Why can’t mainstream media outlets tell black people apart?
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
David Mills just wrote a great post for Poynter Online (thanks Timothy!) that asks:
Ever notice how black people are often misidentified in newspaper and magazine photo captions? I mean famous black people. It’s a weird phenomenon.
(Remember when Vogue mislabeled the photo to the right as Zadie Smith?)
I was actually talking about this just last weekend when I met up with Mai, one of the masterminds behind Tripmaster Monkey. She had noticed this phenomenon too, and I wondered how it came about? After all, if you’re searching for a photo to illustrate an article, presumably you would type in the correct person’s name, right?
Could it be, as Mai suggested, that it’s the photo agencies who are messing up? A photo was mislabeled, and therefore when you type in “Al Sharpton” you end up with a photo of Barack Obama? (Oh I forgot, he’s not really black. 
) And that mistake keeps getting passed along the way all the way until it hits the printing presses?
Even if that’s the case, how is it that publications with such high standards for accuracy don’t catch such egregious mistakes? I mean, we’re talking really famous people here. Mills writes:
That’s what’s so amusing and/or annoying about this phenomenon. It links to that old racist trope of “they all look alike.” And I simply can’t imagine the media so frequently misidentifying white people of similar status (nor can I find evidence of it).
Have a look at some of the examples Mills notes:
Media Outlet: Rolling Stone
Supposed to be: Al Sharpton, activist
Actually a photo of: Fred Wesley, trombonist
Media Outlet: Reuters
Supposed to be: Shondra Rhimes, creator of Grey’s Anatomy
Actually a photo of: Chandra Wilson, actress on Grey’s Anatomy
Media Outlet: Associated Press
Supposed to be: Lena Horne, jazz singer
Actually a photo of: Leontyne Price, opera singer
Media Outlet: New York Times (2 mistakes in one photo)
Supposed to be: Lil’ Kim, recording artist
Actually a photo of: Foxy Brown, recording artist
Supposed to be: Jay-Z, recording artist
Actually a photo of: R. Kelly, recording artist
Media Outlet: The Washington Times
Supposed to be: Marvin Gaye, recording artist
Actually a photo of: Robert C. Bobb, D.C. City Administrator
Media Outlet: Associated Press
Supposed to be: Chris Rock, actor
Actually a photo of: Chris Tucker, actor
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
Lyonside wrote:
This happens in daily life too…
2 weeks ago at the post office, I asked for a book of stamps with Ella Fitzgerald. It’s my own fault for not looking at the book before I got in the car, but the clerk gave me Hattie McDaniel… Yup, Mammy.
Evidently, reading is not fundamental at the post office. Their names are quite clearly along the bottom of the stamp.
Posted 09 Feb 2007 at 9:41 am ¶
kim wrote:
I’m cracking up at that one, Lyonside.
I just cannot add a story here…too many.
I asked myself who the caption in the main post might have been seeking to identify, and actually came up with Zadie Smith before moving on to read the article. Not excusing anyone, just reaching for my cup of stammer and shades, is all.
Posted 09 Feb 2007 at 10:22 am ¶
P.Moore wrote:
Funniest mistake in the history of mistakes.
Although, I don’t think this phenomenon is unique to any one race, or to extent it even further, nationality.
This brings to mind the phrase “own race bias” and the problems it causes in court rooms across the nation. That is to say, a white person is more prone to make a mistake identifying a black suspect than a black person is, and it works the exact same way in the case of a black person identifying a white suspect.
Tragic.
But funny in this case…
Posted 09 Feb 2007 at 10:34 am ¶
Jay wrote:
Yeah, but Chris Rock played Chris Tucker…
…on Celebrity Jeopardy.
Posted 09 Feb 2007 at 10:51 am ¶
berrybrowne wrote:
LOL Lyonside - i actually had a fairly drawn-out (in post office, stamp-buying time) conversation with the clerk, who was also a black woman, about why i was not interested in buying the “mammy” stamps. i mean, there’s no way i could send those out without typing up some qualifying language to paste below each stamp, “sender’s purchase of this stamp should be construed only as evidence of general support for all things Black History and NOT as an indication of appreciation or enjoyment of the specific image here portrayed.”
or something…
Posted 09 Feb 2007 at 11:06 am ¶
Kyla wrote:
I can maybe, maybe understand mixing up Chris Rock and Chris Tucker; they’re both male comedians named Christ with vaguely similar hairstyles, and if you weren’t very familiar with either, I might see that happening.
