A race that EVERYONE can visually relate to?

Funny you chose to post two pictures of beautiful woman.
Seems you have a narrow focus on what you are looking for.

Well, my husband seems to be mixed up an awful lot, depending on who's looking at him. He's from South Africa, and has an English father and a South African (coloured, not black or white) mother. As a result, he's a bit of a mix between a black person and a white person. Full lips, caucasian nose, thick neck and legs but short stature.

People have thought he's African, English, Spanish, Italian, American, Kiwi, Aussie and Islander. He seems to confuse people a lot.

Here be photos:

http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv311/houseofpeppers/Water.jpg
http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv311/houseofpeppers/Waves.jpg

If you can wait a few months until my first grandson is born, I'll be able to tell what a Chinese, Scottish, Irish, French, English, Polish, Russian, Mohawk looks like

Pepper said:

Well, my husband seems to be mixed up an awful lot, depending on who's looking at him. He's from South Africa, and has an English father and a South African (coloured, not black or white) mother. As a result, he's a bit of a mix between a black person and a white person. Full lips, caucasian nose, thick neck and legs but short stature.

People have thought he's African, English, Spanish, Italian, American, Kiwi, Aussie and Islander. He seems to confuse people a lot.

Here be photos:

http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv311/houseofpeppers/Water.jpg
http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv311/houseofpeppers/Waves.jpg

Click to expand...

Who cares what race either of you are, you're both beautiful. If you catch me staring, it'll be for that.

Not quite sure what you're asking....but found that Dominicans tend to fool me, as do Cubans...I mistaken the latin tongue for a Hispanic, but the complexion to be of an African descent.

Oh, great example of misconstrued racial appearances....Mark Strong. Swore he was Middle Eastern. Not. Italian and Austrian. See?

Dario D. said:

Heh, not sure why someone would think he's specifically Aussie/Kiwi, unless they were thinking Aboriginal/Maori.

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I certainly hope that was their line of thought, otherwise they're gonna need glasses.

Mike Martyn said:

If you can wait a few months until my first grandson is born, I'll be able to tell what a Chinese, Scottish, Irish, French, English, Polish, Russian, Mohawk looks like

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LOL! Your families have a history of mixing up the ingredients then, eh?

Wayne K said:

Who cares what race either of you are, you're both beautiful. If you catch me staring, it'll be for that.

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They're good photos, is all.

Pepper said:

Well, my husband seems to be mixed up an awful lot, depending on who's looking at him. He's from South Africa, and has an English father and a South African (coloured, not black or white) mother. As a result, he's a bit of a mix between a black person and a white person. Full lips, caucasian nose, thick neck and legs but short stature.

People have thought he's African, English, Spanish, Italian, American, Kiwi, Aussie and Islander. He seems to confuse people a lot.

Here be photos:

http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv311/houseofpeppers/Water.jpg
http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv311/houseofpeppers/Waves.jpg

Click to expand...

I don't say this too often, but you two are HOT! Like movie star hotness.

Thanks guys, but lets get back to the original post please

It must be Friday night here after a long week. I honestly read the thread title and thought it was about running, horse-racing or egg and spoon...

Tiger Woods is an interesting example. He looks like he got the best genes form his ancestors.

I’m no expert, but I’m thinking it may not really be possible. Thing is if a face is a “composite” (eg. a person of mixed heritage), some of the features are bound to put some people off. So, if they have something against Asians, a face that has the slightest Asian look to it will be off-putting to them. People who get that put off are usually a little too race-sensitive, though.

The flip side can also be true: if they’re seeking out people of their own ethnic background (not just race), they’ll pick out features that don’t match up with what such a person “should” look like.

Or if the context presents the person as a certain nationality, they might ignore those same “outsider” features. In live meetings, context and behavior matter a lot.

Something I’ve discovered in my travels is that skin color seems to matter a lot less than face shape or shape of facial features in which ethnicity you can “pass for.” That is, having the right nose is more important than having the right skin tone.

As for “instant connection,” though, personal experience would factor in, too. For instance, I’m not East Asian at all, yet I can “instantly relate” to East Asian faces because I grew up in Seattle, in an area where lots of East Asians lived (is a very mixed city, not so segregated by nationality like some). They feel much more familiar to me than typically Northern European faces, which look "foreign" to me. (And I only noticed that after an anti-racism experiment, not because I intentionally hate Swedes or something.)

But then, honestly, both those women you posted look 100% white to me.

