Mistaken for another Indian colleague

[GreenEggsAndShame]

Not the first time this has happened but I'm one of 2 Indian women in my office and there are colleagues who can't tell us apart. We look very different, I'm slight built she's not. Very different facial features and she has dyed brown hair. Im not sure how to react to this? Do I correct and shrug it off? What else can I do or say?

I went on a school trip to Japan and all the Japanese students thought all the white students looked identical!
I also got told I looked like any and every white female popstar according to them.

it’s a race thing but not a racist thing. Often our brains find it harder to distinguish people of other races to our own

Some of us really do struggle to remember faces. I can't tell you how many times I've had to apologise for getting people muddled up, not recognising people at all and getting names muddled up.

I can only assume the people who think it's lazy find it easy to recognise people.

Sorry, I don't understand. Are we only supposed to reply if we're SE Asian?

When I was about 10, my dad used to confused me with my friend when we played outside because we had same length/ colour hair. She was a year older and about a head taller than me ))))

Sorry I expect most people have come through from active as well.

it happens... I am terrible with names. I called a colleague (there were two of us that worked very close together and were almost with each other all day every day and we also had lunch together most days) by the wrong name for SIX months. he never corrected me bless him. too polite. I was soooo mortified when I realised.

I am Asian, he was white.

Lucky for you, I don't work in your office. I have ADHD and no facial recognition, couldn't even point out my next door neighbour.
I also have terrible short term memory so I'd have to ask your name many times before I remembered it and if it was a name I'd never heard of I'd probably never remember it.
Thankfully I don't work because I'm a nightmare at work.

I work in a school. One of the other staff members is also middle-aged, curly haired and short. Her name starts with the same letter as mine. The kids are constantly mixing us up. Is this ageist? Probably not.

I have confused blonde people with long hair who started about the same time and were in a different team. I think it’s probably about coding, memory and recall rather than racism.

eg, Jo, physio therapist, blonde & thin gets confused with Jenny, physio, blonde and thin but not Penny, physio, thin but with dark curly hair.

FFS even when posting in the South Asian page so, you know, OP can speak to others who can relate, you have the usual bombardment of posters denying and defending OP’s experience.

This is interesting! Do you have a link to more info? I grew up until 4 in a place with only white people, never saw anyone with brown or black skin. (I'm white, despite my username!) I really struggle to remember or tell black or Asian people apart, takes me many goes to get it right and it's embarrassing so I wonder if this is why?

I'm sorry, that sounds frustrating. Faceblindness is a genuine condition, it's not necessarily laziness or racism. But equally, it could well be. I guess you'd build up a picture based on their other actions too.

I'm faceblind and spend a lot of my life trying to figure out who people are, or apologising for failing to recognise them. I tell people apart by hairstyle, beard, race, clothing, gait, accent, body shape... If someone changes their style, or I bump into them out of context, then I'll often fail to recognise them.

Thank you! It's very annoying that this is on South Asian Mumsnetters but people are not respecting this.

I didn't know there were different threads for different races, I'll stick to my own races threads then.

@Alcemeg Well yes, one of the reasons there are other specific groups eg Jewish Mumnetters and Black Mumsnetters.

And being sarcastic about the existence of specific threads for diff groups of people. In addition to the South Asian one, there's also Black Mumsnetters and Jewish Mumsnetters. But people find it hard to respect these spaces, and worse question the need for them. @MNHQ

You do realise this is very different?

Oh go do one.

Do you show the same level of disrespect to the Jewish MNers page or is your disdain limited to those who are brown?

Don’t be a twat. (Not you OP, the idiot looking for the whitemumsnet board)

Think of it as a shiboleth to point out to you the wallies in your office.

They're being rude so a hard Paddington stare would not go amiss. Roll your eyes and tut to yourself to make yourself feel better. If the hint isn't taken try getting a few names wrong yourself. Remember that stupidity is a incurable condition.

Sorry, I honestly didn't know no one else was allowed in!

Blimey, talk about generalising!
I teach in a school with 95% ethnic minorities from all over Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. I can assure you that the children from African countries look very different depending on which country they or their parents originate from. Girls from Nigeria tend to look very different to those from, say Somalia. Lots of the children from Pakistan have strikingly blue/grey eyes. Children from Hungary look different from those from Lithuania.
Clearly a lot depends on their parent and grandparents ancestry - we have a couple of Hungarian children who have deep red hair - they are not related.

As we have so few white children youd think Id remember their names easily, but interestingly, most of those children are related and are blonde haired / blue eyed. I have been known to get their names muddled up.

I really struggle with this and am hugely embarrassed by it. It certainly isn't laziness for me. If anything I work hard at trying to not do it but the more I try the more I am likely to confuse people who may be quite different in many ways but who have a similar feature - usually hairstyle. Bald men are a nightmare for me. And blond little girls!

It was actually a contributing factor in me leaving my last job for a much smaller organization. No answers for you but apologies really. I know it's not nice for you.

No worries x And thank you for advocating x