MISTAKEN IDENTITIES
A very funny thing happened about ten days ago, as I walked down the road with my daughter and fluffy white dog in the Martha’s Vineyard town of West Tisbury, just about a half mile from where the First Family is now vacationing. From a passing car, we heard someone shout, “Look! It’s the Obamas!”
Now granted, I was wearing a skirt from Talbots, my daughter’s age falls midway between Sasha’s and Malia’s, and our dog is very cute, but other than that and our brown skin, we look nothing like the First Lady and her daughters.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m flattered by the comparison. However, I continue to be baffled by this strange compulsion, this burning desire to classify African-Americans floating solo amongst the majority – and I do believe this condition is exclusive to black people – as famous, meaning athletes, entertainers, and I guess now the President and his family.
Living in Switzerland in the mid-1980’s, a place certainly better known for its xenophobia rather than its diversity, I often heard people whispering to each other that I was the singer Sade. I met a woman the other night, who looked nothing like me, but had had similar experiences in Boston. My guess is there were a lot of us. Hmmm...let’s see…creamy coffee skin, hair pulled back, sunglasses…yes, of course, it must be Sade! Does this even make sense?
When I tell people that I work in television, they ask what shows they may have seen me in. No – guess what! – I’m an executive, and as far as I know, no actress will ever hesitate to identify her calling up front.
If I’m specific and say I work in sports, more often than not someone will say, “You must have been quite an athlete yourself!” No, actually, I am the most uncoordinated woman I’ve ever met. “Oh come on,” they’ll tell me, “that’s not possible.” OK fine. Does it count that I spent an evening signing autographs in a Seoul nightclub during the 1988 Olympics? The Koreans insisted that I was Florence Griffith-Joyner, may she rest in peace. All they had to do was look at the fingers holding the pen to know that I was an imposter. Ah, but I didn’t have the heart to let them down.
One of my favorite stories comes from a friend who had been amazed at the friendliness of the neighbors and staff in the ritzy Upper East Side apartment building that she and her husband, both highly successful corporate types, had just moved into with their children. After a few weeks of big smiles and cheerful hellos, a grinning doorman blurted out, “We are all so excited to have a player from the New York Knicks living here!” They’re still trying to figure out which one.
My African-American contemporaries, products of the ‘60s,‘70s and even ‘80s who have succeeded in their chosen professions in spite of stereotypes that just won't die, will joke about us all being athletes, entertainers and, of course, so articulate. When we look at our kids, though, it just isn’t funny anymore. About ten months ago, when I started this blog, I wrote about “The Deeper Meaning of ‘Inexperienced’” in the context of all the campaign rhetoric. I said that several parents of color had told me about how shocked white parents – and sometimes teachers – can be at the intelligence of a brown-skinned child. They will gush with praise for his or her athletic abilities or performing talents, counting on them to make game-winning baskets and add some desperately needed rhythm to school musicals. Meanwhile, my daughter may be a real ham, but I have yet to see any signs of musical genius, and it appears that she may well be following in her mother’s clumsy footsteps. Her biggest talent is math; at 9, she dreads PE.
So come to think of it, forget being flattered: I’m downright proud to be able to add Michelle Obama to my list of mistaken identities. But if one more journalist refers to my “husband” as “basketball crazy…”
Now granted, I was wearing a skirt from Talbots, my daughter’s age falls midway between Sasha’s and Malia’s, and our dog is very cute, but other than that and our brown skin, we look nothing like the First Lady and her daughters.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m flattered by the comparison. However, I continue to be baffled by this strange compulsion, this burning desire to classify African-Americans floating solo amongst the majority – and I do believe this condition is exclusive to black people – as famous, meaning athletes, entertainers, and I guess now the President and his family.
Living in Switzerland in the mid-1980’s, a place certainly better known for its xenophobia rather than its diversity, I often heard people whispering to each other that I was the singer Sade. I met a woman the other night, who looked nothing like me, but had had similar experiences in Boston. My guess is there were a lot of us. Hmmm...let’s see…creamy coffee skin, hair pulled back, sunglasses…yes, of course, it must be Sade! Does this even make sense?
