Took the test just out of interest. From most to least positive it was, Asians, Whites, Hispanics and then Blacks.
I’m acquainted with a couple of Asian people but wouldn’t describe them as friends, I don’t know any Hispanics and I have one (1) black friend. Maybe she’s subconciously annoying me.
But I wouldn’t put much faith in that test to be honest, I’ve always found the ‘subconcious’ to be the ‘God of the gaps’ of modern science, if we aren’t sure how something works we just handwave it away with appeals to the subconcious.
The human brain is built like that. When I lived in Cameroon, people would regularly get me mixed up with my site mate, who weighed 90 lbs to my 140 and had bright red hair to my dirty blond. I remember one time, a photographer had pictures of the two of us, and even with the photos right there he couldn’t figure out which of us should get which photo. The explanation? We all look alike. It’s universal.
Where “they all look alike” becomes problematic is when it’s used to belittle or dismiss people. For example:
“Can you get the little Asian girl to make some copies of this report?”
“Uh, did you mean Stephanie or Lulu?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how I can be expected to keep them straight. Those people all look alike.”
My result was black at the top, Asian and then white clustered in the middle, and Latino at the bottom. Had no idea it would turn out quite like that, despite my love for Spanish language and Latino music and finding many Latino people physically attractive. Maybe an aspect of my ex-Catholic hangover?
When asked my own race, I just say “none of the above” or “undefined.”
For what it’s worth, I have a hard time telling white people apart too, especially young white women. White girls 18-35, can you guys *please *stop all dying your hair blonde and wearing the same clothes? I’m not even joking, this is a true story: I had a class in college that was all blonde white girls dressed in your basic bummy chic college wear, one such brunette, and one guy. So we’d go over the assignment, this person asks that person a question, that person answers then asks someone else, and so on. Since I couldn’t tell the blonde girls apart, I found myself picking on the guy and the brunette repeatedly, then I learned one of the other blondes by some defining characteristic that I forget. I eventually forced myself to learn everyone’s names, but it was hard.
Which reminds me, in another class I had a professor who frequently mixed me up with the other black girl. The best part is the girl didn’t look like me at all, and when I say this, I don’t just mean facial features. She was about a half foot shorter than I am, had long hair while mine was maybe an inch past my shoulders, had light brown skin while I am dark. Come on! At least I get things like colors. Anywho, I was never mad at the professor about it, though. This is a woman from Italy who has spent her entire time in the U.S. at an elite university. I doubt she has any black friends or ever has. Whenever she’d mixed us up, how bad she felt was written on her face, and I half wanted to tell her “Dude, it’s cool; I can’t tell you guys apart either.” Good times!
I’ve actually spent a lot of time around white people, so I don’t know what my excuse is. I’m much better at telling men apart from women. Women, stop taking your fashion cues from the same magazines!
Edit: I was actually telling a white male friend this once, and he said he can’t tell carbon copy blonde white women apart either. He was partially joking, but was serious about them being difficult to distinguish at times. If everyone else is struggling with this, I won’t feel so bad.
That certainly puts things in an interesting context, because I have a very good facial recognition memory, regardless of race. Occasionally I meet people with whom I’ve worked 20ish years ago and know exactly who they are, and I’m talking a very metropolitan crowd here: people from Korea, Viet Nam, Poland, Russia, Tanzania, Hungary, The Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, etc. I know exactly who they are decades after the fact.
I’ll remember your face if I see it many years later if I can ever learn it to begin with. Those girls in the class I was talking about? Couldn’t even recognize them then, so no way in hell would I if I were to see them today. One of 'em could squeal out my name, run over to me and give me a bear hug, and I’d be like, “Who are you, crazy lady?” But people I used to know in junior high? Yeah, I’d spot one of those jerks from a mile away.
That’s different from me. Recently I was in a meeting with someone who I was in another meeting with three years ago, for about 10 minutes, and I totally remembered his name.
But I do this all the time. Introduce me once and I know who you are, even over multiple years: perhaps even decades.
As someone who is currently trying to learn 50something people’s names, I can say that as a 30-something brown haired guy, 20-something blonde girls are the hardest.
As a guy, height is not something I take notice unless the person is an extreme example. But for some women, a guy who is an inch shorter has the dateablity index of Richard Nixon, and they seem to pay attention to this a lot.
