To think it's wrong to say all people from a certain race look the same?

[pregahes]

Someone said this to me recently, AIBU or are they?

It's lazy thinking and bordering on racism.

Stereotyping an entire race by claiming they all look the same is not just ignorant but harmful in my opinion.

There is a scientific basis to recognition of your own relations being advantageous. I wonder if this applies to countries full of people that have similar roots and genetic makeup?

So it would be advantageous for me to recognise a cousin and therefore not accidentally procreate with them - but there is no advantage to needing to differentiate between people who are clearly genetically quite separated from me.

Apparently white people all look the same to other races too.

Also, just familiarity creates the ability to notice nuances in people faces, bodies and mannerisms. If I start a new job and there are, say, 4 girls all with ponytails, dark hair and a similar height - it takes me weeks to remember who is who.

It is ignorant to say 'they all look the same'. It is something else to understand our brains work the way they do in recognition of people and faces.

I used to live in China. My Chinese friends and colleagues couldn’t tell one grey-haired caucasian man from another,
one blonde caucasian female from another, etc. It was so funny seeing them approach people as if they knew them. It caused so much confusion.

I wouldn't say it out loud but I can't help if at first I think people look similar. A different race might meet two blonde haired white women with small features and think they look the same.

My DH and SD are both white British and get mixed up with people in films whatever race they are including same race as them.

I think that we have to remember that different people have different intellectual capacities and education levels.

Sometimes people who aren't accustomed to using language in a precise way lack the means to express themselves in such a way as to avoid saying things which could be perceived by some as racist.
However, the same sentiment, expressed in a more eloquent fashion, with add ons such as "to me" can make a big difference, but not everyone has the same abilities.

That's why I choose to not automatically think that someone who makes blunt statements such as " all look the same" to be purposefully hurtful, and as a mixed race person this is what makes me feel hurt or not, the underlying sentiment.
They are simply stating what they see or feel without an added level of reasoning or understanding.

I do agree that considering "others" as a homogeneous group rather than individuals problematic, but I also believe that this is to some extent how we have evolved and therefore have to accept that it takes time to alter people's perceptions.
In the meantime I might feel the need to add on extra information to a discussion , if someone talks in a very stereotypical way, but I don't automatically presume they are racist.

I remember an episode of The Good Wife where the entire case hinged on the scientifically proven fact that white people often can’t distinguish between black faces - I mean at first glance, not when you’ve been introduced and gotten to know each other better. So in this case, the witness had just got the wrong black person etc.

Africa is a continent of 54 countries, Ethiopia alone has more than 70 different ethnic groups, each with their own language, no two ethnic group from any country in Africa look alike.

That's because they've all had plastic surgery/heavy make-up to create a stereotypical beautiful look. Same with celebs all over the world. And girls all made-up the same way on a night out. No need to feel guilty.
Natural features are another story and very easy to tell apart.

💯 this

When I was at school in the 70s there wasn’t much diversity but the ones that were of Asian/African ancestry were easy to tell apart. I think this statement means that the person doesn’t take the time to look at people because they don’t care, therefore it is very racist.

5 years ago I would have said it was rascism but I now work in a fabulously multicultural hospital with a lot of Malaysian staff. I have never worked with or had friends from Malaysia before and at first found it so hard to tell them apart and have literally had to teach myself to differentiate between them! I don’t have any problem identifying other individuals.

My daughter likes a Korean band and they all genuinely do look the same to me. I can only tell them apart from their hair. I honestly don't know how that makes me racist.

If I see a group of blonde women with lip fillers and big fake lashes then I can't tell them apart. It's the same for a group of men with the same haircut and similar clothes. I think old white people look the same. Obviously I can recognise family, friends etc. I'm mixed race.

It doesn’t make you racist but people will tell you that you are.

I find it hard, but with many nationalities. I agree with @ShiteRider, many of the Caucasian white blonde girls in Ds1's 6th form looked the same, blonde hair, similar looking. I find huge groups of Thai or Korean groups hard to distinguish if I see them all posting quickly as a group. I think this is a valid point, and not racism at all.

Actually I think I have facial blindness.

