No, I probably would not have any such difficulty. I’ve seen two or more strangers or casual acquaintances of the same race almost every day of my life, and it’s pretty unusual for me to be confused about who’s who. Just a few days ago I did mistake a stranger for an acquaintance of mine, but it turned out these two women were actually identical twins (!) so they had a lot more in common than just being two white people. When I have made a mistake of this sort with two unrelated people they always had a lot more in common than just their race; they were typically also the same sex, around the same age, had similar builds, etc.
I don’t think anyone should have trouble distinguishing the Asians seen here from the Asians seen here, even though they’re all Chinese men wearing dark coats and pants and were photographed in the same city in the same year. It would be much easier to mix up the men within each photo set, but that’s because they were deliberately chosen for this photo project because they resembled each other. But even people of different races can look a lot alike to the casual observer under the right circumstances, see for instance here and here.
Because it’s the sort of thing racist people say. It is not necessarily racist in and of itself, but people who aren’t racist rarely have reason to point out how “those people” all look alike.
You would be surprised how quickly high school teachers can learn the names of the 100-150 students he or she is responsible for even in a school where the students are mostly of one “race.” It’s not difficult. It just means paying attention.
And I don’t believe any study that says that are fewer differences among people of one race than another. If that were true, the people of the same race themselves would have trouble.
Actually my guess is that you probably have a few facial expressions that are very similar to Michelle Obama and that is what she is picking up on when she says you look alike. I’ve often talked to people I’ve known for several months only to see them make a specific facial expression and in that moment they look tremendously like someone else. People do this with me too. I have long red hair and freckles (I’m almost identical to Adele actually, except she is thinner and about 1,000 feet tall) but I’ve been told a number of times that I look like Meryl Streep despite seeing no resemblance. Apparently I make a couple of faces that are almost identical to hers and that is what people mean when they say I look like her.
Either that or this chick just has horrible facial recognition.
It is not. It’s a matter of conditioning. If you see a lot of one sort of humans you’ll learn to spot the differences. For a zebra all zebras look very different.
I’ve noticed what you talking about too in other people. But no one has ever said I look like Michelle Obama, expression-wise or not. So I think she’s cwazy.
It seems like a great way to dehumanize a group of people. If “they” all look alike they’re not really individuals any more. I can’t tell the difference between whales in a pod, zebras in a herd or goldfish because they’re identities as individuals are unimportant. I can’t help but think those who say that group X all look alike feel the same way.
