First best tip. Never describe someone by referencing a commodity, especially one commonly related to real-world enslaved labor. For example, "coffee-colored skin." Don't. Second, instead use something like the Fitzpatrick scale. Pale, light, tan, light brown, brown, dark brown. Skip white and black entirely. Similarly with hair types (first link I saw on a search). Something like Writing the Other might be a big help. They offer classes and have a book.
I'll play the devil's advocate (no, not in that sense!) and ask you this: Why not use the real-world anchoring points in your descriptions? One thing I noticed when watching Critical Role was that Matt Mercer, despite his general attitude of keeping his DMing style rooted within Exandria and outside any pop culture references, actually references real-life things a lot in his descriptions. So why not say "This Dwarf looks like a short and burly version of The Rock, and his muscles seem to bulge in impossible simultaneity every time he strikes his hammer."? It gets the job of creating a mental image in your players' head done, and I'm sure the players will be less taken aback by the real life reference as you'd think. I know I was apprehensive about using real-life examples in my descriptions because it felt like it would take the players outside of the moment, but in my experience that isn't usually the case (one exception being using outrageous or meme-able real-life comparisons when making your description).
So what does a Samoan look like?
This is fair, in this case just basing it on real people is probably the least problematic way of doing it.
I have found when describing skin color to use makeup palettes to be useful. Sadly, after a quick search I can't find the palette that I have on my hard drive. It was from an international skin care / make-up corporation. I blended that with a modified Fitzpatrick scale. So now, most races / ethnicities have trends towards one or two of five skin types and each skin type has three primary tones. I paired these with hair and eye color trends. Those I mostly found through Wikipedia, which was a tedious search.
Ancestral Grouping | Ancestry | Skin Tone | Example | | Eye Color | Hair Color | |
Group I | Enclaver Morloc | Cyanotic Alabaster Fair | | | Blue Gray Red Violet | White Lt. Blonde | |
Group II | Bahamric Eloi Gavinlander | Rose Fair Ivory | | | Blue Hazel Gray Green Lt. Brown | Blonde Lt. Brown Dk. Brown Auburn Ginger Copper | |
Group III | Bahamric Troikan Zhemri | Olive Honey Bronze | | | Gray Amber Lt. Brown Dk. Brown | Lt. Brown Dk. Brown Black Chestnut | |
Group IV | Harappan Shemite Thulca Waverider | Almond Cinnamon Mahogany | | | Gray Amber Lt. Brown Dk. Brown | Dk. Brown Black | |
Group V | Kisri Thulca | Earthen Ebony Sepia | | | Lt. Brown Dk. Brown | Black | |
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