When I tell people that I work in television, they ask what shows they may have seen me in. No – guess what! – I’m an executive, and as far as I know, no actress will ever hesitate to identify her calling up front.
If I’m specific and say I work in sports, more often than not someone will say, “You must have been quite an athlete yourself!” No, actually, I am the most uncoordinated woman I’ve ever met. “Oh come on,” they’ll tell me, “that’s not possible.” OK fine. Does it count that I spent an evening signing autographs in a Seoul nightclub during the 1988 Olympics? The Koreans insisted that I was Florence Griffith-Joyner, may she rest in peace. All they had to do was look at the fingers holding the pen to know that I was an imposter. Ah, but I didn’t have the heart to let them down.
One of my favorite stories comes from a friend who had been amazed at the friendliness of the neighbors and staff in the ritzy Upper East Side apartment building that she and her husband, both highly successful corporate types, had just moved into with their children. After a few weeks of big smiles and cheerful hellos, a grinning doorman blurted out, “We are all so excited to have a player from the New York Knicks living here!” They’re still trying to figure out which one.
My African-American contemporaries, products of the ‘60s,‘70s and even ‘80s who have succeeded in their chosen professions in spite of stereotypes that just won't die, will joke about us all being athletes, entertainers and, of course, so articulate. When we look at our kids, though, it just isn’t funny anymore. About ten months ago, when I started this blog, I wrote about “The Deeper Meaning of ‘Inexperienced’” in the context of all the campaign rhetoric. I said that several parents of color had told me about how shocked white parents – and sometimes teachers – can be at the intelligence of a brown-skinned child. They will gush with praise for his or her athletic abilities or performing talents, counting on them to make game-winning baskets and add some desperately needed rhythm to school musicals. Meanwhile, my daughter may be a real ham, but I have yet to see any signs of musical genius, and it appears that she may well be following in her mother’s clumsy footsteps. Her biggest talent is math; at 9, she dreads PE.
So come to think of it, forget being flattered: I’m downright proud to be able to add Michelle Obama to my list of mistaken identities. But if one more journalist refers to my “husband” as “basketball crazy…”
Posted by Diversity Mom at 8/26/2009 12:57 PM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: Martha's Vineyard Obama
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: Martha's Vineyard Obama
You are very lycky indeed! When I go around the neighborhood alone or with my offsprings, people usually think I'm the babysitter or the cleaning lady! If I decide to go and get the dry cleaning I usually get a "oh the other lady (read my actual cleaning lady) must be off"... what is it about being a middle-aged Asian that if you are dressed casually, most people think that a) you are Philippino (no offense, some of my best friends are) b) you are a babysitter/cleaning lady... and when you are properly dressed and dare going outside NY, it does happen quite often that you are greated by a lout "ohayo" or "ni hao"... so you get to be Michelle Obama and I get to be a turist or a babysitter? Does anyone know an Asian politician? There might be hope...
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Thanks Xuan. You're right: As someone who is repeatedly taken for the babysitter or cleaning lady, I guess it is a refreshing change of pace to be famous and supposedly rich. What gets me is the need to classify us at all.
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The need to classify is not limited to the color of skin necessarily. I just recounted to our daughters 5 or 6 people who throughout the years people have said I look just like. As far as I can tell look these people look nothing like me except they are blonde and white (Olivia Newton-John, Meryl Streep, Faye Dunaway, Kate Moss, Kim Alexis, and Cameron Diaz to name a few). All complements, yes, but really without much basis. (Although the Faye Dunaway comment was the inspiration for a great Bonnie Parker costume for Halloween a few years back it was likely the beret that ). I have been asked if I play basketball or volleyball, model, or ran track. Though I have never been mistaken for a babysitter or a housecleaner, I have been mistaken as the mother to my Asian friend's stepdaughter numerous times. It is certainly an issue, but we all need to be visible beyond the assumptions and classifications that correlate to the color of our skin, the shape of our eyes or face and our hair.
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