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Racial relations... really close relations

Tricky

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Tricky
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I was snooping on Snopes and came across this news story which looked like it had to be a fake. But no, it's really true. Twin girls (fraternal, obviously), one black and one white.

from Snopes
A mixed-race British mom gave birth to twins recently — one of each. No, not a boy and a girl. Two girls — one black, the other white. The odds of such a birth are about a million to one, experts said.

"It was a shock when I realized that my twins were two different colors," Kylie Hodgson, 19, told London's Daily Mail. "But it doesn't matter to us — they are just our two gorgeous little girls."

Hodgson and her partner, Remi Horder, 17, were both born to mixed-race parents. Little Kian and Remee share a love of apples and the Teletubbies, their proud mom says. Fertility experts speculate that a sperm containing all-white genes fused with an egg with all-white genes, and a sperm with all-black genes fused with an all-black gene egg to produce the fraternal twins.
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Obviously the family has no problem with mixed-race people, but still, that has got to feel a little weird.
 
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Does anybody know why genes from blacks are dominant when they mix with a white person?.
Is this an indication that blacks are fitter than whites in the Darwinian sense?.
 
Q-Source said:
Does anybody know why genes from blacks are dominant when they mix with a white person?
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Because genes to make a protein (melanin, in this case) tend to be dominant over genes to NOT make a protein? Basically, if you have one gene that says " make this protein" and another that says "don't bother to make this protein," you'll still get that protein made.

Is this an indication that blacks are fitter than whites in the Darwinian sense?.
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No. Many "negative" traits are dominant. I believe polydactyly is, for example.
 
TragicMonkey said:
What's the meaning of the green ick face?
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Tried to edit it out, but waited too long. Sorry.

Here's one from a non-yuckified source
twinsGR210206_450x300.jpg
 
Well, I guess this is as good example of why race categories can be misleading... Does the US (I don't know if the Brits have something similar) still ask people to fill in forms in which they have to tick a box labelling their race or ethnicity? Imagine if these little girls were US citizens... Which box should the blonde girl tick? Which box should the brunette tick?
 
Orwell said:
Well, I guess this is as good example of why race categories can be misleading... Does the US (I don't know if the Brits have something similar) still ask people to fill in forms in which they have to tick a box labelling their race or ethnicity?
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Yes, in some cases. Census forms for example...
 
Hmm. Call me a sceptic, but if I was him, I'd be having a DNA test done and taking a hard look at the milkman. The mother is pretty dark too- both parents have brown eyes and the girl is a blue eyed blonde?
What's this sperm with all black genes, sperm with all white genes business?
What the hell are "all white genes"? How many are there? Do they act as a unit?

I'm confused. Cute kids though. Now delete the pics before we get Pwn back.
 
Orwell said:
Well, I guess this is as good example of why race categories can be misleading... Does the US (I don't know if the Brits have something similar) still ask people to fill in forms in which they have to tick a box labelling their race or ethnicity? Imagine if these little girls were US citizens... Which box should the blonde girl tick? Which box should the brunette tick?
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Yes.

But a lot of those forms have a box labled "other" or "mixed". And with very few exceptions, they're purely voluntary.
 
Soapy Sam said:
Hmm. Call me a sceptic, but if I was him, I'd be having a DNA test done and taking a hard look at the milkman. The mother is pretty dark too- both parents have brown eyes and the girl is a blue eyed blonde?
What's this sperm with all black genes, sperm with all white genes business?
What the hell are "all white genes"? How many are there? Do they act as a unit?

I'm confused. Cute kids though. Now delete the pics before we get Pwn back.
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I think that there's a pretty good chance that that test was done.
 
Soapy Sam said:
Hmm. Call me a sceptic, but if I was him, I'd be having a DNA test done and taking a hard look at the milkman. The mother is pretty dark too- both parents have brown eyes and the girl is a blue eyed blonde?
What's this sperm with all black genes, sperm with all white genes business?
What the hell are "all white genes"? How many are there? Do they act as a unit?

I'm confused. Cute kids though. Now delete the pics before we get Pwn back.
Click to expand...

