# A question about mixed race children **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 19, 2006, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636 "2006-01-19T08:23:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![START](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@START](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/START)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/1 "2006-01-19T08:23:11Z")
Ok, My Dad is African American and my Mom is Caucasian so if I had children with a Black/White girl is it possible we could end up having kids that had 100 per cent African American characteristics as well as kids that looked completely caucasian? ---
**Author:** ![zoogirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b9bd4f/32.png) [@zoogirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoogirl)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/2 "2006-01-19T08:34:59Z")
Just a WAG, but I think the darker skin and hair would likely predominate. Of course a lot would depend on how dark you are to begin with and whether or not you actually are 50/50. I seem to remember reading very recently that more widespread use of DNA testing is turning up a lot more AA background in the average American than was expected. ONOH, sometimes surprises happen. I went to school with a girl who had quite African features, darkish skin and a natural blonde Afro. I also know a family with three daughters. The father is Caucasion/Japanese and the mother is Caucasion. One daughter looks Caucasion, with very light and frizzy hair, one is “mixed” and one looks very Japanese. I guess you just won’t know 'til they get here! ---
**Author:** ![Ins\_Outs\_What-have-yous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8797f3/32.png) [@Ins\_Outs\_What-have-yous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ins_Outs_What-have-yous)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/3 "2006-01-19T10:41:31Z")
I have not studied genetics recently, but from what I recall skin color is dependent on multiple alleles. Within the color extremes contained in the two parents total alleles, any combinations are possible but some are more likely than others. [This punnet square](http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/race-fig5.gif) offers a (simplified I think) visual explanation. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/4 "2006-01-19T11:43:40Z")
> [@START](#): > > Ok, My Dad is African American and my Mom is Caucasian so if I had children with a Black/White girl is it possible we could end up having kids that had 100 per cent African American characteristics as well as kids that looked completely caucasian? Yes. The simplest way to think about this is as chromosomal assortment. Everybody has 23 pairs of chromosmes. Because of your background you will have one half of each pair as a ‘black’ chromosomes and the other half as ‘white’. If you have children with another individual who also has a 50/50 mix it is perfcetly possible for any individual child to inherit all your ‘black’ chromosmes and all your partner’s ‘black’ chromsomes. As a result hey will be genetically ‘pure’ black. Or alternatively they could inherit all the ‘white’ chromsomes from both of you and be genetically ‘pure’ white. It doesn’t matter one bit whether the genes are dominant, recessive, co-dominant or whatever. The only point to appreciate is that children can get their genes exclusively from just two of their grandparents, with no genetic contribution whatsoever from the other two. Naturally if a child inherits solely genetic material from their black granparents then the child will be black and the same if they inherit only from the white grandparents. In reality the odds of this sort of perfect grandparental assortment are fairly remote. But the odds of getting all the genes that contribute to black or white physical characteristics from just two grandparents are fairly good. So yeah, it’s entirely possible to produce chidlren that appear as black as their black grandparents or as white as their white grandparents. In fact its’s perfectly possible to produce children who are noticably blacker or whiter than any grandparents, and astonishingly more black or white than either parent. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/5 "2006-01-19T11:49:08Z")
Apart from genetics, a lof of "race"is in the eye of the beholder. A friend of mine is 1/8’th Indonesian. To my eyes, she looks distinctly exotic, Indonesian. But to her aunts, who are 1/4th Indonesian, she looks as Dutch as an Edam cheese. ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/6 "2006-01-19T12:31:14Z")
I think it is possible. I certainly have known brothers and sisters from the same parents who look to be of different races. My husband’s great-grandfather was black, and he, his grandfather, and his mother do not look black. My niece, by my husband’s sister, looks throroughly black even though her mother is a blonde with fair skin. Looking at her, you would not think that she was a mixed race child. You would think she is black, also if you have eyes you’d see that she is beautiful too. I’ll let you know if they give her any siblings who look thoroughly white. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/7 "2006-01-19T13:17:38Z")
Yeah, it’s pretty well known that two mixed-race people can have kids much darker or lighter than either parent. So how do other “racial” markers work, like facial features and hair texture? