Lady Kona, Nubian Imp & Tormentrix

Minority Within a Minority V – Mistaken Identity

I get mistaken for a black female friend of mine when I go out into the world. Or when I am stomping around int eh neighbourhood we share. It weird. ‘Cause if you know us, we’re two completely different people on a certain level. It would be like mixing up Jody Foster and Rosie O’Donnell from where I sit. Different sizes, different accents, etc. It’s weird. I have also been mixed up with another dyke I know. She’s taller but we have similar bodies and both can be seen with braided hair. She wears glasses. I don’t. I also find this weird.

When I arrived in Vannie I did a lot more acting than I do now. There is a woman in town named Lorena Gale (look her up on IMDB.com for a pic). She looks nothing like me, and is at least 15 years older, but we have similar height and shape. I got mistaken for her EVERYWHERE I went and too be clear? Neither of us has time for the other. And neither of us would appreciate engaging in a conversation where it became clear that we were not beeing dealt with as ourselves. This too is weird.

These things make me feel pretty invisible. I’m a minority when I head out into the world of my neighbourhod, into dyke space and as an actor. And a part of me is highly reecognized and remembered because I’m the only gal in the room a lot of times. And when I enter a space that has been ocupied by another, we are mistaken for each other. There’s a lot of unpacking I could do but it was a late night. Regardless I find this weird.

And for me, when I go out into the world, I see SO many white people that they tend to not make an impression on me. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it takes a lot to come onto my radar. In part because I should wear glasses, in part because I know a lot of people, in part because I’m bad with names and seek to minimize that… it’s like the other side of the coin from what happens to me. And I find that weird.

I want to see people for who they are and I want people to see me for who I am. And I know that don’t happen in reality. People use internal shorthand all the time. What does that mean? Well read on!

In his book “Blink“, Malcolm Gladwell talks about thin-slicing. Which I summerize as being about our taking in a finite amount of information going through the mental file cabinet, and grabbing a few key reference points and starting out interaction (or not). We all have our “ists” that are socialize into us.

Harvard has a project called the Implicit Association Test https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ which looks at assumtions we make and reflects the level of awareness about our own personal gaze. Visit the link! You can do a demo! Malcolm has a bit of info on his site: http://www.gladwell.com/blink/guide/chapter3.html

When people mistake me for other black women it does make me furious even though I get (intellectually) what is goiing on and the lack of offense intended. And you know what, I still look at it and know that the deeper foundations are racist. They are. And my personal example is that I find asian people of all sorts impossible to separate in my mind. And that’s not just a matter of separating place of origin either (eg China -vs- Vietnam). If I saw a crime committed by an asian person, I know that I would fail in the police line-up and that I would do a shitty job of providing info to a sketch artist. Why? ’cause my ability to distinguish specific, identifying features is overshadoweed by my unconsious stereotypes of how asian people “look”, and an eye that is uneducated about the characteristics those particular races. Am I proud of that? No. But I am self reflective enough to know what the fault is and its origin. And I know that it is racist at it’s uneducated core.

With time I have come to know that I can not say to an asian person that I mix up with someone else: “Oh! You look like____” (when there ain’t no similarity besides general race characteristics to the educated eye) cause I’ll be caught by that person – whether they call me out or not – for my lack of literacy. And I know that while they may cut me slack, they will place a small piece of judgement in thier minds about me. I knwo that I can not say: “well, there are so few of you that come to these events…” It’s rude and hurtful and dismissive of the person’s individuality and underscores how small their percentage of space is. And I know that to a degree even larger than my last example, they will place a little something on their mental file about me.

The thing about the uneducated gaze is that it can learn. And while it is doing so it can aquire coping strategies to minimize poor presentation of self and hurt to others. I suck at doing this in several areas, and I pounce on myself when I catch it and am grateful when people call me out. But I’m a lot better than I used to be and look forward to being better still in the future.

Just a few knee jerk reaction thoughts.

OK. I’ve only had 5 hours of sleep. I’m off to nap now.