate darkness—that would be to eliminate depth, rest, and mystery. The goal is to learn to read in the dark. To find the book, open it, and let your eyes adjust until the words appear. Darkness is not the end of seeing. It is just a different way of seeing.

And when you embrace it—when you discover it is not your bane or threat—you may find yourself becoming the light that darkness has been waiting for. Not to conquer it, but to dance with it.

I say all of this not only because I have dark skin that grows darker in summer and lightens slightly in winter. I say it because the truth is the truth. And the truth has no tone—only a quiet, persistent invitation to see more clearly.

Let us decide darkness together. Not as something to fear or worship, but as something to understand. And in that understanding, perhaps we can finally stop using it to divide, and start using it to grow.