Q:
Background: My partner recently moved into a house with a couple of roommates. Her roommate Banks is in a poly relationship with Jamie. Banks is a Black nonbinary person.
A few days ago, I ran into Jamie (and who I thought was Banks) at the grocery store while I was shopping with my brother. I went to introduce them and said, this is Jamie and Banks and immediately got a “nope!” And to my supreme horror/embarrassment, realized that Jamie was with her other partner (also a Black nonbinary person of a similar height, build, and style to Banks). This other person was very gracious and said this wasn’t the first time it had happened even as I babbled out apologies. (They said it wasn’t racist but jeez as a white woman it sure feels like it).
I went to visit my partner and Jamie and Banks were there and I got a very…curt greeting from Banks. My question is, should I apologize to Banks? I don’t want to drag this out if they don’t want to talk about it, and we were barely acquaintances before this so I don’t know what the expectation is for handling this to minimize hurt feelings. Should I ask what they want or wait to see if they approach me?
A:
Ya know, I’m somebody who files mildly embarrassing social encounters into the primordial archives of my brain to replay at inopportune moments. And I want to urge you to not do that. I’m telling it to you because it’s far too late for me.
Mistaking someone for another person is a social faux pas. It feels worse when there’s a dynamic that could be tied to race. Unfortunately, numerous cases of mistaken identity involve that racial dimension because physical appearance and the skin that covers our whole body is a strong identifier.
These errors are also more likely to happen with people who are racially different to those we’re accustomed to. The associated phenomenon is usually described as cross-race effect or other-ethnicity blindness. The inverse also happens: People tend to be better at recognizing differences in people of their own race. In that case, it’s dubbed the own race bias.
The topic is actually fairly well-researched because it has serious implications in social interaction, discrimination, business, and witness testimony. As with most topics related to psychology (my beloved, messy field), the phenomenon is widely-observed but its causes are unknown. And no, there isn’t a ‘treatment’ for it.
Cross-race effect is common across societies and well, races. Its continued existence says less about malice and more about how we human beings encode and process data about people’s faces. Namely that people usually take in a small amount of visible data very quickly, feed it into their existing knowledge, and make a snap impression that they act on. We instinctively do this because it’s functional. It prevents sensory overload, saves time, and it almost always works.
Actual racism can and does come into effect. Some people actively stereotype those of other races as uniform and behave accordingly. Some people choose to not educate themselves on human diversity because they consider ‘others’ irrelevant. Some people make an error of this kind and choose to not apologize or reflect on the possible reasons because they don’t think it matters to the party who was disturbed. This does happen, but I think that if you’re concerned about this and writing in, this wasn’t malice on your part.
I’m East Asian and living in South Africa. Cashiers, lecturers, and randos on nights out have all mistaken me for some other East Asian girl. I don’t take issue with it as long as they believe me when I correct the error and we can go on. Maybe my approach is a bit of a softball, but I only get annoyed if someone is unflappably confident that I’m actually who they think I am. I’ve also erred this way in conversations with others. Sometimes race was a factor in my mistake. In other times, I misidentified someone based on voice, fashion, or hair. A quick apology usually smooths things over.
That segues nicely into your latter question about whether you should apologize to Banks directly. Now beware, I’m autistic so I have a very detached way of analyzing social situations. Some would call it ‘cold’. Here’s my take:
You made an unintentional error during an in-person social engagement (randomly running into Jamie and Not-Banks). Your error didn’t have overt malice, but could involve a common racial bias prevalent across the world. The people who were wronged (and IMO, not by much) were Not-Banks and Jamie. With Not-Banks getting the bulk of the mistaken identity and Jamie probably getting a little bit of second-hand embarrassment. You apologized profusely and Not-Banks accepted your apology and assured you that things were fine.
To me, that whole interaction says what needs to be said about your conduct. You made an error. You apologized. The people who on the receiving end of your error allowed it to pass.
As for Banks’ curt interaction with you later, I don’t think you can absolutely say that their curtness is a direct result of the story making it through the relationship grapevine. There are lots of reasons a person would be a little short in a social situation to an acquaintance. Unfortunately, if your relationship is that of ‘barely acquaintances’, you won’t learn those personal reasons. They could be having a bad day, or not want to socialize at that moment, or the moment wasn’t right for major friendliness, or you might be reading into a response that didn’t mean anything to Banks. These (and other) possibilities are all valid, but I don’t think a direct apology to Banks is necessary. You’re not closely acquainted. Banks wasn’t present for the error. I mean, I’m normally pretty big on making sincere apologies, but given the distance between you and their relationship, I wonder if apologizing might even make it seem like you’re starting to get into their relationship business. If they talk to you about it at a later stage, feel free to address it. Just be honest and listen to what they have to say.
My verdict? You apologized to the most-affected people immediately and they accepted it graciously. And if you read this far while learning about various cross-race effects and how they manifest, you’ve done the necessary learning to proverbially atone for your misstep. Read and watch some more resources from the topic if you want, but please don’t beat yourself up for it. There’s nothing to be learned or enjoyed in inflicting wounds on your psyche over something others have already forgiven.
You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.
