Mother Of Rare Biracial Twins Encourages People To ‘Love Everyone Equal’

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9-month-old twin sisters Kalani and Jarani Dean often get noticed when they go out, and it’s it’s not only because they’re so adorable.

Kalani has fair skin just like her mother, who is white, and Jarani has brown skin like her dad, who is black. Their mom, Whitney Meyer, told TODAY that said she considers the girls a symbol against racism and a sign to “love everyone equal.”

“You can’t look at one and not love them both,” she said.

 “They’re the same girl, just different colors.”

The Mother spoke about the day the twins were born, saying:

“Kalani was as white as can be. I was just in denial, because you know the odds of this?” she said. “I would never think I would have a black and white twin. That’s why I asked if she was albino, because she was just so white.”

Tomas Dean, Meyer’s boyfriend and the father of the twins, was equally surprised.

“I was like, ‘Yeah, she’s a little light,’ but I thought maybe babies are that way when they’re first born. But then a couple of minutes later, her sister came out a little darker,” he said. “In a million years, I never thought I’d have a girl with blue eyes. I didn’t think I could pull that one off!”

The girls are often dressed in matching outfits.

“They look alike in their smiles, but I have to dress them the same because nobody believes that they are twins. I mean, nobody,” she said.

According to the parents, Kalani is more energetic and, after learning to crawl recently, loves to explore. Jarani is more relaxed and can sit still for a while.

“She’s the chunky one. She likes to be held and cuddled more than Lani,” said Meyer.

It’s rather unusual for biracial siblings, particularly twins, to look as different as Kalani and Jarani.  There are so many genes which control skin tone and eye color, that even scientists don’t even know all the potential ways they can interact.

“The physical traits you can see in a person are just a very small sliver of the genetic diversity across human populations,” said Dr. Bryce Mendelsohn, a medical geneticist at the University of California, San Francisco.

“A lot of times we only focus on the things our eyes can see, but what we see is a tiny tip of the iceberg of the actual genetic diversity in everyone.”