If you are a white adoptive parent of a non-white child, this could happen to them.

This is part of the experience a non-white person in America has to deal with.

Mistaken identity by resist racism

A few weeks back I read an interview with Robert Johnson, the
African American billionaire founder of BET. Johnson recounted a few
stories of mistaken identity, one in which he was mistaken for the
chauffeur of his own car.

I was thinking about this because I thought how often this type of
mistaken identity happens when white people see people of color.

A young African American guy I used to know had two occurrences of
mistaken identity in one week. He was washing his very expensive car at
his trendy condo building when management came out and told him that he
wasn’t allowed to do that. Turned out that they had a problem with
homeless people soliciting money for car washes (?). Condo owners, of
course, were allowed to use the facilities in the garage for that
purpose.

Then he was walking past a restaurant when a man jumped out of a car and handed him the keys.  He had been mistaken for a valet.

To me, this was a clear example of how race can blind some white
people to everything else. This guy clearly looked wealthy by my
standards. He was always extremely well-dressed, lived in a very
expensive neighborhood and drove a new sports car.

read the rest here.