His wife gave birth to a white baby, and he burst into tears when he discovered that it’s quite common for every expectant mother to daydream about what her baby would look like. Almost all expectant mothers or parents hope for their kids to be a mini version of themselves. Some kids take up after either their mother or father or both in appearance and other factors like temperament.
However, it is quite rare for kids not to adopt any noticeable traits of their parents. That was the case for Ben and Angela, a black London couple who had a white baby.
Ben, a security officer, and his wife Angela, a care assistant, are both Nigerian natives and have been living together in the UK for the past five years. As a couple, they had a white baby, which was a surprise for their daughter and the scientific community is clueless as to possible scenarios that could lead to such a phenomenon.
There are a lot of “miracle babies” in the world. Namachi appears to be one of the rare people who actually deserves that term. In genetic terms, she is a one-of-a-kind individual. Her birth has the scientists scratching their heads.
They have a total of three kids: Chrism, the oldest son, Dumby, the middle child, and Namachi, the youngest. Angela and Ben are both black and of Nigerian descent with dark brown eyes and dark hair. Namachi’s birth surprised both her parents and the doctors who were present at the moment. She was as white as snow with piercing blue eyes and blonde hair. Her parents, on the other hand, are black Nigerians with dark brown eyes and dark hair.
Being from a black family, one would instantly conclude she was an albino. From a distance, that, however, was not the case. Her skin tone was that of a true white person. However, experts in the field of genetics are perplexed by the fact that she was born into a family with no white ancestors. Albinism was ruled out right away by medical professionals at Queen Mary Hospital in Sitcup, Kent, the birthplace of Namachi.
They claim the eyes of albinos are almost always pink because of their lack of pigmentation, whereas Machi had piercing blue eyes. Now, there’s some debate, however, with at least one leading scientist arguing that there are four different types of albinism, all of which allow different levels of coloring to develop. Albinism is an inherited condition that leads to someone having very light skin, hair, and eyes. It happens because they have less melanin than usual in their body. Melanin is the pigment that gives skin, hair, and eyes their color.
Professor Ian Jackson, an expert in melanocyte cells that produce pigments at the British Medical Research Council’s Human Genetics Unit, points out that in type 2 cases, creamy skin and yellow hair are possible. The blue eyes, however, would be highly unusual.
It has long been understood that the laws of genetics stipulate that a child’s skin tone can occasionally differ from that of his or her parents due to a genetic quirk. However, it is not theoretical for an all-white or all-black couple to have a child of a different race according to experts.
In order for this to work, there would need to be white heritage on both sides of the equation. There is no “white blood” in Ben and Angela’s family heritage, according to them. Ben’s mother has lighter skin and eyes than he does, but she is definitely “black” as far as Ben is concerned. No one in either of their families is aware of any white blood at all.
He claimed part of him wants to know what happened, to at least know what to tell Namachi when she gets older, whereas another part of him thinks that it doesn’t matter. Perhaps God made her like this for a reason. “And quite honestly, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether she is white or black or red or green, she’s beautiful and healthy, and that’s what is important,” he said.
Namachi’s almost Scandinavian coloring seems to be the mystery here. As Professor Brian Sykes, head of human genetics at Oxford University and Britain’s leading expert puts it, “The hair is extremely unusual. Even many blonde children don’t have blonde hair like this at birth. This might be a case where there’s a lot of genetic mixing, as in Afro-Caribbean populations, but in Nigeria, there’s little mixing.”
“We used to joke about it,” Angela said, rolling her eyes as she looked at her husband, Benjamin. “We have two children already, and they are both the spitting image of their father. We found out at the scan that this baby was a girl, and all through the pregnancy, I thought, ‘This one is going to look exactly like me.'”
It seems nature pulled a trick from under its sleeves on the black couple. Friends and family members who showed up to celebrate the arrival of the newest member of the family could be excused for their disappointment as they looked forward to a black baby. Everyone who came to visit them, both at the hospital and at their home, was curious to know how a couple as black as them could be capable of producing such a white baby.
Namachi was born via caesarean section. Everyone in the room, including her parents, was taken aback, as were many who later saw her. Her parents were overjoyed to have her despite her unique skin tone. Her hair, according to her father, was the first thing that threw him off. “Obviously, she appeared quite light, but black kids are not born with a white complexion. I expect her to darken as she ages, but the hair was a surprise from the start. Then there were the eyes. I’ve never seen such blue eyes before.”
Although Ben and Angela were both taken aback, it was other people’s reactions to their daughter’s skin color that shocked them the most. Even at the early stage, as the “welcome baby” presents were still arriving, difficult questions were emerging in their household. Given the absence or lack of expectation, it wouldn’t be surprising if people accused Alice of unfaithfulness.
In their minds, after all, that could provide some sense to the situation. There would certainly be pressure mounting on Ben to clear the secret suspicion others would eventually have about his wife. In a bid to make his point, he decided to have a DNA test. According to Ben, he was 100% sure that the child was his. “I do think I will probably have a DNA test, not to prove anything to me; I know my wife and I trust her 100%. But to make a point to other people,” he said during an interview with The Sun newspapers at the time.
Ben said both he and his wife were anxiously waiting for the DNA test results. Despite her faithfulness, Angela felt hurt and sad at the thought of being accused of adultery. She understood that people would resort to such thinking as a way to find answers to the questions arising from the complexion of her daughter. “Of course, it’s confusing because I know the truth. I am loyal to my husband; I would never be with another man. But the thing is that people even doubt that she came out of me. But of course, she did,” she said.
When the story of her daughter’s color caught public attention, Ben was asked whether or not he was offended by the reactions of people who openly accused his wife of unfaithfulness. He had this to say: “Well, yes, I am a little, but at the same time, I can understand it. I would probably be saying exactly the same thing if I saw this happening to someone else. I would say, ‘No way, you’re kidding me.
There must be something funny going on here. The wife must have been with another man.’ But even if Angela had been, and I know she hasn’t, it wouldn’t explain the baby’s coloring. There would be some black in there, wouldn’t there, even from her?”
When a local news station interviewed Ben on his outlook at his daughter’s situation, he responded, saying, “Black babies are often born with lighter skin; then they end up darker. Skin color and eye color and hair can change. We will have to wait and see. It may be that her skin darkens to the point where she does look black, although I doubt this will ever happen. As for the hair, I just don’t know.
I mean, that is blonde. That is seriously blonde. And if it doesn’t, then things will probably be more difficult for her. Yes, I expect she’ll be asked things like, ‘Are you adopted?’ That will be hard. In a way, that’s why we don’t mind having the publicity about it. People will know the truth rather than whispering about it.”
In addition, he claimed that regardless of his daughter’s complexion, he thought of her as a British-Nigerian and would be sure to raise her with an awareness of her British and Nigerian roots. Despite the cost involved in visiting his village with his family, the birth of Namachi has made it necessary for his older children to get in touch with their roots. At home, they often converse in their native language, Igbo, to give the children a feeling of belonging to both British and Nigerian cultures.
What did the DNA test results say, please update us. This is truly marvelous, nature always finds new ways to surprise us.
God of wonders