This is an aside titled 'The Asian Obama' dated 1/26/09

Perhaps you’ve read about the Indonesia Obama impersonator Ilham Anas. Reading about him reminded me of a post on Sociological Images pointing out our president’s strong resemblance to his white grandfather: “I tried a little experiment in class. I put up a photo of adult Obama and I had my students make a list of what characteristics made him identifiably Black, in their view. Every one of them put on their list his nose, lips, and hair, and several made comments about his ears or just that ‘the combination of all his facial features’ was ‘clearly’ Black. Then I brought up the photo of Dunham next to the photo of Obama. It led to a really interesting discussion. Because my students think of Obama as Black, they saw all his features through that racial lens. It was obvious to them that he had ‘Black’ facial features. After viewing the photos next to one another, they talked about how the two men look very similar, but their facial features seem ‘clearly’ Black on one person and ‘clearly’ White on the other.” It’s an interesting discussion. I’m rooting for Radhika Desai on Top Chef because she’s my sister’s doppleganger and I once met a Chinese woman who had uncanny resemblance to my mother. Do you have a cross-racial lookalike?

Posted by Joanne on Jan. 26, 2009 Tagged: ,

  • My uncle, a half Hispanic and half Caucasian man, looked distinctly like Dr. Dre when he was younger.
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