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/8 "2006-01-19T13:33:23Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > So how do other “racial” markers work, like facial features and hair texture? In exactly the same way. It’s chromosmal assortment. It doesn’t matter what features you are talking about, if a person has inherited all his genes from black ancestors and absolutely none from white ancestors then of course that individual will appear black. It doesn’t matter whether the feature is skin colour or shape of the nose, if the individual has only inherited ‘black’ genes then how can they appear other then black? The fact that both parents had inherited half of their genes from their white parent is totally irrelevant if the child doesn’t inherit any of those genes whatsoever. Chromosomes don’t carry any memeory of what they were paired with last generation, nor do they care. All they express is what they are paired with this generation. And if all they are paired with now are chromosomes that have existed in white people for the last 100 generations then there is simply no source of black genetic material, whether for skin colour or anything else. Think of it like two bowls, each with 46 marbles. One bowl contains only white marbles, the othe only black. Those bowls reprsent the gentic complement of the grandparents, and the marbles reprensent theindividual chromosomes. Now take the marbles and re-sort them so that each bowl contains half black and half white marbles. That is the genetic makeup of our parents. Now re-sort the marbles again so that all th eblack marble sar eback in one bowl, and all the white marbles in the other. That’s what our children coould well end up inheriting. It doesn’t matter if you label one of those marbles ‘skin colour’ and another ‘nose shape’, at the end of all this shuffling they are still perfectly sorted. Any individual still only gets black ‘skin colour’ or ‘nose shape’ genes. It doesn’t matter that the marbles/chromosomes were mixed in a previous generation because they retain no memeory of what they paired with inpreviosu generations. They are perfectly sorted in this generation and can only produce one result. ---
**Author:** ![easy\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb8c5e/32.png) [@easy\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/easy_e)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/9 "2006-01-19T14:21:54Z")
People are forgetting [chromosomal crossover](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosomal_crossover). This means that regardless of what the child looks like, they will always have DNA from every one of their grandparents. This is because during meiosis (the process that produces egg and sperm cells), chromosomal pairs line up and swap small segments of DNA. So when **START’s** germ cells were undergoing meiosis, chromosomes that came from his/her mom swapped some chunks of DNA with the paired chromosomes that came from his/her dad. Even if all of the paternal chromosomes somehow ended up in one germ cell (very unlikely), there would still be bits of maternal DNA on them. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/10 "2006-01-19T16:00:10Z")
> [@START](#): > > Ok, My Dad is African American and my Mom is Caucasian so if I had children with a Black/White girl is it possible we could end up having kids that had 100 per cent African American characteristics as well as kids that looked completely caucasian? Not trying to be snarky, but what would “100% African American” features look like? African-Americans are pretty diverse looking. Some have dark skin and some have light skin. Some have kinky hair and some have wavy/straight hair. Some have brown eyes and some have hazel, green, or blue. There is not just one look that characterizes an African-American. So I don’t get the “100%” thing. To answer your question: there is a chance that whatever kids you have could come out looking like their grandparents. Meaning, some of your kids could come out looking every much as black as your father. Some could look as white as your mother. If your father has “100% African American characteristics” then so could your kid. But it’s more likely that your kids will be a blend between you and their mother. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/11 "2006-01-19T16:57:20Z")
> [@you with the face](#): > > African-Americans are pretty diverse looking. Some have dark skin and some have light skin. Some have kinky hair and some have wavy/straight hair. Some have brown eyes and some have hazel, green, or blue. There is not just one look that characterizes an African-American. So I don’t get the “100%” thing. Because in the US people with _any_ identifiable African ancestry have traditionally been considered as “black,” people identified as black, on average, have a substantially greater percentage of European ancestry than people who are identified as white have African ancestry. (Nevertheless, a significant percentage of people classified as white have some African ancestry.) Therefore the offspring of two “'biracial” Americans (one parent identified as white, one as black) will have a somewhat greater probability of showing European-type features than African ones. ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/12 "2006-01-19T18:49:12Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > Yeah, it’s pretty well known that two mixed-race people can have kids much darker or lighter than either parent. So how do other “racial” markers work, like facial features and hair texture? You can some interesting mixes. It is odd to see a broad, distinctly African nose on a snow white face. The opposite can happen too, and then you get Hale Berry; the poster child for the benefits of “racial” mixing. ---
**Author:** ![Lama\_Pacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Lama\_Pacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lama_Pacos)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/13 "2006-01-19T19:29:20Z")
It seems to me that it would be much more accurate to frame this (both the answer and the question) in terms of the actual genes involved rather than some sort of nonsensical racial arithmetic. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/14 "2006-01-19T19:31:53Z")
