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?

My name starts with A

A colleague's name starts with A

I get called her name

Read some of the responses but got quickly annoyed that so many just brush it off or think it’s ok cuz they do it too.

anyway, I came to say.. it’s not ok. Call it out.
have a look at microaggressions and get your HR team to do some training on it. (Might feel a bit OTT, but it’s not)

great video on YouTube re microaggressions which you may relate to, I did. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hDd3bzA7450

clearly this bothers you as you’re posting about it, call it out. Don’t let people disrespect you in this way. I would.

I think asking a question is a good way to deal with these incidents.

You can ask 'why do you confuse me with x?' or similar simple question and then just wait.

You are not accusing anyone of anything - I would expect any opinion you have about why will be rejected - but neither are you just laughing along with it.

Don't take on any responsibility for it feeling awkward. That's not your problem IMO.

I am terrible with recognising people in general, but I try to be very very careful about referring to people by name and try very hard to recognise people. In my first job I got 3 men i worked with confused all the time, could not tell them apart for months. They were all white, one was tall, one had a beard and was fairish, one had a beard and red hair. It was mortifying. I knew they were completely different looking people to everyone else, like it wouldn’t be possible to mix them up, except that I just couldn’t work out which was which except on paper until they finally made their way into the facial recognition part of my brain, and then I can recognise people.
I also cannot pick identical twins. So I’m really sorry it happens to you, I totally appreciate race is a factor, but I do not know how you can help some people. You should feel free to point it out though as i understand it is insulting, and that might help people identify you too.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00208/full#:~:text=The%20own%2Drace%20bias%20(ORB%3B%20also%20known%20as%20the,et%20al.%2C%202009).

It’s a field in constant review as neural function mapping continues. There are lots of citations within this article if you want to research further.

So many people are writing as if 'races' are real, and different like apples and oranges. It's worrying how far racialised pseudoscience has crept back. South Asia is fantastically diverse, a place of travellers and many wars. Being creamish to brownish doesn't mean much. There were Indo-Greek dynasties, long-settled Baghdadi Jewish communities, people from the ancient sea trade with the east coast of Africa, unacknowledged or acknowledged British mixed...all sorts! Unless average skin colour trumps every other feature, nobody is going to mistake a Nepalese for a Kashmiri? tl;dr Yes, your colleagues are showing bias.

I think it’s probably unintentional, I’m south asian and I have had to think very carefully before I’ve used someones name before. I currently live in a very diverse place, I struggled initially with Phillipino ladies or north african women with similar curly hair, because for some reason I use hair as an identifier and tend to just glance at people rather than really look at them. I have got a lot better at it (but it did take some effort initially, it involves a lot of muttering names over and over under my breath). It’s annoying though. I think if it matters to you then you will make an effort to get it right.

Reading this I’m thankful DD is growing up in an environment with a big mix of people, she should be better at identifying people than I am.

So many posters falling over themselves to deny that it could possibly be racism and dismiss the OP’s feelings and experience.

My Chinese friend thinks all white people look the same.
I think when you grow up surrounded by a particular race you become more atune to the small (or not so small) variances in the facial features of that race

This. Let's all stay off this board unless we're South East Asian and have direct experience. And that goes for me too 😂
OP I'm sorry you've had so many racism deniers on here.

Apologies South Asian* - on my phone and can't edit. Also can't read 🤦🏻‍♀️

I totally get this, but I don't think that's what's going on here.

The OP is a completely different build to the other woman and they work in different departments.

@bungletru It's not necessarily microaggression. OP will have to make her own judgement on that.

I grew up in a very white community. When I moved to a big city, I had so much trouble processing faces of peole from racial groups that I hadn't spent a lot of time with. Confusing people with each other was utterly mortifying. I had to work very hard for a very long time in order to rewire my brain.

Yes, on my mobile I can’t actually see the board only the thread title.

I’m in a minority of women in my area of work and find people frequently make slips like this. I was on the phone to one of my staff yesterday and he said ‘I’ll ask GHSP’ and I said ‘I am GHSP!’, and he said ‘oh sorry, I meant other-female-in-office. It is annoying. We look nothing alike, we just fall into the same place in the mental filing cabinet of ‘female’ whereas the men are distinguished by role, personality, appearance etc.

When people are sitting down, it’s much harder to distinguish height and build.

Is it more difficult to distinguish hair colours then because they have different ones and OP said she and other colleague Indian not that they’re brown skinned or even have the same colour skin. India is as varied as the whole of Eurasia when it comes to skin colour. So these white apologist excuses really need to stop

It is racist OP, I am sorry this is happening.

For those doubting it is racism you should read Claudia Rankines 'Citizen'. In the very first few pages it addresses this very issue, from a black American perspective.

Hands up - I'm not Asian but wanted to share a similar experience.

A black colleague recently mixed me up with another woman who is vaguely like me in that we are both white with brown hair but different builds, accents, eye colour and hair length and texture. It wasn't just the wrong name, she was giving me her work too.

She was incredibly apologetic when she realised and admitted it was because she grew up in a country with very few white people and finds it hard to tell the difference. Her candour and genuine apology were appreciated and it's something we can laugh about now.

I can imagine your colleagues not having the honesty to do that is hurtful and laughing it off is more for their comfort than yours.

What? You don't care enough about your colleagues to get their names right?

why though? Do you go on the Childfree board if you have DC and thrust your opinions down their throats? or the Jewish Mn board?
And she HAS posted in the S Asian group. For a reason.

As pp said, S Asia is v diverse. I am from Southern India and I look completely different to a North Indian. It's like confusing an Italian with a Scot, because that is how big and diverse India is.

Do you go on the Childfree board if you have DC and thrust your opinions down their throats?

Sadly, there are several parents who do this - which is why we’re trying to get the Childfree board removed from active. I’m sorry you’ve got a similar problem here.

I don't mind if people come on here by accident. That can certainly happen. But please don't question why we need a separate board, once you are told.

As for segregation, I can't count the times I have been placed next to the other Indian woman in the office at team lunches because " you will want to be next to each other." No, actually. We don't have that much in common, and I am quite capable of talking about non-desi stuff.

@GreenEggsAndShame I am really sorry this is happening to you, it's boring and tiring and hurtful.

I have mixed SA heritage and i get it. There is a casual racism inherent in it, however much all the white people on here seek to diminish it and say they have had the same experience. It is different because there is a power dynamic involved and you are racially othered and minoritised in that space.

I have had the same - i work closely with a colleague who has the same heritage as me - she couldn't actually look more different- but we are the brown ladies - our names are regularly swapped in emails and in person and people, even close colleagues seem to think we are interchangeable - have the same specialisms, opinions, interests etc. It is such a joy when someone takes the care to ask how to say your name and to remember, and spell it right.

I see it play out all time though - the assumption that there is a homogeneity in all non-white others.

For those who don't agree or don't see this behaviour as having a racist element, I would really really encourage you to read Layla Saad's "Me and White Supremacy" laylafsaad.com/

Your experience is not the experience of the OP and this is one of hundreds of daily behaviours that happen over a lifetime of being a person of colour. Sometimes its too much, so when you say - oh its normal, get over it, don't be sensitive- do try and consider the constant drip drip drip of behaviour like this. And yes not every person of colour deals with it or feels it in the same way, or even feels the same every day, but sometimes they do and it's entirely valid.