Err, do you mean Malays? As opposed to Malaysians?
Unlike Thailand, Vietnam or most other SEA countries Malaysia is ethnically diverse. The majority race Malays are just over 50%, the next biggest ethnic group are the Chinese and the Indians.

https://www.malaysia.gov.my/portal/content/30114

They obviously all look very different. It would be very strange for a foreign place to have lots of Malaysian staff of a single ethnicity only. That doesn't happen even in Malaysia especially in hospitals which are a major source of employment!

As an aside I have Malaysian heritage (mixed race, it's complicated) and it always blows people's mind when I explain this. Not only are they confused by Malaysians being called Malaysians and not Malay (do they expect people from the Phillipines to be called Phils?) they are also mindblown at the ethnic diversity.

Chinese, Indians, Malays, Kadazan, Iban we are all Malaysians. And a lot of our holidays are public holidays. People are baffled that a single country can have Chinese New Year, Diwali, Vaisakhi, Christmas and Eid-Ul-Fitri off!

God I miss beautiful Malaysia.

I think you would have to be extraordinarily ignorant not to see the difference between a Somali woman and a Nigerian woman and a Kenyan women

Not if you live in an area with next to no diversity . I live in a big city and can often tell if someone is or Somali or Caribbean heritage. My DBs who live in places with next to no ethnic minorities, wouldn’t be able to. I can tell if someone is Chinese or Japanese and often if someone is North or South Asian. There’s a lot if African people I’d have no idea where their country of origin is though. And I’d struggle to tell if someone was Vietnamese, Korean or Thai. I don’t see any groups faces as a homogeneous whole so I can’t tell one face from another though.

I wonder if it’s the same with accents. I can tell an East coast of the USA accent apart from a West Coast one but the mass of states in between id not be able to differentiate. Same when I’m in Europe. I can’t tell a Berlin accent apart from a Frankfurt one or a Parisian from a Provencial accent. If you aren’t attuned or exposed to many accents, it can be difficult to tell the difference.

if someone says all South East Asians look the same then that is racist. If you say, I find it hard to tell someone’s heritage from their appearance, that’s different.

I think it's a bit like accents. Most people in the UK would be able to tell the Scouse accent and the Geordie accent were from different regions even if they struggled to identify them, just because they've grown up with awareness. Most Americans that were new to the country would just hear them both as an English accent.

Similarly, despite consuming so much American media, most Brits would struggle to pick out anything other than New York / Deep South accents despite there being loads of different accents in the USA.

However if you tried to say that all the accents sound the same, rather than you just can't tell the difference, you're being an idiot.

Even the word ‘race’ is problematic to me. It’s socially constructed. We are all humans (Homo sapiens). Within that there are variations of skin colour, eye colour, hair colour. ‘Race’ has been carefully constructed to justify imperialism, colonialism and slavery throughout history.

This is such a good analogy. Most British can’t tell the difference between a Aussie and a Kiwi accent. Even within New Zealand, there are regional accent differences. You pick up the differences by hearing more of it and become aware of what to listen for.

I would want to know the context in which it was said.

But it is factually correct that our brains find it hard to see the difference in facial features of other races. I don't think that fact is inherently racist.

General spoken communication in English language is often very imprecise and leaves out a lot. Unless the context/tone suggests otherwise, I'd just assume the "to me" part as being implicitly there.

I understand dangers of depersonalisation and dehumanisation, I just don't have that high expectations in normal communication situations.

You do realise they think similar about Caucasians, they all have big noses etc

When I would go swimming as a kid, I could only recognise my friends easily by their swimsuits. Everyone looked alike with their hair wet - it just looks dark and straight. I was used to a much greater variation in hair colour and texture.

I grew up in an entirely white community. It did take me a while to learn to tell black people apart when I was an adult and lived in a more diverse city. Then, later, I moved to San Francisco and had to get used to telling East Asian people apart.

I have read that most races find people of other races hard to tell apart.

It’s been studied that different groups use different cues to differentiate individuals. The cues that I grew up using work for the mix of races in the area where I grew up. My facial markers tend to focus on hair and eye color and even hairstyle. Those are less effective with different mixes of presentation. The same is true for people who grow up in other regions. They have other key features that they use as distinguishing characteristics, features that often do not follow the same patterns of variation in other races and ethnicities.