I was just talking to some friends of mine the other day about the common experience of having people insist that I look like someone they know who I’ve never met, or someone that I do in fact know…or that I’m standing near…or who just happened to walk by. Typically the person I am compared to is Black.
I know what you’re thinking, “OMG, Sable Verity is Black?!” Breathe slowly.
I get this comparison (mostly, but not always) from White people.This happens most often when I’m with my mom- it’s been that way ever since I was little:
“Is this your daughter?! She looks just like you!”
“This must be your mother! I can see it in the eyes.”
So, I’m adopted right? And my mother and I don’t exactly have the same ethnic makeup, nor do we look all that much alike. The shape of our bodies, our height, the details of our faces;shape of our eyes, lips, our bone structure. Thus my mother and I always crack up at this.
But it happens with other people too, not just mom- my friends, co-workers, strangers on the street- you get the idea.
Perhaps it’s this experience of always being told that I look like people I know for a fact I don’t look like at all, that it bugs me when I see other people compared to each other for the same reason my mother and I are; skin color.
This week Tropicana (who we don’t drink or like because of environmetnal issues) came out with a new OJ container and ad campaign.
Tropicana wants to be known as “fresh” as opposed to, I guess, not fresh. Their new ad, a non-white man hugging a non-white child quickly gained attention for what some called an “unbelievable” resemblence to the male actor/model named Michael Duvert and Barack Obama the next President of the United States.
<sigh>
Shameless rip off?
Let’s focus on another detail- first of all the child in the advert is a boy, not a girl. Second of all, these two men, sans brown skin, look nothing alike.
The fact that people THINK they look alike says more of their state of mind than the advert or those in it.
That would be like, I see you walking down the street with a smoothy in your hand, and on the other side of the street is a green martian, also drinking a smoothy and walking down the street, and suddenly wham!
You look exactly alike!
Right?
Riiiight.
