# A question about race and "colour" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 27, 2009, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-race-and-colour/490960 "2009-03-27T03:58:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-race-and-colour/490960/21 "2009-03-27T17:13:13Z")
He has a hot wife. I know it’s not relevant to the question but it had to be stated. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-race-and-colour/490960/22 "2009-03-27T17:14:15Z")
Ex-wife, now. He slapped her around a bit, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-race-and-colour/490960/23 "2009-03-27T17:53:19Z")
As an aside, there’s some randomness with “black” skin tones. From time to time, even without the mailman being involved, and proper DNA testing to back that up, you’ll see a child result from the union of two similarly-colored black parents that is either noticeably darker or lighter than either parent. I’m sure this happens with white folks too, but… I can’t think of any examples. ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-race-and-colour/490960/24 "2009-03-27T18:08:08Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Ex-wife, now. He slapped her around a bit, IIRC. Lovely, what a charming fellow. I think the answer is: It depends. That is, the child may look more like one parent or the other but it’s impossible to state which? Or am I beign over simplistic? ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-race-and-colour/490960/25 "2009-03-27T21:58:20Z")
As the whiter-than-white spouse of an Asian-American and father of 3 biracial children I can testify first-hand that their is no pattern nor predictability to what interracial children look like. My children all have blue eyes and dark hair. Their skin tone varies from fairly pale pink to brown. One has the classic “Asian” eye-fold, the others don’t. One has extremely fine hair, one has coarse, curly hair. A friend of mine once noted that if you lined up all the children in the world from the palest Nordic to the darkest African, you’d end up putting my children off to one side until you figured out where to put them. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-race-and-colour/490960/26 "2009-03-27T23:15:42Z")
> [@Lochdale](#): > > Lovely, what a charming fellow. > > I think the answer is: It depends. That is, the child may look more like one parent or the other but it’s impossible to state which? Or am I beign over simplistic? In practical terms, yes. You’re glossing over a lot of interesting genetics, but I guess we can let that slide. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2009, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-race-and-colour/490960/27 "2009-03-28T00:00:30Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > The country is 15% Maori, however, which comprises a higher percentage of the population than African-Americans in the US. > > I wonder, is there not much intermarriage between whites and Maoris? No, there’s plenty of intermarriage between Maori and Pakeha (whites.) ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2009, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-race-and-colour/490960/28 "2009-03-28T00:04:02Z")
FTR, Tiger is 25% Black, 25% Thai, 25% Chinese, 12.5% Native American, and 12.5% European White (Dutch). I really don’t see many East Asian features in his face. ---
**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2009, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-race-and-colour/490960/29 "2009-03-28T01:47:26Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > As the whiter-than-white spouse of an Asian-American and father of 3 biracial children I can testify first-hand that their is no pattern nor predictability to what interracial children look like. > > My children all have blue eyes and dark hair. Their skin tone varies from fairly pale pink to brown. One has the classic “Asian” eye-fold, the others don’t. One has extremely fine hair, one has coarse, curly hair. A friend of mine once noted that if you lined up all the children in the world from the palest Nordic to the darkest African, you’d end up putting my children off to one side until you figured out where to put them. Blue eyes? Your wife must have Caucasian ancestry. Children of Caucasian/pure East Asian parents never have blue eyes because East Asians do not carry the allele for blue eyes. It is possible for children that have one quarter Asian ancestry to have blue eyes because their mixed Asian parent might carry the recessive allele for blue eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2009, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-race-and-colour/490960/30 "2009-03-28T02:17:22Z")
> [@Pyper](#): > > Blue eyes? Your wife must have Caucasian ancestry. Children of Caucasian/pure East Asian parents never have blue eyes because East Asians do not carry the allele for blue eyes. It is possible for children that have one quarter Asian ancestry to have blue eyes because their mixed Asian parent might carry the recessive allele for blue eyes. My mistake. I have blue eyes. My children all have brown eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2009, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-race-and-colour/490960/31 "2009-03-28T05:08:49Z")
As others have said, multi-racial people are not going to have a distinct look. But if you’re looking for an example, [Mariah Carey](http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/theremoteisland/2008/11/08-15/mariah-carey.jpg) is one quarter black and three quarters white. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-race-and-colour/490960/32 "2009-03-29T23:54:57Z")
> [@Pyper](#): > > B East Asians do not carry the allele for blue eyes. That’s simply not true. The frequency of blue eyes in east Asian populations is very low, but it exists and has existed since before Marco Polo’s day. East Asia is not now and has never been isolated from the rest of the world, and gene transfer has always occurred. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-race-and-colour/490960.md?page=1)