Is there a particular reason you're asking? If so, knowing that might help people give you more useful info. Fascinating topic, in any case.

Jessica Alba is racially ambiguous to me.

If you live in Minnesota long enough, you can tell the Swedes from the Norwegians. The Finns fool me every time, though.

I know someone who just got married to this guy... I thought he was a dark-skinned Asian, maybe Vietnamese or something. Our mutual friend thought his ethnic background was from India. Then we both saw some of his family and thought "Oh he's MEXICAN!"

Nope. Native American.

SNL cast member Fred Armisen, whose ancestry comes from Germany, Japan and Venezuela. He can pass by Asian, Latino and white. He even plays Barack Obama...

I knew a guy who was half Polish and half Jewish.

He was a janitor, but he owned the building.
-Jacke Mason

Race is artificial anyway. The things people think of as racial traits are in actuality, cultural traits. That goes for the physical appearance as well. When most people in a population select for a certain standard of beauty, after a while they will start to exhibit those traits.

I wish I could remember the name of the tribe we studied in anthropology. Most of the women had what we in the west would consider abnormally large derrieres. However, the men of that tribe think big bottoms are HOT, and have for hundreds of years. It wasn't a racial trait, but cultural one.

When I first met my husband I thought he was from Kazakhstan or something. Turns out he is 1/4 German, 1/4 Yaqui indian, and 1/2 Guatemalan. But if he grows a beard, he looks like a child of Abraham, ha ha ha.



People are always confused by our daughter. She has my husband's makeup, and then Greek, Jewish, Blackfoot and welsh in her. Everybody insists we must have adopted her from China, including the waiters at the Chinese buffet.


It's not likely you'll find any one look that every person in the world relates to, because there are extremes in appearance. Even my sister and I, being full sisters relate to different looks. She doesn't relate to our greek relatives at all, because she has red hair and blue eyes. She even says she feels a little like an alien at those family reunions. Then I feel like an outsider at her little irish dance recitals, where everybody is blond or redheaded and pasty white.

I think the two closest looks you might be able to find are Russians and Americans. Because both are so mixed.

But I really don't think there is a look that will fit a "All Races" appearance.

I'm not sure what you mean by "relate to." Both of the pictures in the original post creep me out--the first because she so heavily made up that you can't tell what she really looks like, and the second because she's made of virtual plastic.

If you are looking for someone who can alter his or her appearance to pass as different ethnicities, that can be done with makeup and wigs and prosthetics, no matter what you look like. Seems like every country has done a reality show now where they paint a white family black and a black family white, coach them on how to speak and act, and follow them around while strangers assume they're black/white. It takes a lot of greasepaint and time to pull this off, but it can be done. Add plastic surgery and some drugs that alter skin tone, and you've got a semi-permanent race change.

The first woman is Japanese made up to look "whiter," as far as I can tell. I think the only people who will relate to her are twelve year old Japanese girls.

Dario D. said:

I'm trying to figure out if there's actually a look out there (even if only one person has it) that ALL people instantly relate to.

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I believe that I saw on some TV-show somewhere (could it have been Discovery or the History channel? - I don't remember) that symmetry is what appeals most to the human perception. So, if I still remember correctly, it's not so much race as harmony in a face that is considered attractive, and thus, I guess, something that everyone can relate to.

ChristineR said:

The first woman is Japanese made up to look "whiter," as far as I can tell. I think the only people who will relate to her are twelve year old Japanese girls.

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And there's the crux. I can only see that girl as white. If she does have any Asian genes at all, I'd be surprised. I believe her eye makeup was applied to give her more ambiguity, but if you take it off I think you'd see typical Caucasian eyes under there.
Yet you see the opposite.

I think it's much more common for people to confuse a person as being one of two different nationalities. I don't think a person could exist where every different race could mistake them as being one of theirs.
Unless they have shape shifting tendencies. Which you could absolutely do in a story.

Two actresses (and yes, they're both attractive):

Dichen Lachman is Australian and Tibetan. Summer Glau is American (identifies as white) but has German and Scottish heritage. No Asian, as some people might expect.

I believe that I saw on some TV-show somewhere (could it have been Discovery or the History channel? - I don't remember) that symmetry is what appeals most to the human perception. So, if I still remember correctly, it's not so much race as harmony in a face that is considered attractive, and thus, I guess, something that everyone can relate to.

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You're right. Symmtery is a very common factor of determining attractiveness.