Yes, black vs white is a very old concept. Why do you think europeans started referring to people from africa as black and themselves as white, when they are really more like pink and brown?
Ever notice that purple foods tend to be called either red or blue (or sometimes black if they're dark purple)? Like red cabbage, red onions, red grapes, blue potatoes[1]. Or for that matter how white grapes are green and black walnuts are brown? How black eyes are usually purple?
English just seems to have a strong preference towards approximating everything with the most basic colors.
Europeans also called native Americans red and Asians yellow, and it probably wasn't because they associated those colors with evil.
All people are shades of brown. White people can be pinkish, but are usually light brown or reddish light brown. When you look at this white man's [2] skin color next to the light brown wood he's working with, he's clearly a darker brown than the wood. But I imagine Europeans didn't want to label races as light brown, medium brown and dark brown.
