"Black parents give birth to white baby"

Okay, you made me laugh.

Ok, since I’ve been whooshed (which is apparent from the label on the photo) who is it?

Michelle from Full House. The one played by the Olsen twins.

It’s one of the Olsen twins from Full House

Thanks. Shows how ignorant I am of sitcoms. :smiley: I don’t think I’ve ever seen an episode.

I think thats garbled … a confusing edit of what the doctor said.

I think the doctor meant “recombination” the genes can be lost.

Suppose we are talking about some part of the 12th Chromosome…
So the same gene is meant to be there on chromosome A and B.
But… during recombination, the gene from B can be duplicated and replace the one at A.

Its more complicated than that… there is often many, eg 5 copies of the gene.
So what can happen is that a recessive gene, being one out of 5, can get transferred around in recombination and become 3 4 or 5 out of 5…

Anyway this might be a replication of the first white child… :slight_smile:

Or the child may turn dark during puberty… many people have child colour and adult colour… especially in the hair… he might be white skinned with african hair.

Good call.

Don’t worry. I haven’t either. Seinfeld is about it for me since the 60s. Maybe some Friends, but nothing else.

The mother and father have different facial features. Did you notice that? The father has more what we associate with European facial features, although that’s probably just ignorance on our* part since plenty of Africans (especially East Africans) have what are usually though of as European facial features.

Yes, I know I’m writing this about your comments to a whoosh, but it still reflects on the whole issue of judging someone by facial features.

*“our” being those of us who are European in background.

Funny, but seriously I tried to Google “nmachi ihegboro” and found tons of misattributed photos that are NOT her. A really bad noise-to-signal ratio on this topic. I haven’t even established if this is an internet hoax or not.

Yes, I did notice that. However, I think that even the father would be recognizably African even if his skin were white.

It’s not really “ignorance” on our part. Facial features do differ on average between West and Central Africa and say northern Europe. However, the area in between is occupied by populations with varying degrees of intermediate characteristics, including skin color and facial features. This just illustrates the impossibility of drawing clear dividing lines between the traditional “races,” especially since the characters vary independently. (E.g. populations in South India were traditionally classified as Caucasian on the basis of facial features, even though skin tone is as dark as many Africans.)

Then you may have seen “The Wizard,” in which Elaine tries to figure out whether or not her new boyfriend is black.

But is the rest of your family as dark-skinned, and of as pure African heritage, as the parents in this case? Most African-Americans have a significant admixture of European ancestry, which usually manifests as African-Americans being a couple of shades lighter than pure Africans, but can occasionally, when the genetic dice throw a Yahtzee, result in a baby nearly as light as a pure European (or as dark as a pure African).

(in case it needs to be said, I’m not trying to attach any value judgement to the word “pure”, here. I know that that word has an unfortunate history in race relations, but I’m not sure of a more appropriate word to use)

My wife worked in an NHS Special Care Baby Unit for 30 years. She tells me that babies born to black people are usually many shades lighter than their parents. When a black actress in a show last night, ‘gave birth’ to an equally black baby, she commented that it was too black. Their skin will normally darken quite quickly.

Yes, googling her name can lead down some really nasty stormfront-style rabbit holes. Of course, googling for pictures of the Olsen twins has its pitfalls too.

Depends on how you define my family. My baby sister was as light-skinned as the brother in question when she was born, but by about ten was as dark as I am. One of my sisters is very dark skinned, as is my other brother; the rest of us are medium dark. And two of my mother’s sisters are–well, were–quite fair. (ETA: None as fair as the brother in question, though. And it was a complete unsurprise to me when I discovered at, oh, 25 or so, that my mother’s deadbeat dad, whom she never met till she was about my current age, was white.)

Meh. If I were offended, I’d have already threatened to murder you in some absurd comic-booky way, you know that. :smiley:

I submitted this topic to the Snopes site- if there’s anything new on it, they can find it.

I haven’t either, but those Olsen girls are all over. You’ve been blessed that you’ve avoided them.

I did, too, before I made my post. I found what you did, so I gave up. It’s surprising that there is nothing.

I’m aware of them as celebrities now, but didn’t immediately recognize how they looked as small children.

I think you should show up at his place of work one day by surprise, announce yourself as his high school buddy (you were buddies in high school) and take him out to lunch and see how he introduces your to his co-workers. If he claims you as his brother, then he is just avoiding the family because of the craziness you have long described.