Mistaken identity and race

[Furchesterbaby]

I know this might be a sensitive subject. I'm genuinely not wanting to cause any offence but it's something that I've wondered and wouldn't exactly feel able to speak about.

I work for a very large organisation, it's very multicultural. On a number of occasions over the years there have been incidents where two people that are black have been mixed up with one another, and it's turned quite heated and was deemed a race issue. I.e them accusing people of thinking all black people look the same.

One example was there were two guys, both were black, both had long dreads, very often new people would get them confused with one another. They were very similar in that they were the same height, both wore glasses, I knew them apart, but could see how a new person might get confused. One of the men would get very angry and once in a training session had a big rant about it and it being racist. The most significant thing in all of it was that both men had the same, fairly unusual first name, so it really could have been just mixed up surnames.

I've seen similar over the years and it's always deemed racial ignorance. It happened a few weeks ago where a young trainee was sent to ask a question, she approached the wrong person and was snapped at "I'm not X, X is the other black person".

The thing is, over the years I've regularly been mistaken for other women with the same hair colour. I worked on a team for many years with another woman, we were both red but the similarities ended there, yet we were always mixed up. There's a lady on my team now and we are the same height, hair and both wear glasses, people are always coming up to me asking if I'm this other person.

My son gets mixed up with a child at school, another boy until teachers get to know them.

So my question is aibu to think that this isn't about race?

I need to say, I'm not denying the racism and stereotyping goes on even now. I'm not trying to pretend it doesn't happen or that it's not an issue anymore. I'm not going to pretend that as a white person I can fully understand how it is to be discriminated against because of my colour. I've literally just felt at times that these things weren't about that, but I accept if there's something where I'm missing the point.

I have also been mistaken for a colleague, I don't feel we look alike at all, but we started at the same time and have a similar function, the person that addressed me as her doesn't see us very often in person either.

I didn't say anything, I just let them bumble on and then laughed about it with my colleague later.

So, mistaken identity isn't always about cross-race, but it could be- our brains produce lots of errors all the time.

I also know people with prosopagnosia where they can't recognize faces at all (perhaps unless in context) which is a whole other level of workplace stress- for them at least.

Maybe "interesting" is the wrong word for that article I linked. I can't think of the right one though. The point that made me smile was the fact that other staff members seemed to have no difficulty in distinguishing between the 4 blond men with a short-back-and-sides haircut called Tom...

I am in a quiet corner of the UK with few incomers.

There are lots of similar looking types.

In the last two days I have been mistaken in identifying two close acquaintances. In fact one was a lookalike of my brother in law!

A few years back I cut the wrong school photo from the paper. A child in a parallel class looked just like my son in his broad detail.

Let's temporarily put a pause on the "is it racist".

Can we stop and consider the feelings of the people at the receiving end of the name "mix up"??

People accept that we all occasionally suffer from memory lapses and can't remember everybody's name.

Usually you say, I'm so sorry I can't remember your name or I'm really bad at remembering names. No reasonable person would be offended by this.

But how would you feel if you was regularly at the receiving end of this treatment of your name being forgotten, being called by the name of the other person who isn't your identical twin or a relative, and you actually don't look anything like the other person?

Diminishes the person at the receiving end of this treatment sense of self-worth and says they're not important enough for people to try and remember their name.

I love the way Samuel L Jackson calls out this reporter on confusing him with Laurence Fishburn (and he looks nothing like him!!).

It's true that people find it harder to distinguish between people of a different racial group. Thing is, if you are white you aren't likely to to be disadvantaged because you have been mistaken for others in your racial group. So saying but it happens to white people too is a bit like saying you don't think racial inequality is all that relevant. I'm sure that I'd find it bloody annoying to hear how those with racial privilege over me couldn't really see what the big deal was, just as I find it annoying when some bloke explains to me how sex discrimination is a thing of the past

I have never mistaken Samuel L Jackson for Laurence Fishburne though.

My thought on reading the op was just that I could easily be accused of racism as I am obviously not a good observer.

Here's my experience.
I'm slim, 50ish with shoulder length curly hair that's visibly silver at the temples. I'm mixed race (Asian/white). In the last fortnight I have been mistaken for 2 other colleagues.
One is Indian with darker skin, a bigger build than me and early 20s- as she's new it's the first time it's happened.
My other so called doppelgänger is also mixed race so similar colouring to me but is early 30s, notably taller with much longer hair. She is also 6 months pregnant. We get mistaken for one another at least once a week.
None of us look alike facially or in any other way apart from being brown skinned women.

I have a sister from my mums second marriage. She's white. We look more alike facially than my sister who has the same two parents as me as we take after mum. But I introduce her as my sister and get quizzical looks before they realise I'm not joking.

I'm used to it all after so long but yes, it's boring and I can see why people get pissed off.

Of course it's about race. In a large organisation where there are few BME staff, two guys who are black are more likely to be confused as they have an obvious and distinctive aspect of their appearance in common. That doesn't mean it's "racist" though.

If there were two men with the same unusual name, hair colour, dreadlocks and glasses who happened to be white, I'm sure people would confuse them too. That they are both black will reinforce this tendency significantly, with no malice on the part of their colleagues.

