Number of words: 847<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WHEN AMANDA WANKLIN and Michael Biggs fell in love, they \u201cdidn\u2019t give a toss\u201d about the challenges they might face as a biracial couple, Amanda says. \u201cWhat was more important was what we wanted together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They settled down in Birmingham, England, eager to start a family. On July 3, 2006, Amanda gave birth to fraternal twin girls, and the ecstatic parents gave their daughters intertwined names: One would be Millie Marcia Madge Biggs, the other Marcia Millie Madge Biggs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This story helps launch a series about racial, ethnic, and religious groups and their changing roles in 21st-century life. The series runs through 2018 and will include coverage of Muslims, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though Millie and Marcia are just 11, they understand racism\u2014and the best way to combat it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From a young age the girls had similar features but very different color schemes. Marcia had light brown hair and fair skin like her English-born mother. Millie had black hair and brown skin like her father, who\u2019s of Jamaican descent. \u201cWe never worried about it; we just accepted it,\u201d Michael says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen they were first born,\u201d Amanda recalls, \u201cI would be pushing them in the pram, and people would look at me and then look at my one daughter and then look at my other daughter. And then I\u2019d get asked the question: \u2018Are they twins?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c\u2018But one\u2019s white and one\u2019s black.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes. It\u2019s genes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Michael Biggs sees a clear family resemblance in his twin daughters, Marcia (left) and Millie: \u201cThey both have my nose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People who commented on the girls weren\u2019t openly hostile or judgmental\u2014just very curious, Amanda says. And then \u201cas time went on, people just saw the beauty in them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amanda, who works as a home-care aide, calls Millie and Marcia her \u201cone in a million\u201d miracle. But it\u2019s not that rare that a biracial couple would have fraternal twins who each look more like one parent than the other, says statistical geneticist Alicia Martin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fraternal twins account for about one in 100 births. When a biracial couple has fraternal twins, the traits that emerge in each child depend on numerous variables, including \u201cwhere the parents\u2019 ancestors are from and complex pigment genetics,\u201d says Martin, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And research on skin color is further complicated by a history of \u201cstudy biases that mean we know more about what makes lighter skin light than what makes darker skin dark,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In genetic terms, skin color \u201cis not a binary trait\u201d with only two possibilities, Martin notes. \u201cIt\u2019s a quantitative trait, and everyone has some gradient on this spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Historically, when humans have drawn lines of identity\u2014separating Us from Them\u2014they\u2019ve often relied on skin color as a proxy for race. But the 21st-century understanding of human genetics tells us that the whole idea of race is a human invention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Modern science confirms \u201cthat the visible differences between peoples are accidents of history\u201d\u2014the result of mutations, migrations, natural selection, the isolation of some populations, and interbreeding among others, writes science journalist Elizabeth Kolbert. They are not racial differences because the very concept of race\u2014to quote DNA-sequencing pioneer Craig Venter\u2014\u201chas no genetic or scientific basis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yet 50 years after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., racial identity has reemerged as a fundamental dividing line in our world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019re devoting the April issue of National Geographic to the complicated issue of race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Race Issue includes a story about how scientific ideas of race originated, a letter from our editor exploring National Geographic\u2019s own checkered history on race, and a video-driven feature documenting the phenomenon of black men getting stopped by police while driving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This month\u2019s issue is just a starting point. We\u2019re doing stories on the evolving identities of key ethnic, religious, and racial groups throughout 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The twins, for their part, understand quite clearly what racism is. \u201cRacism is where somebody judges you by your colour and not by your actual self,\u201d Millie says. Marcia describes racism as \u201ca negative thing, because it can hurt people\u2019s feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Michael, who owns an auto-repair business, says he\u2019s faced hostility at times because of the color of his skin. He vividly recalls an episode from his youth when a car full of men sped by and shouted slurs at him and his brothers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s a different time now,\u201d Michael says. Neither he nor Amanda has ever witnessed racist behavior toward the girls. And both Millie and Marcia say that they\u2019ve never sensed racism when people note the contrast in their looks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen people see us, they think that we\u2019re just best friends,\u201d Marcia says. \u201cWhen they learn that we\u2019re twins, they\u2019re kind of shocked because one\u2019s black and one\u2019s white.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when the twins are asked about their differences, they mention something else entirely. \u201cMillie likes things that are girlie. She likes pink and all of that,\u201d Marcia says. \u201cI don\u2019t like the color pink; I\u2019m a tomboy. People are made how they are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n