If they thought that it was possible [to beat out] blackness,
Don’t give em any ideas. That’s actually far more plausible than trying to beat someone out of being gay or trans: the part of the dermis that actually has the concentration of melanin to make skin appear dark is like less than paper-thin. I’ve worked on black burn patients, and when that portion of their skin gets burned away, the skin (still skin, not subcutaneous or muscle or anything) that’s left is as white as mine, and I’m a pasty mofo.
Edit-
Warning - not gory necessarily, but if you’re squeamish you might want to skip this one.
This video shows a dermatome taking a skin graft from a dark skinned patient. A dermatome is basically a razor blade that vibrates and takes a specific thickness of skin… it’s basically the bastard child of a cheese slicer and those vibro-blades that some people obliterate their turkey with around November.
Anyway, this appears to be a partial-thickness graft, which means most of what they’re taking is the epidermis, and leaving the dermis mostly intact. Notice the contrast when the epidermis comes up.
…so many stupid problems through the entirety of our history over the biological equivalent to tissue paper. -_-