I think there have been some really interesting comment on this thread, so thanks to the pp for informing and educating me.

It seems akin to the "daily microaggressions" of everyday sexism. Maybe that's a more relateable way to understand it? Being told to "smile, love" once is annoying but isolated. Being told every day by different people just gets on your tits.

I have terrible facial recall and have to work hard to remember faces and names. Very trivial example - I'm white but I always mix up Ryan Gosling and Ryan Reynolds because they're both actors, fair complexion, good looking and a similar age. If I see one on their own, I have to think - are they the one that was in lala land or the one in the bt advert.

I like seoulsurvivor's response - this example is race related, but from a white person's perspective it isn't necessarily racist, just thoughtless, insensitive and rude. Unless someone uses a "well, all you look the same to me" excuse, then you know that person is a twat.

Gallavich - I don't see where you thought I said black people shouldn't find it aggressive?

Besides which - non-Koreans ARE a discriminated against group in Korea. Can I say it's to the same extent as black people in the UK? No, because the issues are very different. But non-Koreans do very often get treated worse than Koreans.

I've noticed this with family resemblances too. If a child has similar hair to a parent then people often say they look alike even if facially they're more like the other person.

So true. I have light brown hair and blue-ish eyes (actually more grey green, but eh...). Same as my dad's... People were always saying that I looked just like my father (quite difficult for me, seeing as my father behaved like a dick back then...). But facially I actually do look much more like my mother...

Anyhow, yes, I've been mistaken for an other girl once (and got slapped for it, was awesome....) and a few times abroad (in Asia, interestingly).

I don't think it's racism always racism (I'm sure it is on some occasions.... But in this case?). If anything it's ignorance/bias or genuine inexperience with POC.

And in this case (same hairstyle, sme heigh, same first name, both wear glasses etc...). Tbh, I think two white men with those same charcteristics may get mistaken for each other as well?

But it's also possible that the man who got so angry has experienced this very often. In cases where no, the person he was getting mistaken for did not lhave the same hair, glasses, height and first name... Which is maybe why he got so angry?

That was supposed to be a quote:
I've noticed this with family resemblances too. If a child has similar hair to a parent then people often say they look alike even if facially they're more like the other person.

Unfortunately I could easily do this as i have huge issues with recalling people's faces- and names - and so I tend to remember people by descriptors like hair colour, style, height, glasses. By the sound of it I would easily mix these guys up.

My mum in law is one of 5 sisters. Facially they're not that similar - except for the two who are twins - but they are all fairly short ladies with grey hair and glasses with an age range of about 10 years. They're all the same race as me but it's still taken me a decade to be able to distinguish them.

Yes the two Ryans! I think that sharing the same names doesn't help which shows there is more than visual recognition going on too.

I wouldn't stand a chance! I often get two people with the same hair colour (or even wearing similar clothes) mixed up because I live in a world of my own half the time don't notice things or people around me when I am concentrating on something else. I often rely on voices to identify people. Or the way they walk, if they are approaching me. For whatever reason I find these more identifying.

However, as it is a recognised phenomenon that we find it easier to identify individuals from our own ethnic background than others, it isn't necessarily racist - though I can see how it might pisse someone off if it happened repeatedly.

It's In-Group Bias. People tend to recognise faces from "their" own group better than those outwith this group. It's not confined to race; it's been shown to apply to gender and age amongst others. To say it's racist is massively simplistic.

Do you have prosopagnosia Challenged?

There are tests online that could give you an idea about whether you do or not.

Sorry Soeul - I read the thread backwards from my comment and didn't notice that you have this difficulty, too.

Seoulsurvivor I can totally get what you're saying.

I didn't know that we find it easier to distinguish people from our own ethnic backgrounds.

Personally I don't think I have any problems telling people apart so I'm off to find an online test.

Why do you need an online test?

Because I'm interested to see if I unknowingly do something.

When I lived in a small village in West Africa I did initially find it harder than usual to tell people apart (I'm not great with faces anyway). I also discovered that it worked both ways - the locals had little experience of white people and were unable to distinguish between the white friends and colleagues who visited me. I was regularly passed messages to say X was waiting for me only to find out it was Y, X or occasionally a complete stranger who'd wandered in and was assumed to be my friend.

It is racism, albeit probably unconscious but it is. DP is mixed race but people (including me initially) assume he is black with no white heritage because of his appearance. I have been with him on separate occasions when he has been told he looks like dizzy rascal, David haye, Lenny Henry and more. He looks nothing like any of them, and they look nothing alike so the obvious conclusion is that white people think all black people look the same. He has also on numerous occasions been asked if he has any drugs to sell or does he know where to buy weed, because he isn't white, and none of the people who asked even seemed ashamed even when he challenged them asking if they assumed he would have drugs because he is a young black (to them) man?

Black people from Nigeria look different to those from Ghana and those from Ethiopia in that they often share certain characteristics, but white people are more likely to just categorise black people as just 'black' rather than referring to their actual heritage like you would with a white person, you would probably say they were German or Dutch or Polish, this distinction is not often used by white people when talking about black people, they are lumped together as one entity.