What’s in a Wrong Name?

Anusha, Farha, Pooja—I have mistakenly been called the name of various other freshman South Asian females since I arrived at Harvard two months ago. This doesn’t particularly perturb me, but it often bothers whoever is addressing me. Usually their horrified response plays out along the lines of an apology: “I’m so sorry; I’m not a racist, I swear!” This does perturb me.

On our race-sensitive campus, mistaking someone for someone else of the same race is a major faux pas. But only in some cases: Mixing up the names of two Caucasians might annoy them, but it’s no cause for outcry or debate. On the other hand, mixing up the names of two people within an ethnic minority seems to represent a more damning error, a revealed ignorance of diversity within that ethnic group. This double standard is unfair. Mixing up two people of the same race only betrays lack of a properly attuned eye, not dormant stereotypes or racist tendencies.

This means that the apologetic angst of the confused party is usually overblown. The fact is that one has to look to different physical cues when identifying people of different races. When I meet another South Asian girl, I am not going to look to her hair or eye color as a distinguishing feature. Rather, I’ll instinctively note other physical features, like eye shape or the texture of her hair. These visual markers could easily escape someone who has grown up in an environment with few or no South Asians—someone who has never before had to look beyond hair color or general skin tone as a defining visual feature. Errors of identification usually spring from thus approaching all ethnicities with the same observational focus, from race blindness.

Part of the defensive response on the part of the speakers is that they have had a history of interacting with people who are offended to be confused with others of their race. This indignation on the listener’s part is also misplaced. People of all races fail at identifying ethnic minorities. When I was traveling in Tanzania last summer, my two Caucasian traveling companions, a redhead and a brunette, were constantly frustrated that many Tanzanians couldn’t differentiate between them. They didn’t understand that the marker of hair color was overlooked by Tanzanians, who do not usually identify by this feature. Just like an art professor would look in amazement at a first-year student who comes out of a Georgia O’Keefe exhibit and says, “I can’t tell these paintings apart, they’re all flowers,” ethnic minorities can be amazed that the specific superficial differences they spot easily are not so obvious to others.

There is a rational concern behind these irrational, defensive reactions to these cases of mistaken identity. I suspect what really frightens people is the perception of stereotyping—the failure to recognize the distinct phenotypes and personalities of two people of the same race. This instinct is an admirable one. But it seems dangerous to conflate the two problems: the lack of an attuned eye with the lack of character discernment and open-mindedness. One flaw is innocuous; the other is absolutely not.

It is understandable that some students might have a hard time superficially discerning between Asian students. It is not OK for any student to reduce all Asian students to diligent, front-row-of-lecture, organizational types. As a community we must work to prevent a culture of harmful generalization.

But that’s beside the point: Next time you mix up someone’s name or race, simply ask them again and try to train your eye so you remember for the future. Just don’t bring racism into it.


Anita J Joseph ’12, a Crimson editorial comper, lives in Wigglesworth Hall.