Can Albino Parents Have a Black Child?

96885 In this post, I addressed the question of whether a black father can produce an albino child. This is fast becoming my #2 most-visited post of all time, second only to the one on Arthur Blessit's divorce, which continues to pull in hits just about every day, 2 years after I posted it.

Today, for the benefit of my new readers, I address another question which pulls viewers to my blog:

Can albino parents have a black child?

This possibility is an interesting one. An albino woman can actually have an all-white or an all-black child, or several of both. There's a fifty-fifty chance that a black man with one albino gene and a "black" woman with two albino genes (i.e., an albino woman) will have one a child like the mother, or one like the father. Although I'm not aware of any specific cases, this is probably not all that uncommon in Tanzania, where the "black" albino population is greater than anywhere else and many albino women have "black" (half-albino) children.

But even stranger things are possible. A white albino, for example, can marry a black albino, and have all albino children. These in turn will all carry the information for black skin, however unexpressed, and can themselves have brown children, even if their mates are white.

I'm really not all that interested in this myself. Albinism is a genetic defect I wouldn't wish on anyone, but it's a fact of life that is never likely to be eradicated--nor to I encourage anyone to try it.  But as long as the question continues to draw people to my blog, I though I'd give them the information they're obviously seeking.