The rest of those, I was like, “What?” I work at a newspaper. Barack Obama looks nothing like Alan Keyes, who looks nothing like Al Sharpton, who looks nothing like Jesse Jackson, who looks nothing like Tiger Woods, etc. When you see photos of people a lot, you get to know what they look like, and you can catch captioning mistakes, if you’re paying attention. For pop culture magazines to mix up pop culture figures like that without an editor or copy editor noticing would take some work.
Of course, the mainstream media seems to have a problem with telling Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden apart, so …
Posted 09 Feb 2007 at 2:06 pm ¶
Bohemian Writer wrote:
Well, you know what they say…we ALL look alike…lol
Posted 09 Feb 2007 at 6:18 pm ¶
kim wrote:
For the record, I love the Hattie McDaniel stamp. There is a real history to her getting and keeping those roles, and an honor in preserving the record of what she achieved, despite the times, and in stark defiance of what “her place” in the world was supposed to be.
You all know she drove to studios in her fur coats (or so the story goes), and worked everyday to provide for herself, as an actor (not always easy to do these days).
We don’t have to uphold the image her roles represented as a true depiction of Black folks’ abilities, interests, intelligence, demeanor, etc. Or representative of her own qualities.
I make sure to use the stamp every time I pay a major bill. Damn skippy.
Posted 09 Feb 2007 at 6:57 pm ¶
Anna wrote:
I used to work at a photo agency for many years applying names and search words to images and this was always a problem(I am white as was nearly all of the staff in the department). Unbelivable doozies, a recurring error was mixing up Colin Powell and Louis Farrakhan, we spent 10-15 minutes at meeting looking at their photos and it still happened afterwards. Sometimes photographers who were at these events the day before sent in these wrong names with their work. After I got a reputation for making less of these errors(just meticulous about any person’s name and knew reliable web sites to check), I was called on all the time to verify Black, Latin, or Asian celebrities, politicians etc. It never occurred to managers that a more diverse staff would be more helpful than just designating one white girl as the racial expert.
Posted 10 Feb 2007 at 1:18 pm ¶
PrincessaT wrote:
It is amazing in this day and age that people would mistake black people, especially celebrities. First off, African American’s don’t all look alike. Second, what Anna wrote is true. If the news media had a diverse staff these so called, “mistakes” would not happen. This report also shows to me the state of the media. If you can mistake a picture of someone, of any race, then how true or factual can your story be. I mean if I am reporting on someone, the lease I could to is have to correct photograph of that person. Or else, how valid would my story be to it’s readers.
Posted 11 Feb 2007 at 11:30 am ¶
The Real Christ wrote:
“I can maybe, maybe understand mixing up Chris Rock and Chris Tucker; they’re both male comedians named Christ with vaguely similar hairstyles…..”
Kyla, Ummm…. it’s Chris. Not Christ. And neither Chris has a hairstyle similar to mine. At least I don’t think so.
Posted 11 Feb 2007 at 2:07 pm ¶
Lyle wrote:
Media Outlet: Reuters
Supposed to be: Shondra Rhimes, creator of Grey’s Anatomy
Actually a photo of: Chandra Wilson, actress on Grey’s Anatomy
I can see making this mistake, not because of any visual similarity between the two, but Wilson’s character sometimes comes off as Rhimes’ voice and there’s been a couple media events (later seen on YouTube) where Wilson took on a role one would associate more with the person in charge of Grey’s Anatomy than the person who plays the person in charge of the characters on Grey’s Anatomy.
Posted 12 Feb 2007 at 10:35 am ¶
Sabrina wrote:
How anyone would mix up the Rev. Al Sharpton for anyone else is beyond me…it’s plain those folks at Rolling Stone are clueless.
Posted 13 Feb 2007 at 9:34 am ¶
mtevc wrote:
The mixups of some of these most famous black folks just shows how much the “mainstream” ignores us or just doesn’t care one bit. Come on, while Al Sharpton is not on my list of fav people, who the heck doesn’t know what he looks like?!
Posted 14 Feb 2007 at 12:09 pm ¶
Kyla wrote:
The Real Christ,
My mistake! You’d think I’d check my own comments for typos, but as much as I do this, I never learn. :-/
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 12:51 am ¶
Jules Rue wrote:
I recently had a bet with my chatroom…. that Chris Rock starred in Dogma and they all told me Chris Tucker did…… I googled it at the time and they were right…. Now I google it and Chris Rock starred in it. This is driving me nuts now… and now Chris TUCKER starred in Rush Hour movies. This is just weird…..
Posted 03 Jul 2008 at 5:55 pm ¶