Can you lose your aptitude for distinguishing people of your own race? After living in China for a fairly short period, I find I confuse fellow crackers a bit more. I’m not sure I would recognize the girl in the next apartment as my neighbor in any context other than the hallway. I notice my Asian classmates around campus all the time and can usually tell their nationality at a glance, (though Indonesians still confound me) but white people? I’ve had some pretty embarrassing incidents lately. As Monstro says, white college students do have about 3 basic appearance templates.
The OP is not racist–as many have said, it’s a pain telling people not of your race apart. You can learn to do so, but it takes time.
I’m a dandy example: My dad is Indian and my mom is White. I’ve always been able to tell Indian people apart where most White folks I know can’t do it. I myself have a hell of a time telling White people apart–I make a fool of myself discussing current movies because I can’t distinguish any of the current crop of young interchangable Hollywood actors (Kirsten Dunst Mira Suvari Thora Birch Reese Witherspoon Jennifer Love Hewitt Ethan Hawke Ryan Phillippe Leonardo DiCaprio). They all look the same to me.
I used to be unable to tell Black people apart until I married a Black woman and found that half my family was now Black. Needless to say, I learned in a hurry! (Although I am still convinced that Louis Gossett Jr. looks like Gordon from the old Sesame Street.)
It was strange–where before I had simply lumped all Black people into a certain visual category, I learned to distinguish skin shade, hair style, and facial features after looking around hard enough. An interesting side effect is that I no longer find White women attractive–they strike me as kind of boring. 
Not that my wife minds.
It’s not racist. You’re in the clear. 
I can easily distinguish people of other races (I’m white) visually, but if I’m trying to verbally describe the person, it’s more difficult. I’m like that with anyone; if I’m picturing Jennifer, I can see exactly how she looks like, and why she’s different from Katie, but generic descriptions verbally are hard to do. Saying that someone has blonde har/blue eyes or black hair/brown eyes isn’t that helpful. And if I try to describe facial structure or whatnot, people just get confused.
I think it’s interesting that many people think members of other races look the same. I’ve never lived outside of the Detroit area (which has a noticeable but not large Asian population), but I can tell at a quick glance whether or not an Asian person is Chinese/Thai/Japanese/Vietnamese, etc. My grandmother has argued with me before. To her, all Asians are Chinese, but mainly because she honestly can’t tell the difference (it’s not because of racism, she just can’t tell). But when we were watching tv together she said, “Now take that Chinese guy…” and I said, “He’s not Chinese, he’s Japanese.” There was no way to explain to her WHY he didn’t look Chinese; to me it was obvious he was Japanese, but durned if I could make her understand.
But as I said, I’m terrible at descriptions anyway. Heck, I probably make all white people sound the same too, when I’m explaining how someone looks.
People who have to mention “one of my best friends is black” are at least subconsciously prejudice
I felt I needed to mention “one of my best friends is black” to **Michael **so that **he **wouldn’t think I was prejudiced, because I’m sure to see him again.
But maybe I am subconsciousy prejudiced, programmed by my parents and schools, and that is why I can’t tell some people of other races apart. That was the question in the OP: am I racist and don’t even know it? Luckily, most of you think I’m simply a poor observer.
Ridiculous generalization. People who say that are usually trying to defend themselves against being percieved as racist. Often, the perception is justified, but sometimes it’s not (as with the OP, I believe).
Unless you can give some kind of reason why that statement is inherently racist?
(I would agree, though, that that statement sets of alarm bells in a lot of people’s heads and it’s not going to help your case any.)
Also:
I’ve never understood why people even think this is racist. I don’t think I’d be all that accurate at guessing someone of European descent’s nationality just from looking at them, so how can I be expected to do better with nationalities I’m less familiar with?
My mother (who is asian) often confuses white actors. When we’re watching a movie on TV she often says something like “isn’t that guy from that other movie we saw the other night?” when the two actors do not resemble each other in any way.
I think I’m pretty good at telling people of every race apart, because i’ve lived in korea, which is predominantly asian, Canada (white), Trinidad (black and indian), Guatemala (latin).
So you say “European” or “Asian,” not “French” or “Chinese.” Not knowing is okay, but acting like you do when you don’t have a clue looks pretty dumb.
This reminds me of a Sanford and Son episode. A man smashed a car he was driving into Sanford’s truck and sped off. It was a white man driving a black Cadillac. Fred was sure of this because “there are more white men driving black Cadillacs then there are black men driving white Cadillacs.” After Fred gets some ideas from his friend about making money from the incident, he finds himself in the police station where the cops are holding the hit-and-run suspect. A big white man walks into the room where Fred and Lamont are waiting and Fred rails into him. “I’m gonna take your house away from you,” says Fred. “I’m gonna have no more mercy on you than you did on me.”
Of course, the big white man that Fred is yelling at is not the suspect but the police lieutenant. When Fred is made aware of this, an embarassed look comes over his face and he says: “Well, you know, all you lieutenants look alike to me!”
Of course, to make things even more confusing, there are just people out there who resemble each other without being related or of the same ethnicity. As others have, I’ve noticed this on college campuses; most of the White frat boys looked alike to me. I’ve seen people in everyday life who looked a lot alike, and who I KNEW were diffirent people.
king of spain said:
I agree. I don’t think it’s racist at all because we are not making assumptions about the person based on his race, we are simply being non-observant and making a mistake in recognition. There are three brown dogs in my neighborhood that look like the same dog to me, but I don’t assume they’re mean dogs because they’re brown.
But being a “white” person, I thought maybe some “minorities” (I hate all these labels, but what are you going to do?) might feel differently and get offended when someone indicates that she might think “all Black people look alike.” Thus the OP, to get some other opinions.
Turning it around, I don’t guess I would get offended if an Asian mistook me for another “white” person looking similar to me, as long as that person was simply making an error in recognition and not assuming things about me (I have no rhythym, for example) based on the color of my skin.
BTW, I did not say to Michael “One of my best friends is Black,” I just wanted to say it or anything to show this guy I don’t think all Blacks look alike, in case he was offended. If he saw all this he’d probably laugh his head off and tell me, “Get over it!”