{"id":2493,"date":"2014-08-01T09:00:34","date_gmt":"2014-08-01T14:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=2493"},"modified":"2014-07-03T02:47:17","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T07:47:17","slug":"black-and-white-twins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/08\/01\/black-and-white-twins\/","title":{"rendered":"“Black and White Twins” and the Social Construction of Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flashback Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n

This remarkable newspaper\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0illustrates how skin color (which is real) gets\u00a0translated into categorical racial categories (which are not).\u00a0 The children in the images below — Kian and Remee Hodgson —\u00a0are fraternal twins born to two bi-racial parents:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The story attempts to explain the biology:<\/p>\n

Skin colour is believed to be determined by up to seven different genes working together. If a woman is of mixed race, her eggs will usually contain a mixture of genes coding for both black and white skin. Similarly, a man of mixed race will have a variety of different genes in his sperm. When these eggs and sperm come together, they will create a baby of mixed race.\u00a0 But, very occasionally, the egg or sperm might contain genes coding for one skin colour. If both the egg and sperm contain all white genes, the baby will be white. And if both contain just the versions necessary for black skin, the baby will be black.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fair enough.<\/p>\n

But then the journalist makes a logical leap from biological determinants of skin color to racial categories. Referring now to genes for skin color as “black” and “white” genes, she writes: “Baby Kian must have inherited the black genes from both sides of the family, whilst Remee inherited the white ones.” \u00a0And, of course, w<\/span>hile both children are, technically, mixed race*, the headline to the story, “Black and White Twins,” presents them as separate races.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re so committed to racial differences that the mother actually speaks about their similarities as if it is surprising that twins of different “races” could possibly have anything in common.\u00a0 She says:<\/p>\n

There are some<\/em> similarities between them.\u00a0They both love apples and grapes, and their favourite television programme is Teletubbies.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is also a nice example of a U.S.-specific racial logic. This might not have been a story in\u00a0Brazil at all, where racial categories are determined more by color alone and less by who your parents are. \u00a0It is not uncommon there to have siblings of various racial designations.<\/p>\n

The twins, by the way, are seven now.<\/a><\/p>\n

* Of course, identifying them as mixed race\u00a0also re-inscribes racial categories in that you must believe in two or more racial categories to believe that it is possible to mix them.<\/p>\n

Originally posted in 2008.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flashback Friday. This remarkable newspaper\u00a0article\u00a0illustrates how skin color (which is real) gets\u00a0translated into categorical racial categories (which are not).\u00a0 The children in the images below — Kian and Remee Hodgson —\u00a0are fraternal twins born to two bi-racial parents: The story attempts to explain the biology: Skin colour is believed to be determined by up to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":63213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[664,1813,1811,285,1760,1761,1757,290,293],"class_list":["post-2493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-biology","tag-nation-brazil","tag-nation-britainthe-u-k","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans","tag-raceethnicity-multiracial","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans","tag-sciencetechnology","tag-social-construction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2008\/09\/2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2493"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63215,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions\/63215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}