I’m Not Who You Think I Am

Being of blonde haired, blue-eyed, Norwegian descent, I have very non-descript features which seems to get me attention only for the simple reason of looking "just like" every one else of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Scandinavian descent whether I really do or not. I've never thought of that as "racist" though since we ALL are of different races. You have to admit that each race carries certain characteristics &/or features that do make people of that race similiar--just as certain features in siblings are carried even though they may not look "exactly" alike.

Would I call someone a racist because they confused a person of one race with another person of that same race? No...It's the thought of inequalities against these features that make a person "racist"...

Think about the flip side for a second. The good side of not paying too much attention is that we genuinely don't care. I could mistake one blonde for another, one Asian person for another, one black person for another because in the U.S., at least in a large city, race, hair color, eye shape are each just one of a million variables, none of which is too significant. Sure, it would be nice if we could all be seen as individuals in a "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" kind of way, but we're in a big country, we've got a lot of people and information to sort through, and we grab one signifier or two and move on, like when the author zeroed in on hairdo instead of race, and briefly mistook someone else's white daughter for her own Asian daughter. That's the OPPOSITE of racism.

Think about places where everybody cares about EXACTLY what race/ethnicity you are. Then be glad that's not where you live.

Thank you for this article. It was very enlightening. As a african-american I am always offended when people say we all look alike. Yet I ignored claims and jokes about asian people looking alike for years. It wasn't until I got to college and hung out with Asian people that I noticed the difference, and how offended they are when you confuse them for each other. I completely understand. Pople just don't want to take the time to notice that just because your hair type and eyes look similar, everything else about them is different. I remeber to this day the time I really offended one of my best friends. Erica is from Hong Kong and she had to go home when her government took it back from British rule. At the time, I didn't realize that Hong King was part of China and I so I asked her if she was Japanese. She looked so wounded and asked me if I really thought that. I felt horrible because i had no reason for why I assumed she was Japanese. I realized that I had not made an effort to learn the differences between Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc. In the schools that I attended, no one really cared where asian people were from as long as they adapted to the sterotypes about them (that they are all smart). After that, I made an effort to take note of how names and facial features can give you clues as to where their family (not necessarily them) I think I am pretty good at it now.

Great article! And so true, too. Just like this lady, I've been utterly annoyed with the ignorant white people who had mistaken me for another Asian woman who looked and dressed very differently to me. Although, I'll still get annoyed with these mistakes, I understand how such mistakes can happen. :)

very wel written, i can get things like that happening to me somtime. my last name is ramirez, but when people try to remember it they say rodriguez, garcia or reyes, it get's me angry. i guess i kinda see what you are saying. well said!

I applaud your bravery in exposing a part of yourself that so few are ready to discover, much less confront. I agree we can???t be so insecure (while smug) in our accusations of racism and any other personal injustice. Yet mistakes rooted in stereotypes (racial, gender, classism, etc.) which carry a systemic power, have a much deeper impact than simply mistaking my coat for your coat (or your child for my child). I believe we need a better language to describe innocent mistakes of bias versus mistakes rooted in dismissing entire groups of people. Terms like, ???racist???, ???diversity??? and even ???of-color??? are no longer understood in the ways they were used decades ago or even a few years ago. Maybe we are beginning to grow out of their former use. Racism, stereotyping and bias have tainted everyone in American culture. We may not be starting from the same place, but we are interdependent and ultimately we are all responsible for regaining and maintaining our humanness. This begins, as you describe at the end of your article, with looking more carefully, and seeing one another.

Wow. Angry. Insecure. Even the rich have problems. This woman needs a good psychiatrist, less time to waste writing ridiculous drivel like this, and perhaps some meaningful volunteer work to take her mind off of herself.

Carol Paik, I thank you for writing this article. Though caucasian I grew up as a minority (age 6 to 18) in my community and can relate. The one thing that was lacking from the article is to educate us. What is your ancestry? Are your ancestors from that part of northern China called Intermongolia? Or somewhere else? Despite movie stars like Sandra Oh and Michelle Yeoh making Asian looks more familiar, it is not enough without knowing who is Korean vs. Indonesian. I can usually get the country right, unless they are from a minority group in that country or there family moved from say China to Malaysia and when the move was recent they haven't picked up Malaysian mannerisms yet. I actually do what I am proposing, I tell people frequently that I'm English, Scottish, German, Welsh, and Norweigan, but speak Spanish at home. It leads to some more interesting conversations that just how the weather is. Thanks for being patient with us non-Asians. (PS. My Native American friends are always being confused with Mexicans out here in the West.)

