The Only Black Girl In The Room When…It’s Celebrity Lookalikes Time.
This series of blogposts are inspired by my forthcoming novel: The Only Black Girl In The Room (Release Date: May 7th, 2024), and my life growing up as frequently the only Black girl in the room. I hope that these posts can offer insight, understanding, and a little bit of humor to the small and big moments of being the only. Thank you for engaging with me and my work.
Sociological studies show... you know what? I’ll keep it chill-(ish) and cite my own experiences. But I can throw down some academic citations too, don’t forget it. Being the only Black girl in the room when people start talking about lookalikes is... interesting to say the least. Even in elementary school, I had well-intentioned classmates insisting that other kids in school were my twin. Like fully insistent that I must be this other girl, or we’re for sure twins. Reader, we had different hair textures and different skin tones. We looked nothing alike. But still, they insisted.
Celebrities are even more fun. I couldn’t tell you who my celebrity lookalike is. But I can tell you a few who I’ve gotten over the years. They’re all pretty flattering, but I’m not sure that we’re going in the right direction here.
First: Hillary from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (the original) aka Karyn Parsons. I wish I was that fashionable. But alas... our head shapes could not be more different, and that is not my curl pattern. Like at all.
Next: A guy tried to hit on me by saying I looked like Tyra Banks. Like Victoria’s Secret Model era Tyra Banks. I am five-two. I would rather leap off a cliff than model in a swimsuit. We are not the same, even though I’m sure being Tyra at her height could have been fun. But no. This is perhaps the most incomprehensible.
Second-to-last: Rosario Dawson. Someone I was dating insisted that I was identical to her. Which again, flattering. But... we’re not even the same ethnicity... Maybe we have similar chins? I was obsessed with the Rent movie and wanted to play Mimi, so maybe this is my chance?
Finally: Meghan Markle. This is the most recent one I’ve gotten, and I’ve gotten it from a couple people from different racial/ethnic backgrounds. Again, I’d love this. I totally bought a replica of her wedding crown (don’t judge me, I was emotionally vulnerable and trying to figure out my wedding *lewk*). But, I just don’t see it. (Though if The Crown wants to take a chance on an unknown, let me know).
Overall, my experiences being mistaken for people I don’t really resemble apart from having a (varying) degree of comparable melanin has been relatively positive. I’m not offended, just... baffled? As someone who has been mistaken to be siblings/cousins/ some kind of relative of many Black friends, coworkers, random acquaintances, let’s just try to continue keeping it chill. Be careful telling someone, particularly of a different race, who you think they look like unprompted. You may just need to get your eyes checked.
Plus, there is scientific evidence that people have trouble distinguishing between those of races other than their own [see: Young, S. G., Hugenberg, K., Bernstein, M. J., & Sacco, D. F. (2012). Perception and motivation in face recognition: A critical review of theories of the cross-race effect. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16(2), 116-142) for example].