Love is more than skin deep
A chat with Dickson and Cynthia Unoarumhi
by Carl Wieland and Don
Batten
Meet London’s remarkable Unoarumhi family—both parents are of typical
African appearance with dark skin, eyes and hair, while all three of their children
have white skin, blond hair and hazel-green eyes!
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Dickson and Cynthia Unoarumhi, with their daughter, Atinuke, and sons Osimo and
Ayonote [picture available only in Creation magazine]. Both parents were
born in Nigeria, and have a long African ancestry. All three children are fully
their own biological offspring. |
Each of the children happens to have inherited a gene for a form of albinism (see
What is albinism?) from each parent.
When two such genes pair in the offspring, the result is a very low production of
the brown-black pigment, melanin. Melanin is found in the skin, eyes and hair of
all ‘races’ in various amounts, leading to different expressions of
the same basic colour.1
What is albinism?
This is an inherited condition in which the production of melanin (the brown-black
pigment, responsible for ‘suntan’) is impaired.
All groups of humans naturally have melanin in their skin, eyes and hair. It can
only happen when each parent carries a copy of a defective gene for melanin production.
We all carry hundreds of such inherited mistakes—mutations. At each
generation, genetic information is copied; mutations are copying errors, which are
then passed on.
Down the line, when there is another copying error, it is added to that one, and
so these mistakes accumulate.
We don’t normally show the mutations we carry, unless we inherit the same
mistake from both parents. Thus, in the family shown here, the parents do not themselves
have any effects from carrying the albinism gene; the remaining copy of the unaffected
gene is able to instruct the body’s chemical factories tO make the pigment
as normal.
The skin of those who have albinism is extremely prone to burning and damage from
sunlight. There may be associated visual problems, including an intolerance to bright
light and astigmatism.
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The chances of one parent carrying such a gene are small. The chance of marrying
someone carrying the same gene is even more remote. Even then, only one in four
of their offspring on average should have albinism. Medical experts have reckoned
the odds against three children being born with this genetic combination at around
five million to one.
When we spoke to Cynthia and Dickson by phone at their home, we found them to be
a delightful Christian couple. Dickson, a computer engineer, handed us over to his
wife as he left for work.
Cynthia, a financial administrator, had just been told their ‘world first’
situation would feature in the Guinness Book of Records.
She confirmed that they had experienced racism, especially with the children. Even
when she had only her first white child, people would frequently hassle her. She
often had to deal with hostility from strangers who assumed that it could not be
her own child, and resented it. She said, ‘It got so I didn’t even want
to go out anymore, but I’m more used to it all now.’
Asked about the worldwide media attention, Cynthia said she believed it was having
a good effect. A lot of the locals were now ‘at least trying to believe they
really are our own children.’
The Unoarumhis obviously love their children no less than any parent would, despite
the children’s skin colour looking different from their own. But then, they
have always been puzzled about why anyone would reject or look down upon another
human being on the basis of skin colour.
We had sent them articles from Creation,
showing how all people are closely related biologically; all have the same
skin anatomy under the microscope, all have melanin, etc. Also, articles showing
how evolutionism had promoted the idea that the ‘differences’ between
people must be substantial, since they are claimed to come from being separated
for long periods of time.
We said, ‘If people took the real history in Genesis as the basis for their
thinking, racism would have no logical basis, since we are all closely related.
In fact, science has now caught up with the Bible; people are so alike genetically,
that most scientists now consider the concept of races to be biologically meaningless.’
Cynthia replied, ‘Yes—we speak the same way, we eat the same way, we
laugh the same way, we do everything the same way. I don’t understand why
there has to be racism, because we are all human beings.’
Both the Unoarumhis grew up in a ‘church’ background in Nigeria, but
only became convinced, born-again believers years later. For Cynthia, this was while
she was still in Africa. Later, in the U.K., as she told us warmly, ‘I led
Dickson to the Lord.’
Neither of them believe that the statistically remarkable event which has catapulted
their family to fame was by ‘chance.’ They can already see how God is
using the publicity to break down the barriers of racism in their own area. Seeing
black and white skin in the one family like this makes it hard to sustain the belief
that the differences are other than trivial.
Another interesting point (for those wishing to hold to the ‘superiority’
of white skin) is that here, a change which has destroyed genetic information has
caused light skin instead of dark.2
Cynthia said that they were delighted at the positive effect their current situation
was having on many. ‘Skin colour doesn’t mean anything, we are all the
same in the eyes of God. I’m sure that God is trying to do something here
by giving us three, which has never happened before. God is trying to open
people’s eyes.’
Dickson and Cynthia want people to know that skin colour means nothing, that we
are all the same, just people. And they are convinced that all of us, as Adam’s
descendants, have equally rebelled against our holy Creator God. So all need to
be saved from His righteous judgment, only (by God’s grace) through faith
in the risen Lord Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty for sin with His own blood.
The warmth and acceptance they experience in their own church family is, for the
Unoarumhis, only a dim foretaste of an eternity in the re-created New Heaven and
New Earth, where death and sin (including racism), will be no more.
Notes
- The blue colour in eyes, for instance, is the result of light scattering
off of a smaller amount of melanin—there is no ‘blue pigment.’
Return to text.
- This is not the cause of the normal variation in shades of skin
colour. Return to text.
(Available in
Finnish)
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