I've generally understood that fairer skin is a general, cross-cultural (although certainly not universal) mark of beauty. I seem to remember hearing things along these lines from ancient Greece and India and China and so on. Today someone said that the lighter-skin-is-more-desirable thing was solely a result of European colonialism. Is that true? What's the deal, historically speaking?

EDIT - Let me make clear I'm not using this to justify any sort of racism. I don't personally think that one skin tone is more beautiful than another. It's just the argument we were having.