A very old cliche that some people still manage to work into arguments about racism, even in this age of The Crow, The Matrix, Batman, and the cinematic X-Men.

The problem is that "black" and "white" does not refer to skin color, but to the basic conditions of "lightness" and "darkness." As a very visually-attuned species that evolved on a spinning world with alternating periods of night and day, humans have a deep-rooted fear of darkness. Predators hunt at night. Proto-humans would have been preyed upon, dragged off screaming into the darkness by big cats or hyenas. Of course we equate darkness, night, and obscurity with evil--to be blind in the dark wild was death.

Conversely, we have always loved the light. The sun warmed us from the start, and made the plants we consumed grow. From a good vantage we could see danger approaching from miles away. And when we learned to create and sustain fire, we brought that good light into the night. Of _course_ religions associate their gods with light--light _is_ our protector, our hero. Hero in shining armor.

Or course, now we have much more fun blurring that line. Heroes in black are our protectors in the night. It's all very romantic--but none of this has anything to do with race.