Same Race Means Related

Asher: Maybe he's her secret baby, like she gave him up for adoption and he doesn't even know.
Michaela: Because all black people are related.
Asher: What? No. I-I wasn't...

— How to Get Away with Murder

A form of tokenism where the only racial or ethnic minorities in a work turn out to be related. It can be revealed as casually as the Token Minority greeting a new character in a familiar way, or as a big plot twist. Other times, characters might assume that people who share the same ethnic background are related. The implication is that everyone within a minority group knows each other, an all too common and offensive real-life assumption; expect the minority characters in question to point this out in any discussion, subversion or lampshading of this trope.

Compare Same Surname Means Related (the surname is used as a tip-off to a relative reveal; these can overlap in Species Surname cases), Token Minority Couple (a racial minority introduced solely to be the love interest of another minority), Racial Face Blindness (the reasoning that people of a same race are related can stem from the assumption members of the same race all look alike), Hair Color Spoiler (a unique hairstyle or hair color hints at some sort of relation), One Degree of Separation, Everyone Is Related (which could provide a justification).

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Delicious in Dungeon: While Kabru's party is discussing Laios's party, the subject turns to one of their ex-members, Shuro, a samurai from the East. They ask if Rin, the Kabru party's mage, is familiar with him, seeing as she's the same ethnicity, but she replies that the East consists of multiple different cultures and she wasn't even born there anyways (she's a second-generation immigrant to the Island). The name isn't even one she recognizes as native to her culture, although that might just be because "Shuro" is derived from the Laios party mispronouncing "Toshiro", the guy's actual name.
• Tweeny Witches: During the second half of the TV series, Arusu finds out that there are other humans in the Magical Realm. They are Lennon, who is revealed to be her half-brother; and Jidan, their father who has been imprisoned in Wizard Kingdom for the last 6 years.
• Yasuke: During the first encounter with the mercenaries Hikita asks if Achoja and Yasuke (two black men living in 16th century Japan) are related. Achoja is offended.

Comedy

• Comedian Jim Norton recounts a faux pas he once made while boarding a plane when he asked a pair of black women (one noticably older than the other) if they'd prefer to sit together on the flight, assuming they were mother and daughter. He immediately knew he'd messed up when the older woman indignantly asked "Why would we?" with an African accent the younger woman did not have ("Oh, God... they're not even from the same part of the Earth! I was off by oceans and continents!"). Jim then tried to smooth things over by explaining that he thought the two were a lesbian couple.

Comic Books

• American Born Chinese: Jin and Suzy are initially assumed to be related by their classmates simply because both are East Asian, even though Jin's Chinese and Suzy's Japanese.
• Batman: For a time, Lady Shiva and Cassandra Cain where the only characters of East Asian descent in the Batman comics^note This was before Talia al-Ghul was retconned into being half-Chinese and her son Damian was integrated into mainstream continuity.. It was eventually revealed in Cass's book that Shiva was her mother.

Fan Works

• Content creator bbpanzu had to clarify that the two dark-skinned characters from his Friday Night Funkin' mods, Momi and Carol, aren't related and don't know each other.
• A fantasy variant in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: From the Hidden City; all of the turtle characters are related to each other. The titular characters are obvious, and Ke Xin/Artemisia's relation to them is foreshadowed by her also being a turtle. Because of this, all other turtle characters have had their species changed—Slash is a tortoise^note which he was implied to be in the 2012 series, Jennika is a frog, and Venus is an Aeon. Notably, Lita remains a turtle, and is Related in the Adaptation.
• In The Fated Task, Ron excitedly asks Kiku Honda if the foreign student knows Ron's Japanese penpal. When George gently points it's a smidge racist to assume that when Japan has around thirty millions people, Ron is rather embarrassed.

Films — Live Action

• A particular egregious example occurs in Ghostbusters (2016). The majority of the main actors from the original Ghostbusters (1984) make appearances as different characters, from Sigourney Weaver to Bill Murray. When Ernie Hudson (who was famously kept off of the first film's poster and had to deal with a script downgrade that made his Ghostbuster the only one who wasn't a parapsychology professor) makes his appearance, he's playing the uncle to the character portrayed by Leslie Jones (who also was the sole non-white Ghostbuster and not a parapsychology professor). None of the returning white actors played characters related to the new generation of white Ghostbusters.
• Good Boys: It's treated as a big reveal that Lily and Soren, the only two Asian youths, are siblings.
• Men in Black 3: The only two characters who are black, Agent J and the Colonel, are revealed to be father and son late in the film.
• Subverted in Snow Dogs. When Ted Brooks is told his father is living in Tolketna, Alaska, he assumes his dad must be the only other Black man in town. It turns out his father is actually Thunder Jack, who's white.

Literature

• The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet: In the Distant Finale to Record of a Spaceborn Few, Kip and his university classmate, Viola, jokingly call each other "cousin" because their alien classmates assumed they were related as they're both Human. In fact, Viola is Solan from Mars while Kip is Exodan from the Fleet; you'd have to go back centuries for a common ancestor to even be possible.
• The Stranger Times: Stella accuses Hannah of assuming she and Grace are related just because they're both Black. In fact, Hannah had just witnessed a conversation between the two that sounded very much like a sassy teen arguing with her overbearing mother. The writing is also on Hannah's side: Stella's race had not been described up until that point.

