back to notes

The Science Behind ‘They All Look Alike to Me’

See comments to http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/nyregion/the-science-behind-they-all-look-alike-to-me.html?_r=0

Lamont MacLemore Kingston, PA 1 day ago
"Minorities tend to be better at cross-race identification than whites, Professor Meissner said, in part because they have more extensive and meaningful exposure to whites than the other way around."

That's not even in the same universe as true. We minorities tend to be better at it because we *have* to be better at it. White people control our lives. Not recognizing a white person can cost us our job or even our life. On the other hand, not needing to be able to recognize even a *famous* member of a minority group is simply another aspect of white privilege. Did the entertainment reporter lose his job as a consequence of failing to recognize one of the most well-known black men in the United States? How does it happen that Alice O’Toole, a face-recognition expert, "often confuses two of her Chinese graduate students, despite her expertise"? It happens because not being able to distinguish between or among members of a minority group simply holds no adverse consequences for a white person in her position. What does it matter to her life that she hasn't bothered to learn to distinguish the two students? It matters not at all.

But I'll bet that neither of those Asian students has any trouble recognizing Prof. O'Toole in a sea of white faces.