> [@easy e](#): > > People are forgetting [chromosomal crossover](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosomal_crossover). This means that regardless of what the child looks like, they will always have DNA from every one of their grandparents. This is because during meiosis (the process that produces egg and sperm cells), chromosomal pairs line up and swap small segments of DNA. So when **START’s** germ cells were undergoing meiosis, chromosomes that came from his/her mom swapped some chunks of DNA with the paired chromosomes that came from his/her dad. Even if all of the paternal chromosomes somehow ended up in one germ cell (very unlikely), there would still be bits of maternal DNA on them. Exactly. In order to revert to the grandparental “black” and “white” chromosomes, all those crossover event would have to occur exactly in reverse, which is HIGHLY unlikely. And, incidentally, we’re not just talking about “bits” of maternal DNA - huge chunks of chromosome get swapped in these events. Now, if you take into account the fact that not every gene contributes to race, or at least the perception of race, the odds get somewhat more likely, but I’d say it’s still very very unlikely to happen. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/15 "2006-01-19T19:58:08Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Because in the US people with _any_ identifiable African ancestry have traditionally been considered as “black,” people identified as black, on average, have a substantially greater percentage of European ancestry than people who are identified as white have African ancestry. (Nevertheless, a significant percentage of people classified as white have some African ancestry.) **Therefore the offspring of two “'biracial” Americans (one parent identified as white, one as black) will have a somewhat greater probability of showing European-type features than African ones.** I agree. But at the same time, since people who are identifiably black span a whole spectrum of appearance, an average “biracial” child made between your average black person with your average white actually has a higher probability of looking _more_ black than they do white, just because of how the public diagnoses race visually. That’s where that whole “black genes are dominant” nonsense comes from. Since it doesn’t take much to look black (add a little kink to one’s hair and a little melanin to one’s skin, and viola, you look black!), it only appears like “black genes” are stronger than “white genes”. They really aren’t, though. > [@easy e](#): > > People are forgetting chromosomal crossover. This means that regardless of what the child looks like, they will always have DNA from every one of their grandparents. True, but you have to factor in public perception. How many “white genes” does a black person have to have before they don’t look a “100% African-American” anymore? Now contrast that with how many “black genes” it takes before a white person doesn’t look 100% white. I’d bet it’s not the same number. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/16 "2006-01-19T20:04:14Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > Now, if you take into account the fact that not every gene contributes to race, or at least the perception of race, the odds get somewhat more likely, but I’d say it’s still very very unlikely to happen. What crossover means, essentially, is that the genes will segregate independently, unless they are very close together on the same chromosome. In the latter case, the odds will be a bit higher that two genes from the same parent are inherited as a unit. For any individual gene, the probability that a grandchild will inherit two-of-a-kind alleles of a particular racial stock is 1/4 (that is there is a 1/4 probability that both will be white, and 1/4 that both will be black), There is a 1/2 probability that they will be different. Suppose that there are 10 genes involved in producing the differences in appearance of a “white” and a “black” phenotype. (There could well be more.) Then the odds of producing one of these pure phenotypes from two biracial individuals would be 4[sup]10[/sup], or 1:1,048,576. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/17 "2006-01-19T20:15:45Z")
> [@START](#): > > Ok, My Dad is African American and my Mom is Caucasian so if I had children with a Black/White girl is it possible we could end up having kids that had 100 per cent African American characteristics… Possibly, but not very likely. In addition to what \*\*Blake \*\*said, it’s highly likely that your Dad has some European ancestry, as would the hypothetical African-American parent of the mixed race girl you might hypthetically marry. So, you have the additional likelihood that it’s not just a matter of inhereting alleles from only 2 grandparants. But then, what does a person look like with 100% African-American characteristics? Even if you meant “[sub-Saharan] African characteristics”, that still isn’t something that can be determined other than by subjective opinion. “Ethnically pure” Africans have a variety of characteristics, some of which overlap non-African populations. > [@](#): > > … as well as kids that looked completely caucasian? Not too likely, but more likely than the other option, for the same reason as above. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/18 "2006-01-19T20:19:05Z")
> [@you with the face](#): > > I agree. But at the same time, since people who are identifiably black span a whole spectrum of appearance, an average “biracial” child made between your average black person with your average white actually has a higher probability of looking _more_ black than they do white, just because of how the public diagnoses race visually. > > That’s where that whole “black genes are dominant” nonsense comes from. Since it doesn’t take much to look black (add a little kink to one’s hair and a little melanin to one’s skin, and viola, you look black!), it only appears like “black genes” are stronger than “white genes”. They really aren’t, though. I’m wouldn’t be surprised if, to Africans, “White genes” look dominant. We tend to notice most what is different. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/19 "2006-01-19T20:30:04Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > I’m wouldn’t be surprised if, to Africans, “White genes” look dominant. We tend to notice most what is different. 🙂 Yes; in West Africa, where mixed-race individuals are rare, they really stand out. In South Africa, under Apartheid, mixed-race individuals (“Coloreds”) were considered distinct from both whites and blacks. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636/20 "2006-01-19T22:42:37Z")
> [@easy e](#): > > People are forgetting [chromosomal crossover](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosomal_crossover). I’m not forgetting it, I am deliberately neglecting to mention a fairly trivial point that unnecessarily complicates the issue. The fact is that we are talking about a F2 hybrid. Crossing over nothwithstanding it is possible for F2 hybrids to revert perfectly to either grandparental phenotype. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-mixed-race-children/340636.md?page=2)