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Hello {{ first name | friends}},
It’s time for another blast from the recent past. This month it’s about how people racialised as white see people racialised as Black and some of the experiences and consequences that result. I’ve updated some of the language in this, and added some insight from more recent eexperiences.
Typecasting: Double-Takes, Danger, and Death
As a woman racialised as Black—a person of the Global Majority*—every time I walk into a global minority, predominantly white space, I feel like many people around me experience cognitive dissonance, that mental discomfort when something, or someone, doesn’t quite fit your beliefs. Do you know how some actors always play the same kinds of roles? Well, that typecasting happens in the minds of many people racialised as white in relation to Black people. I’m convinced of it. [2025 update: I’m more convinced of this than ever, with the current context, and as we’ve seen that cognitive dissonance has many negative consequences for people racialised as Black and anyone who doesn’t fit the supposed “norm”.]
What else could explain the double-take as their minds struggle to process the fact that the person with an anglicized name is a tall Black woman? As you know, I’ve had that happen to me more than once. It happens less these days because my photo is firmly attached to my name on social media, but I’ve never forgotten how it feels to see that reaction.
There are other examples of this, and not only within the Black community. I was browsing Instagram one day when I saw a post about the same thing in the Latine** community. Here’s what happened. Some people were hanging out at a house. Another person arrived and immediately assumed that the Latine person in the group was doing domestic service rather than forming part of the group of friends.
I’ve had the same thing happen to me in many settings—in offices, where somehow, I was often the person asked to make the tea. And in numerous shops, where random white people walked up to me and wanted help, without even asking whether I worked there—they just assumed I did, and some were pretty huffy when I made it clear I didn’t. [2025 update: yes, this STILL happens, and the reaction when I’m not who or what they expect ranges from embarrassment because they’ve been caught in a racist assumption to incredulity because I’m not meeting their expectations.]