I took the test, but I’m very leery of the methodology. It marked me out as being most positive towards black people and hispanics, and least positive to white people and asians. Which is strange, since I haven’t interacted much with black people or hispanics, not having too many(or any) in my neck of the woods. I think I’m neutral towards white people, and I really like (east) asian women in particular, and am fascinated by most east asian cultures. I felt like the time it took me to make the associations had much more to do with learning the ropes of the test itself and general cognitive speed than with biases.
In college, the skinny blonde-haired chicks confused me too, but not as much as the white frat-boy types in their baseball caps (bills rounded to the hilt), khaki cut-offs, and sandals and generic names like Jason and Mike. College was full of these guys. They were everywhere. The white folk I was accustomed to weren’t so cookie-cutter, or at least they hadn’t seemed that way to me at the time.
And now the skinny blonde-haired chicks confuse me whenever they are on reality TV shows. Lord help me if a show like Survivor has more than two of them, especially if they’re on different teams.
I have trouble with white people of certain types too. Just last night I was struck by how much alike the whole staff of my daughter’s dance school looked, for example–all lined up on stage in their loose tops over leggings and boots.
Of course I am racist. As you say, everyone is. And I have a good deal of trouble telling young white men apart. You ever watch some of those old 80s sci-fi movies? They all have young handsome white men as the leads. If I am not paying attention, by the end of the movie I have no idea who’s who. But i don’t have a good facial recognition memory to start with.
I can’t take that test here, though I am curious.
I notice interracial couples all the time. Mainly because I don’t see very many where I live. Everyone seems to marry within their own race, which actually kind of makes me a little :(.
All the time in public I can never recognize which balding goateed bespectacled white guy might be a coworker. Also Moms with shellacked hairdo’s wearing brown attire, I smile but have no clue which Mom you are at first glance. :o
If you put a man in a suit, I can’t tell him from another man in a suit. My only hope is if they are of different races or maybe if one is bald. Otherwise, I’m doomed. Watching movies from the 40s is a challenge for me, with all those hat-wearing suit-wearing white dudes.
I’m white. So the other day I was driving, and this car in front of me does something pretty shitty. I go to honk at him, and I see that he’s black, and I don’t honk. It’s like one of those split second decisions you make. And I don’t know if I didn’t honk because I’m trying to overcompensate for any racial biases I might have, or if I’m just afraid to start a confrontation with someone who might accuse me of being racist, or if I’m thinking, ‘‘Man, that guy is black. I won’t make his life any more difficult than it probably already is.’’ Either way, it’s stupid. Dude was acting like an asshole.
I think this is indicative of the fact that I have prejudices and biases whether I want to have them or not. I used to feel really bad about this, but I work hard to treat everyone with equality and I think it’s just what happens when you grow up in the racist rural Midwest. In my life I’ve probably still heard more negative statements about black people than positive ones. In grad school I had a rigorous year-long course about American racism and the black/white binary and sometimes I wonder if it hasn’t made me into a hypervigilant oversensitive dork when it comes to race.
For me, I confusing which one is Mason and which one is Jike. The stereotype has long been that black people have funny names, like Shaniqua or Latrell. Now white people are picking all the weird names, like a guy named Taylor Jackson (or is it Jackson Taylor?) (or is it a girl?). Skyler, Dawson, Kaitlyn/Katelyn/Kate-Lynn/Caitlin/etc. (the last one is really even supposed to be equivalent to Kathleen and pronounced similarly), Mormon names, "white trash names " (language), or Carlton Banks.
With 80s movies, isn’t it one of 4 actors, depending on budget level? But I also have trouble with black & white movies, unless the actor is someone really prominent/familiar looking. Like 12 Angry Men, Henry Fonda, sure. But it probably took two watchings to sort out who was which character and what their personality was like.
Why? It would be equally weird, if not more so, for people specifically to go out of their way to meet someone from another ethnicity. Whether you grow up in Iowa or attend an HBC, the odds are much more likely you’d meet someone more similar than different.
As a minority, it isn’t so much about about meeting people but rather someone who understands you. There are white girls who appreciate my culture and are very accepting but there are times where you think, “Jeebus I don’t want to explain for the millionth time what Chinese New Year is and what awesome cultural things we do.” and it be easier to date someone within your culture/race. Or sharing the same values - like eating pork belly and chicken feet when the mood strikes. Or wanting to watch a documentary about Chinese immigration patterns that would otherwise be completely boring if I wasn’t a product of Chinese immigration.
