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

This all the time.

You must have had an arranged marriage? No, I didn't.
You must live with your MIL? No, I don't.
You must love Bollywood. No, I don't.

It's a bit like assuming all Americans carry guns.

It's trending in Active so people will reply without noticing the topic section.

Seriously guys? What would you say if a female executive was complaining about being mistaken for being the secretary constantly, and men kept defending it saying no harm intended?

Stop minimising OP’s experiences when you have different privileges.

there are people, like me, who genuinely find it hard to remember and distinguish faces. It’s not deliberate and it’s actually quite embarrassing and a bit of a social disability.

secondly, people learn to distinguish the features of the race(s) they grew up around. They find it harder with people from other races. People actually don’t look that different from each other, you do have to learn how to tell them apart. Just like sheep can tell each other apart but we can’t tell them apart!

Oh do go away.

People here are minimising your experience. Oh I have problems remembering faces, people don’t pay attention, blah blah

GreenEggs has been in the company for TWO YEARS! This is definitely a micro aggression.

I would definitely call them out or if they are standing right in front of you ignore them until they get your name right.

What do you think would happen if the OaP said it was racism. People would not learn to remember her name. They would learn not to approach the OP at all and would advise others to steer clear of her. I have seen this happen.

I’m south Asian and I don’t think it necessarily is racist. I’ve had encounters where people have mixed me up with other Asian women and sometimes it has felt like they have pegged us both as brown and not made an effort and sometimes it feels like a genuine mistake.

I am also forever muddling up small blonde boys at work so can see how it’s done without any malicious intent.

I’m tall my colleague is short. She is quite plump, I’m an average build. We both have blond shoulder length hair and are middle aged, and wear reading glasses. We are both quite smiley.
She has a very pronounced northern accent, I don’t.
I despair that we are often confused with each other.
I had a good telling off from a client earlier this week who assumed that I was my colleague, and would not accept that they were mistaken.
I sympathise with you, it’s absolutely astounding and infuriating that people can be so unobservant.

@Trenda

Its just folk who cant be bothered to concentrate before engaging their mouths

why be like that?

I have trouble with facial blindness, plus something else that I'm not sure is part of that or something entirely different. I can know 2 people & there's 'something' they share, either looks wise or their name. I can (obviously) tell them apart, but cannot remember which is which.

it's nothing to do with being bothered.

This

@saraclara that's fine. I object to the couple of posters who have asked why this board is necessary and wondered why we are segregating ourselves.

@LameBorzoi the more we make excuses for people’s behaviour the worse it will get

we live in a world where education is readily available to most in these situations. Social media screams about diversity and the challenges. You can choose to ignore it and be part of the problem and allow people to make excuses for the fact you simply cannot be arsed to learn about others or you can put your brave face on, accept you don’t know everything and go get yourself educated, informed, be vulnerable and say you’re wrong and accept you are part of the problem but want to change.

don’t dismiss people’s behaviour in this day and age.

Reported.

But for now, read the note at the top of the forum.

I knew it would be but am genuinely puzzled. Posters are trying to give possible and valid reasons but the OP doesn’t want to know where others may be coming from. Anyway I really don’t think this ‘board’ was on the original OP - maybe it was moved since. It appears on active threads.

This was originally posted in the South Asian forum. It has never been posted anywhere else.

OP didn't ask for an explanation. She asked for help on how to respond, from people who have experienced the same

Im not sure how to react to this? Do I correct and shrug it off? What else can I do or say?

It hasn't moved, what a wierd comment

The OP has asked people in the same situation as her for suggestions on how to react in this senario

Your response is like women asking between themselves how to deal with a senario, a load of men coming to talk over them about why they behave like that, how its not their fault and how women are imagining issues that don't exist and then when women ask for a chance to talk about it between them a man piping up to go "well what do they expect, they asked for reasons why we do that" - when the men weren't invited to the conversation in the first place and certainly weren't asked for their reasons

I get this all the time (doesn't help I have an ugly, cumbersome name!) and so does my DD (who doesn't). Tbf, I mix up Brad/Josh/Matt/etc all the time (they're all 'that mid-30s white frat boy in Sales' to me), so I share the mindset. When people get my name wrong, I just correct them. Repeatedly, if I have to. It's really not a big deal. No offence meant, none taken.

Separately, I really don't think it's on to want to ban non-South Asian posters from the board. This is an open forum. If you want an exclusively South Asian board, there are tonnes of other websites. I feel the same way about the Childfree, Black Mumsnetters and Jewish Mumsnetters boards.

Just ignore anyone you don't want to hear. Closing people down is the beginning of the end (obvious exceptions).

No one asked you whether it's on or not. How audacious of you to come and spew your opinion on a situation that's already sensitive.

The board itself has this warning

This board exists primarily for the use of South Asian Mumsnetters. Others are welcome to post but please be respectful.

The OP is well within her right to then further limit a certain question from from a certain demographic especially in this scenario when there is a flood of posters minimising what the OP is trying to process. People have come and clouded that with underhand gaslighting techniques- oh are you sure? I get it too and I'm blonde etc PLEASE!

I wouldn't go on the TTC board and say well, I'm not trying to concieve but if I was, I'd use 30mg of Folic acid and have sex only at midnight and then continue to badger them when it becomes apparent I'm not TTC and they ask me respectfully to refrain. It makes a mockery of what is a real and tangible pain to those group of women.

Be respectful. Simples

I am ashamed to say that I do this. Unless I know the person very well, I am quite likely to be unable to tell whether someone of a visibly different ethnicity to me is one person or another. I hate that I can't, and I try very very hard to find a feature that will help me know who is who, but it is difficult. I don't struggle with Caucasian people to the same extent (though obviously still make mistakes).

I think it is because I grew up in a very very white area. My junior school had one black family (one boy one girl) and one Asian family (one boy). My brain didn't learn to tell those children apart from other people of the same skin tone because it didn't need to. Senior school brought a couple of new faces, but still a very very small number.

I can only do my best not to get people muddled and apologise profusely when it happens.

I think you've misunderstood how an open forum such as MN works.

Nobody needs to be invited to opine. Everyone is free to do so. Offering (spewing!) an opinion isn't audacious. It's what MN is actually for.

The OP can certainly try to limit questions, but it's not her right to impose. That right, and this thread, belongs to MN.

If you have an issue with people using "underhand gaslighting techniques" (personally, I'd call them what they are: racist bilge, willful ignorance, lack of education etc), you take it up with the posters in question. I'm "spewing" my opinion that shutting people down isn't the answer.

FWIW, I am South Asian. We're not all the same.

Not buying it. I was born in an area where white people have been a minority since the 80s and we only had 1-2 in the entire year with maybe 2 black people. I can still tell people of different ethnicities apart. White people need to stop. Making. Excuses. And just step up and improve. Oh and report yourself to social services if you have kids. If you’re that bed telling Asian people apart when they have so many different ethnicities and races and skin colours how will you ever find your own kids if they got lost in the supermarket?

Because no reason is valid. The White people sitting on their bums making excuses for the behaviour described in Op’s post make me sick. It’s because of behaviour like this, that racist behaviour remains in white communities. Stop making excuses for racism and start enacting strategies to get rid of it.