Is it possible for a person to be black with blonde hair or chinese with red hair, for example?

[MadreInglese]

Please help me answer this question for my DD.

(talking natural hair colour of course, not dyed! )

I have never seen a non-white person with naturally fair coloured hair (but of course that doesn't mean there aren't any) is it a possibility? If not, can anyone maybe enlighten me as to why it's not possible/rare, is it to do with dominant/recessive genes?

I hope my terminology hasn't offended, but I couldn't answer for her and as MN is such a wealth of different cultures I hope someone can help.

I was reading the OP not the title:

"I have never seen a non-white person with naturally fair coloured hair"

Arabs aren't white even if they do sometimes have fair skin or blonde hair.

I thought red fair was something that popped up in all races?

Yes!

asian

Asians do not carry the red headed gene. Black people can have blonde hair however.

eg darnell on bb

My friend is nigerian and her son has little whisps of blond hair.

my Dh is chinese and my grandparents both had ginger hair, my MiL said all the way through the pregnancy that DS1 would have ginger hair she had delivered a pair of chinese twins with ginger hair and freckles.

DS1 isn't but it was av ery real possibility

I grew up in Papua New Guinea and people from around Rabaul are of course black but often have blondish hair and it is hair that you associate with black people, not long Caucasian style hair.

Here is a picture of a kid from Rabaul

And another

bythepowerofgreyskull - your DS1 have a very similar look to mine who is Kazakh/Russian (is your DH northern chinese?)

I used to see a girl who worked in B&Q in Oxford who was obviously Indian but who had fair skin, freckles and auburn hair. Not sure what colour her eyes were but it was very striking.

Have seen an albino Indonesian bloke, very yellow blond hair (not white) with fair skin.

There are a few cases of twins where one is black and the other white, like this one; and I remember years ago seeing aged black twins in a special Sunday Times mag article, where they were identical but one was albino.

What was really interesting to me on recent trip to Caribbean (Martinique) where my sister lives to see people who were black but who had totally Caucasian features. Almost like white people with face paint on.

Twins fascinate me. If they are identical then the black gene goes one way and the white the other (similar to how you get boy/girl identicals) if they're not then it's just how it happened. It is thought it's possible to have twins by different fathers, but there's never (last I heard) been a proven case.

Kew - M&D Hong Kong Grand parents pearl river delta.- so I guess no is the anwer

ps = gorgeous babies

I think aboriginie (sp?) children often have blond hair

Thanks for the explanation about the occurence of apparently red hair in Africans. I have seen that here in Nigeria and wondered why it was so.

There are a number of albinos around here. They vary in colouration, some have almost blonde hair while others have a darker yellowy hair. Skin colour also varies, from pure white with freckles to a slightly tinted colour. Until seeing them I'd always thought red eye colour went with albinism, but I think they've all had blue eyes here. I also saw albinos in Indonesia and they did have the red eyes.

Apparently, albinism is 20 times more common amongst African peoples than in Caucasians. It can be very hard for albinos here as albinism is connected to superstitions.

And btw, dd goes to school with a Nigerian boy with a 'badger's streak' of white hair at the front and also a girl with the amazing turquoise-green eyes mentioned earlier. Gorgeous.

I know a family of 3 children who all look different.

boy 1 looks afro caribbean - black coffee
boy 2 blonde green eyed caucasian features but with the hint of black - coffee with too much cream.
boy 3 ginger afro, freckles, coffee and cream skin.

all same mum and dad.

I have the same in my family.

1 blonde blue eyed caucasian boy
2 green eyed tanned boys - straight hair
1 green eyed, v. dark skinned straight haired boy
same mum and dad. Mum's side has American Straight hair which 3 of the boys have.
Dad is v. dark with mixed race hair and piercing green eyes.

I would imagine a lot of aborigiones have white ancesters somewhere in their family tree, as most black people in Europe Asia do.

re red hair appearing in all cultures
Red hair has no pigment in it while blond hair has blond pigment and dark hair has dark pigment. So I imagine all races get a mutant gene which confers 'no pigment'.

Albinos have red hair because of this. I worked briefly with blind children in S. Africa, and lots of them were albino as the lack of pigment in their eyes means that they are damaged by bright sunlight. They get terrible sunburn/skin cancers for the same reason

Thanks for all your replies, there's loads of info here I can give her. She's becoming a right science boffin so will love the stuff about genetics (and the twin stuff).

She will like this, too, I think:

Blonde baby hedgehog

[cute emoticon]

Awwww