Like many moms, Sophia Blake anticipated that her daughter Tiara would resemble her more than just superficially when she gave birth to her. Tiara’s father, 60-year-old former sales executive Christopher Perkins, is white, but at least they anticipated that their daughter would be a mix of the two races. So when Tiara was born with white skin and blue eyes, they were surprised. They believed that as Tiara grew older, her skin and hair would become darker. Instead, it remained the same, and their daughter developed into a lovely young lady with white skin and blue eyes.
Doctors say the chance for Tiara, 4, to have white skin like her father’s is a staggering one in a million. But the fact that mother and daughter don’t look alike is causing a lot of trouble because people don’t even believe they are related. Worse still, Miss Blake, 45, has a daughter Donchae, 17, from a previous relationship with a black man and she is black like her mother.
Ms Blake, a marketing manager from Selly Oak, Birmingham, said: “I can’t go down the road with Tiara without anyone commenting. People simply don’t believe Tiara is my little girl because she looks so different. When she was very young, I didn’t really mind. But when Tiara grew up, it became a problem.”
The issue now is that Tiara has a black family but has a white appearance. Before I had Tiara, I didn’t understand how all of us self-identified as white or black. She occasionally questioned, “Why don’t we look like mom?” She was really perplexed when I tried to explain that she was biracial. Miss Blake, who has a strained relationship with the father of her kid, anticipates giving birth to a child with dark skin and shaggy hair.
She said: ‘Black is usually dominant and my family, from Jamaica, is very black. But at least I think Tiara will be a mix of Christopher and me.’
I actually asked the midwife, “Is the baby mine,” since I was so astonished when she was born. I was in awe of her blue eyes and pale appearance. The doctors said that there was a one in a million chance that Tiara was that white and that it was possible that my family carried a dormant white gene up to this point. Mother and daughter have since become a focal point wherever they go. I’ve heard about white children born to black moms, but the child still had hair and traits that Tiara didn’t have, remarked Miss Blake. Her hair is naturally long and straight. I’m done having to explain that she is my daughter. But even the physician and the instructor appeared perplexed. For example, when I recently went to the doctor’s office, the GP wanted to check if I was a social worker or Tiara’s guardian.
When I told him sternly that I was Tiara’s mother, he was extremely embarrassed and apologized profusely but it always happens. One recent setback was when Tiara started school. ‘When Tiara ran out of class and yelled “mom” at me, I knew mothers who didn’t know what I was thinking – that Tiara had to be adopted. And the situation was even clearer when I was hanging out with my mother, my other daughter Donchae and Tiara because the fact that we are all dark-skinned shows how white my mother is.
Even so, Ms Blake – who decided to speak out to raise awareness that children of mixed race can also be very white or very black – says she and Tiara are similar in personality. We are both extroverted, independent with a quirky sense of humour. And once people get to know us well, they say we are very similar!’
She added: ‘And maybe her mother, I’m biased but I think she’s very beautiful and I’m so proud.’