My brother and his ex-wife--both brown haired, brown eyed and olive skinned had my niece, blue eyed and blonde haired when little. She still has the big blue eyes, but her hair is medium brown now. I imagine the little blondie in the picture won't stay this fair either.
 
I'm skeptical of the claim "Two girls — one black, the other white. The odds of such a birth are about a million to one, experts said." Because there was a couple like that in my school. The girl was white and her brother was dark-skinned. Not black, but very dark. They did not look like each other at all, they just shared the same birth date.

When in Brazil, 10 out of 10 foreigners are impressed with the racial mixture. The word "mixed" pretty much describes everybody, so it's not used. Actually, to claim you're pure "whatever" is frowned upon, because it implies you're either a liar or a racist.

Mixing started hundreds of year ago, and it's very rare to find someone 100% black or white, unless they have recently migrated to Brazil. So chances are that parents are all mixed race, even if they look completely black or completely white.

Example, a family I know. The mother was dark-skinned, on the lighter side. The father was darker, with green eyes. They had 5 kids together. They all had different colors. One sister was white as white skin goes with brown eyes. Another sister was completely black. A brother was black with green eyes. The other two were "mid-tanned" and had very obvious African facial features.

And this is perfectly normal here. Another friend of mine had a German grandfather and a black grandmother. She's dark-skinned with freckles and has removed two skin cancers already.

It's very common to see parents who are mixed, say, in the middle of the spectrum, and then get one kid who looks like one grandparent - white - or the other - black.

You see someone very white. But this person had a black or Indian relative a century ago and you could never tell. But, through mixing, the skin got lighter and lighter. Or the contrary. Then you get a black person with straight black hair like that Indian relative three generations ago. That's why in Brazil the concept of ethnicity is quite useless. We describe the person, if needed, by their skin color only. It's impossible to be sure otherwise.
 
Q-Source said:
Does anybody know why genes from blacks are dominant when they mix with a white person?.
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When you say "genes from blacks are dominant", I don't know what you're basing that on. There are certainly some genes associated with white people that are recessive, blue eyes for example. But when you state that as a general rule --- why should it be so?

In the case of skin color itself, we see various mixtures --- more than one gene is involved.

Indeed, the news story in the OP shows that black genes are not always dominant --- that's why one of the twins is white.

Is this an indication that blacks are fitter than whites in the Darwinian sense?.
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No. The fact that a gene happens to be dominant doesn't mean that it's better. The allele for having Huntingdon's Chorea is dominant, but HC is amongst the filthiest of genetic diseases.

As for "the Darwinian sense", I'm not sure you've quite got Darwinism. Everyone who exists had parents who were fit enough, "in the Darwinian sense", to sucessfully reproduce. And grandparents. And great-grandparents. And ... well, there is no need to labor the point. "In the Darwinian sense", black people and white people have survived and reproduced, as have oak trees and lobsters, and in a "Darwinian sense", I cannot say that I am "fitter" than a lobster. 'Cos in a Darwinian sense, I am not.
 
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Luciana Nery said:
I'm skeptical of the claim "Two girls — one black, the other white. The odds of such a birth are about a million to one, experts said."
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Well I think they're calculating the odds the wrong way. If you figure into the calculation (a) the probability of a mixed marriage in that society (b) the chances of non-identical twins being borne to a given mother, then that increases the odds.

But given those conditions, the chances of having one white and one black twin aren't all that much.
 
Tricky said:
I was snooping on Snopes and came across this news story which looked like it had to be a fake. But no, it's really true. Twin girls (fraternal, obviously), one black and one white.
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One of my earliest memories.

Me: "Mummy, what color are babies when black people and white people have babies?"

My mum: "Well, they're about half and half."

One Week Later, The Problem With This Theory Occurred To Me...

Me: "Mummy, why don't I ever see any of those stripy children?"
 
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I can't remember the name of the knight in question, but in Mallory's Morte D'Arthur, there is a knight who is spotted black and white like a cow, as his father was Moorish and his mother English.
 
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