I generally try not to equate any bloodlines too closely with any modern culture (though sometimes there are handy parallels etc.) or race - since I think given the gap of time between now and Eve, particularly in the case of 'race' such things are of severely limited use.
20k years is literally enough time that the dark skin could be a result of the area on Pator where the Brutors came from, more than where their ancestors were from on earth.
Yep. Some level of comparisons are needed for a point of reference, but I think CCP hurt themselves with things like mentioning the Gallente were originally French colonists, for example.
The cluster's been separated from Earth for longer than RL human civilization as we know it has existed. A dark age on inhospitable worlds, the rise of empires, and their disappearance before the current civilizations appeared give lots of time and room for evolution to play with cultural drift and, to a smaller amount, genetic adaptation - and that's not even mentioning actively playing with genetics like the Jove.