Can't see in the dark

When I was a kid, Saturday morning was for going to the cinema, where they would put on programmes specifically for children - "Children's Matinees" they were called, which by the way is the correct use of the word - if you think about it, you can't really have a matinee in the afternoon.  But I digress - there would be cartoons, and almost certainly a cowboy film - probably an episode of a serial.  And you could always tell who were the good guys, and who were the bad guys - the good guys wore white hats, and the bad guys, black hats.  So just how far back does this idea that white equals good, and black equals bad go?  This came to mind the other day, with the choosing of a new Pope - black smoke bad, white smoke good.  I would certainly suggest that it well predates any suggestion of racism, and I suppose the best guess is that it goes back to primitive times when the blackness of night spelled danger (or perhaps one should say - extra danger), so black was bad, and white, being the opposite of black was therefore good.