White baby born to black parents? It’s all in the genes

Last Sunday, a blonde, white girl was born to a black Nigerian couple. Doctors ruled out albinism. The husband ruled out being cuckolded. What’s with the baby? Don’t be confused, it’s all in the genes.

Are you from the BBC? Manoj Chhabra, a photographer, is asked this question every now and then. He is Rajasthani, but looks nothing like an Indian. He has pale skin with a red tint, hazel eyes and chestnut brown hair. These, combined with his chiselled features and six-foot height, give him a distinguished English appearance.

Chhabra doesn’t admit it, but his colleagues say the way he looks gives him an advantage. They say it makes him come across as discerning and trustworthy, and, though he is an unassuming man who puts on neither airs nor graces, lends him a superior air. This in turn makes Bollywood beauties (who of late have been visiting Chhabra’s city of residence, Lucknow, for cow belt promos) go weak in the knees and become amenable to his professional dictates. The result is that Chhabra comes away extracting the best poses, though he doesn’t admit it.

Political correctness has pushed the topic out of polite conversation, but the fact remains that the world over, Europeans and others who resemble them, are accorded special treatment by those who do not look that way. Last week, there was ample proof of this through a quirky event. In England, a girl was born to a Nigerian couple, but she was blonde, blue-eyed and white. DNA reported the news on its front page on Wednesday. Look up “black parents white baby” or the girl’s name Nmachi on Google News.

One of the headlines (not DNA’s) you will come across is ‘Miracle blonde baby born to black couple’. One of the copies has the sentence: “Needless to say, the entire family is happy to welcome the beautiful baby in their home.” The racist overtones are clear.
What explains such births? Nmachi’s parents are black, and Chhabra’s are typical brown-skinned, dark-haired Indians. But both of them are white.

Skin pigmentation in humans is determined by at least a dozen genes. Scientists say the most probable explanation for the physical appearance of people like Nmachi and Chhabra is that both parents carry genes of European ancestors which combine generations, if not thousands of years, later to produce such babies. “These babies bear the signature of European genomes,” says Lalji Singh, former director, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad. “Dormant genes can come back from deep ancestors.”

But genetic mutation cannot be ruled out. In December 2005, a team of scientists from the Pennsylvania State University announced the discovery of a mutation explaining the first appearance of white skin in humans 20,000-50,000 years ago.

The mutation probably occurred in just one individual born to a group of brown-skinned humans, which had migrated out of Africa into Europe. Since light skin allows greater penetration of sunlight (crucial for the synthesis of vitamin D, deficiency of which leads to brittle bone disease, or rickets), this person’s offspring was at a distinct advantage in the colder climate of Europe. Evolutionary selection increased the prevalence of the trait. It could be that such a mutation occurred in the cases of Nmachi and Chhabra.

Nmachi would have a tough time growing up, listening to taunts about her parentage, but by virtue of her European looks, will be at a social advantage nevertheless. There was no such ‘luck’ in store for Sandra Laing, however.

Laing’s story is heartrending, brought to the world last year by the film Skin. Laing was born in 1955 in apartheid South Africa to white parents of Dutch and German heritage. She was pure Boer, as white South Africans of such heritage are called, except that she didn’t look like one. She had frizzy hair, thick nose and brown skin. Ironically, both her parents were members of the ruling National Party and apartheid supporters. Watch the movie to know the rest. Also look up the report ‘Sandra Laing: A Spiritual Journey’ on YouTube.

Scientists say that in Laing’s case, like in Nmachi’s, recessive (or less dominant) characteristics of genes from both parents combined to become the dominant characteristic of her physical appearance. It simply means, each of her parents had at least one African ancestor, possibly generations ago.

What all this means is that there is no such thing as a black or white race. The mutation the Pennsylvania scientists studied involved an alteration of a single letter out of the more than three billion letters in the human genome. All humanity is indeed one...
Indeed a noble thought, but indeed wrong. Humanity may not be black and white, but it is man and woman. Here’s wishing more understanding between the two halves of humanity. Playboy can play mediator.