I LOVED this article! I'm an account executive for radio station in Minneapolis, MN. Most of the employees are Caucasian that work in TV and Radio in my company. When I started 5 years ago there was only one more Asian American that worked here as a producer for one of the radio shows. After about one year, another Asian American was hired for my same position. And- finally, another Asian American was hired as a producer for another radio show of ours. That was a total of 4 Asian Americans that I now worked closely with. I was adopted when I was 6 months old and am 35 yrs. of age now. I didn???t have any Asian American friends before I worked here. They are all dear to me now, but I never really thought of that until I got here. From time to time, I brought this very topic up to some of my friends at work because it was getting so out of hand- being mistaken for all of them. I would be at events and people would run up to me and hug me thinking I was one of the other females. I would walk down the hallways and people would say "Hi" but call me by their names. One of the Asian American females that I work with is about 110 pounds, completely different looking then me. I have a good 50 pounds on her. Can you believe that I get mistaken for her??? I have a good sense of humor so I can joke about this with some of my friends and we laugh. However, I can often get angry about it. I found your last paragraph very enlightening because I never really thought of it that way. Thank you Carol. Thank you for giving me another way to look at this.

If it's any consolation, all short people look alike, too. I'm 5', brown hair, brown eyes, skinny (40 years ago). My best friend at the time was 5', blond, blue-eyed and chubby. Yet, we had multiple people assume we were sisters -- even though we looked nothing alike - except height.

But the most galling thing is the remark I hear before meeting a new person "You'll like her. She's short, too!" Do all right-handed people like each other? Do all green-eyed people like each other? Why should I like someone just because they're both short?

Face it. We all stereotype some way or another and sometimes it has nothing to do with race or anything else.

Wow. This is clearly calculated fodder for the right wing who label the media as having a liberal agenda, right? Do better, Newsweek. Iam a card carrying liberal, and I am flabbergasted. I cannot imagine the identity crisis the author must be going through. How do you keep the guest list straight from year to year for your husband's law firm parties?

I read your article yesterday. And today, as I was going through older magazines. I happened upon this article - thought it may have some relevance to the conversation.

http://www.idonline.com/features/feature.asp?id=1604

I taught business in China for 2 years and after much concentration was able to distinguish my students from each other (nearly 100 in each class) and from their classmates on campus. As a white woman, I was surprised to be referred to, over and over, as "blonde-haired and blue-eyed" by my students and other Chinese I met, when in fact I have dark brown hair and green eyes. My students explained to me that all Westerners look alike! I wasn't at all offended, just amused...because I thought all of my students looked alike until I was able to distinguish the shorter, taller, darker skinned, longer haired, sharper nosed, eye-glass wearing, from the others. Personality also helped me to differentiate. It takes close concentration to hone in on another person's attributes no matter what their race or color.

Racist or not??? For me, it is always harder to identify or guess the age of a different race or even culture. We tend to pick up clues of what we're used to, and be a bit confused with what is different or new. It is also much easier for me to remember a culturaly similar name than one that sounds 'foreign'. Sorry.

I was once at a college campus for a dance weekend where 99% of the participants were white. We went looking for our 1%er friend, Mr Tsao. This should be easy, I thought, as we went into the cafeteria - except their was also an Asian event that weekend, and the large room was a sea of straight dark hair!

This has nothing to do with racism. Many times I mistaken one of the cars in a parking lot as my own and puzzled why my remote or car key won't open the damn car. Lucky I didn't run into any car owners. A lot of people I know say they have similar experiences.

All I can say is open your eyes (I mean really open) and pay attention.

This has nothing to do with racism. Many times I mistaken one of the cars in a parking lot as my own and puzzled why my remote or car key won't open the damn car. Lucky I didn't run into any car owners. A lot of people I know say they have similar experiences.

All I can say is open your eyes (I mean really open) and pay attention.

Should our plea be that we each take more time to know and memorize specific features that distinguish the individual? Or rather, should we all take a step back at these akward and embarrasing moments and smile at the fact that, despite how proud and pretentious we may be, we make mistakes. I mistake people for other people all the time, of all different races and ethnicities. And you know what? When I'm wrong, I apologize and laugh. Rather than attempt to create a world where we do not offend anyone, let's cultivate a world where we are secure enough to handle someone making a mistake.