I'm not saying

that it's not easier to learn to recognize facial characteristics when you are very young; but by your analogy, a facial "ethnotype" is comparable to a language, and I just don't buy it. Sure, I'll grant you that if one is raised almost exclusively around one ethnotype, one will probably be able to recognize subtle differences between individual faces better than those of a different ethnotype. Hell, if you were raised by chimps, you'd know ape faces better than human faces. But brains are to a large degree pattern recognition engines. If you are motivated to learn differences, you will learn them. Yes it's easier to learn such things when you are young, that's when the brain is more "plastic." But that's different from saying that Ms. Wong's complaint about her Caucasian colleagues is because of a neurological blind spot. I contend that if they knew more Asians, they would have more interest in Asians as individuals, and would be able to distinguish individual Asians better. Is this really about defining rascism, or at least racial insensitivity? I don't know. Give me the link to the article and I'll have a better idea.