Live-Action TV

• Abbott Elementary: In the twelfth episode Jacob (the young, earnest, but clueless white teacher) expresses admiration for a black teacher, Mrs. Davis, and says that the only way she could be any cooler was if she was related to Angela Davis. He then backtracks, claiming that it's not because he thinks all black people are related.
  Gregory:^note also black: Well, maybe you do. Maybe that's your subconscious speaking.
• A.N.T. Farm: The twist in "finANTial crisis" is the reveal that Kennedy van Buren, the only Asian cast member, is in fact the daughter and assistant of recurring antagonist and Japanese tycoon Hashimoto.
• In the first episode of Chef! (1993), Chef Gareth Blackstock is meeting an old acquaintance from school, Everton Stonehead, in the dining room of his restaurant. One of the subordinate cooks, Piers, asks sous chef Lucinda if they're brothers, stating you don't often see black men in their restaurant. Lucinda points out that not all black people are related, adding, with cheerful snark, "I'm given to understand that some of them haven't even been properly introduced."
• Community: Invoked with Pierce who initially assumes that Troy is Shirley's son because they're both black. By the end of the first season, he's learned they aren't mother and son, but instead thinks they're cousins.
• How to Get Away with Murder: Lampshaded. In the second episode, Asher (who is white) wonders if Wes (who is black) is only part of their exclusive "Keating Five" group because he's the secret lovechild of their African-American professor Annalise Keating. Michaela (who is also black) scoffs at the insinuation that all black people must be related. The series would continue to tease a possible mother-son connection between the two before eventually revealing that Annalise knew Wes's mother while they were both pregnant, but Annalise lost her baby.
• In an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the white Dee befriends a black man to try to get more customers for the pub and the white Charlie dates a black woman to prove to the waitress that he isn't racist; it turns out the two are brother and sister.
• Lovesick: Dylan flirts with someone (of African descent) in a coffee shop and they spend the night together. The next day he helps Evie (who is also black) set up a stall at the Barras, where he re-encounters the woman he slept with the night before. Turns out she's actually Evie's sister.
• Veronica Mars:
  • Veronica's Token Black Friend Wallace's father is apparently dead, and he's raised by his mom Alicia. However, early in Season 2, the Black Nathan Woods shows up and follows both Alicia and Wallace before revealing that he's Wallace's biological father.
  • Also in Season 2, Jackie and Terrence Cook, who are both Black, are introduced separately before it's revealed that they are father and daughter.

Theater

• Avenue Q: Lampshaded and Deconstructed. Princeton asks Kate Monster if she and Trekkie Monster are related, presumably because they share the surname "Monster" (though whether all monsters in the world share this surname is unclear). Kate is horrified that Princeton would make such an assumption, asking him if he thinks all monsters are related. This leads into the toe-tapper "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist."

Video Games

• House Party (2017): Lampshaded. Derek and Leah, the only two black characters at the party, have ambient dialogue in which they complain about people asking if they're related.
• Spyro: A Hero's Tail: When Blink the mole introduces himself to Spyro, Spyro asks if he knows the Professor. Blink seems insulted that Sypro assumes that he knows every mole just because he's one himself, but then he says he's just kidding and clarifies that the Professor is his uncle.
• Them's Fightin' Herds: Before story mode, the only other ungulate in-game for a while was a reindeer NPC named Cashmere, who co-ran the Pixel Lobby's store. It was revealed some time later by the devs (and mentioned in-game) that Cashmere is the cousin to Velvet, the only playable reindeer of the main characters.
• The Walking Dead (Telltale): Lampshaded and played with: Everyone assumes that Lee is Clementine's father, partially because they're the only two black people in their group of survivors and partially because Lee does actually look after Clem while they look for her missing parents. The only character who says that they don't look related at all is Christa, the only other black character who joins the group in episode four.

Web Original

• Reviewer Paul O'Brien of The X-Axis had such a reaction to the X-Men reveal that Bishop was related to Gateway, an Australian Aborigine:
  O'Brien: There, after all, only a handful of these strange dark people. Clearly they must all be related.
• Britanick: Defied in ''A Monologue for Three':
  Brian: Question about Donald Glover?
  Danny: You got it.
  Brian: Is he related to Danny Glover?
  Danny: He's actually not.
  Brian: What?! But they're both bl...
  Nick: ALRIGHT GUYS! BACK TO BUSINESS! LINE FROM TWELFTH NIGHT!

Western Animation

• American Dad!: In "Escape From Pearl Bailey", Steve's Misplaced Retribution against the popular girls causes trouble when Janet, the only African American among the popular girls, turns out to be Principal Lewis' daughter and he declares open season on Steve and his friends.
  Steve: Janet's your daughter? How come you never mentioned this before?
  Principal Lewis: Because I'm ashamed of her for more reasons than you can imagine. Still, that's my little girl, man!
• Phineas and Ferb: Ginger and Stacy, the only recurring East Asian characters, were theorized as sisters in fanon, which became canon in Season 4's "For Your Ice Only."
• Discussed and played with in Steven Universe: When they see Yellow Diamond's Pearl, Steven asks Pearl if she knows her. Pearl, annoyed, responds "Not all Pearls know each other, Steven." They turn out to know each other; Pearl was using Exact Words to avoid revealing their connection.
• Tiny Toon Adventures: Defied by Buster and Babs Bunny, the only two rabbits in the cast, who always introduce themselves as "no relation" in unison.
• Young Justice (2010): The first hint of a connection between Artemis and Cheshire is when Artemis recognizes her after her mask is knocked off. It is eventually revealed that the two are sisters and the daughters of Sportsmaster and the former villainess Huntress. Artemis, Jade and Paula were the only three Vietnamese characters in season 1.

---