all Asians look alike

I swear my life is a walking Seinfeld episode.  That or I’m Larry David from Curb, but not an ass hole like he is.  I don’t even know where to begin with this story, but let’s take it back to this summer when I was at Goody’s one weekend.  Goody’s, for those of you who live in a cave, is a pizza/ice cream/sandwich shop in Clarendon that serves late night food for the party crowd and is also open all day.  This could be an entirely separate blog post but basically the owners are my parents away from home and are amazing people.  That being besides the point, one night over the summer my friend Alex (girl..pen name) and I went to Goody’s late one evening to grab a slice or two after the bar.  We take up our usual spot at a table, and somehow or another these two random dudes walk in, and next thing I know, I’m arm wrestling the Asian one.  No idea how this even came about, but long story short, I beat him fair and square (not even kidding…we all know I am reigning arm wrestling champ).  So the Asian (he asked to be called “Big D” in this blog, which is ironic since I beat him at arm wrestling, but who am I to judge?) and I become friends and the rest is history.

So let’s fast forward to Pete’s bday party a few weekends ago.  Everyone and their mother makes an appearance, including all relevant parties in this story: Alex, Big D, and Felipe (who is also Asian…I know, you would have guessed Spanish).  Alex had met Big D the night of the arm wrestling match at Goody’s.  At the bday party, she approaches Felipe and says “you’re the arm wrestling guy!” and asks if he wants to arm wrestle.  So what Alex did, in this insance, was confuse Felipe (an Asian) for Big D (another Asian), even though they look nothing alike.  Thanks for the material Alex.

So as I mentioned in an earlier post, the girl the ex dated after me was at the party that night and was texting the ex, who relayed to me that she stated that there was a tall black dude and an Asian at the party.  Apparently the ex thinks I have only one Asian and one tall black friend, so named who he thought these two individuals to be based simply on the description that she saw a tall black guy and an Asian.  [Blog: tall black guy = Tyrone, Asian = Hung]. This is about how it went down via text: “You were at a birthday party.  Tyrone and Hung were there.”  Neither of these people were at the party, which I found amusing.  So basically, Felipe was mistaken for both Big D and Hung in one night.  Good stuff right there.

So Big D just told me last night he was at a club and a black guy walked into the bathroom and mistook him for another Asian guy.  This type of thing is happening left and right.  Is there a term for this?  Are people who make this mistake racist?  Or is it simply a stereotype that all Asians and black people look alike?  I happened to look this up, and one article termed it “stereotypical homogenization.”  Deep.  Doing this research, I came across something stating that there is actually an Office episode called “All Asians Look Alike.”  I feel honored knowing that I am blogging about the same topic as an episode of The Office; not only that, but we came up with the same exact title.  Adding producing to the career option list.