Jacinta Lomba, South Windsor, CT. Thank you for organizing this campaign! I think it is fabulous.
Peekaboo. Race is a knowing surprise.
Kate, St. Paul, MN.
Loving me = easier to love you
Makeda Zulu-Gillespie, Minnepolis, MN. “The balance in trying to give your children an open road to follow their dreams and making sure they recognize the dangers signs is HARD. It is a complex conversation already then add the dynamics of faith! I see progress and hope beyond my understanding AND I see the reinforcement institutionalized […]
My nieces. My nephews. Fix This
Robin Young, Boston, MA.
I am not your take out menu.
Shashwati , Submitted via Twitter: @Shashwati1m.
My eloquence should not surprise you.
Angie Cruz, Los Angeles, CA. The fact that I am a Latina should not make you assume I am not intelligent. I am college educated, I am well-spoken, and I have undergone experiences that have created a foundation for my intellect and my ability to communicate. Don’t be surprised because I can use “big words”.
“Black-Looking” Female, White Father, Glaring Eyes.
Kayla Doering, Statesboro, GA. My father is of Irish descent and my Mother is Native American. Something I’ve always dealt with while being out in public with my father is people staring at us like we were a rare species. Growing up, while running daily errands with my father, I remember older women asking if […]
Stop frowning at mixed race couples.
Kristen Wonsik, Virginia Beach, VA.
Can’t we please share the world
Big Rick, New Zealand. ONE LOVE
The most divisive word on Earth!
Wali Shakur, Santa Fe, NM. Disband all use of the word race (and all of it’s uses) and most economic models will collapse. Peace.
Where do Hmong people come from?
Amy Xiong, Minneapolis, MN.
Where are the white pride parades?
Nick, N. Steelton, PA.
Am I here because I’m Asian?
Jamie-Claire Chau, Philadelphia, PA. We have reached a dilemma in our fight for justice. How can we intentionally battle racism without being racist? We think reconciliation is embracing people because of their race rather than despite of their race. I constantly question whether I have what I have and am where I am because I […]
White women need to listen more.
Moira O’Connell, Morristown, NJ.
Mafia jokes hurt this Italian American
Linda Eremita, Pittsburgh, PA.
My spouse is a black man
Thomas C. Hofstra, Los Angeles, CA. My spouses six words are “I try to understand our world”
Molded from Western views of men.
Brian N. St. Louis Park, MN.
My Black is not your black.
LaVonda Staples, St. Louis, MI. I deserve the right and reserve the right to not follow a script designed to keep me in a role which does not and has never fit.
By protecting her, I’m oppressing her.
Adrienne Kern, Keller, TX. My daughter was two weeks from turning one on September 11, 2001. She is one of them. An Arab (pronounced with a Texas drawl: A-Rab). A camel jockey. A rag head. She is Turkish and Saudi and Egyptian. She is not white like me, her mother, who is also mixed race. […]
The school cafeteria is still* segregated
Steven Rodgers, Submitted via Twitter: @metricmodulate. (Opt. “self* segregated.”)
Mama didn’t raise me that way.
Jim Baxter, Hyattsville, MD.
Honorable, proud. never-ending. I am
W. Vines, Upper Marlboro, MD.
Diversity’s a condition. Equity’s a goal.
Kevin Moreno, Baltimore, MD. When they happen at all, discussions about race too often devolve into indictments or defensiveness about one’s individual experience. But combating racism has as much or more to do with examining legal, policy, and other systemic structures than with changing individuals’ minds or attitudes.
“Post-Racial” = “stop talking Black People!”
DJ Fusion/FuseBox Radio Broadcast, MD.
You’re pretty for a dark skin girl
Imani B., Baltimore, MD. So are all dark skin girls ugly and I’m the exception? Woukd i be ugly if i was lighter? Your insulting me. Please don’t.
My actions aren’t different from yours.
Navid Mehrabkhani, Hyattsville, MD. The purpose of choosing these words involves how my race impact and influence the ways others see me. People assume that’s because of my race, because I’m from Iran, people assume I’m a terrorist. I believe my race should not influence the way others interpret my life or my actions.
Being a minority is in Vogue
Tyler Kishimoto, Mechanicsburg, PA.
Grandparents couldn’t have had our marriage
Rachel Devenish Ford, Submitted via Twitter: @journeymama
We are only friends at work.
Dan Dodge, Sutherland, IA.
He brought something for his worker.
Erbayne W. Jarvis, Cottage Grove, MN. My six words came out of an experience I had when I went to a government agency deliver some document as part of my work on behalf of a client. I needed help in finding the person to whom I was to deliver the documents. One of the employees […]
Color Defined, Now Mixing is Fixing
Doug Shipman, Atlanta, GA. The demographic changes seen in the census are at a turning point– race has to change because the categories are rapidly falling with intermarriage, internationalization and the rise of majority-minority in America.
Challenge assumptions-find truth through dialogue.
Sharon Christian, Whelan, GA.
I am Mexican when its convenient
John Heath Olguin, West Orange, NJ. Before you get all worked up about my 6 words. Let me explain. I watched a little boy of Mexican-American decent sing our national anthem and thought nothing of it. The next day I read about all the negative comments that came about of his performance (see link) and […]
Not Black. Not White. Proud Brown.
Samantha C., Jacksonville, FL.
I pray for my son everyday
J Hill, Canton, OH. I am the proud mother of three children, two girls and a boy. They are all adults now. Every mother worries about her children. But I feel especially concerned for my son. He has done everything well so far in his life, entering his senior year in college, no kids, hardworking, […]
Isolation left me all mixed up.
Tad C., Overland Park, KS. With very little exposure to other races while growing up I found myself faced with 2 stereotypes for blacks; pigeonholes of overachiever mascots and dangerous thugs. But I did not realize my isolation fostered prejudice until my son fell in with a predominately black group of friends. Now I’m uncertain […]
Have courage, ask about the difference.
Mary Collins, Fort Wayne, IN. Colorblindness is not true appreciation of differences.
You are an white person undercover.
Tricia Jenkins-Roberts, Watsonville, CA. I was a 20 year old indigenous childcare worker at a Salvation Army in South Phoenix which was a predominately Black and Latino neighborhood. Apparently the father of one of my students felt I wasn’t “Black” enough and said this to me as he picked up his son and I was […]
Defining divisions through labels of behavior
Katy Morris, Kansas City, KS.
You WILL pay the Black Tax.
Dr. Brian K. Clardy, Murray, KY.
Black lesbian CPA, it’s really me.
Andrea Hyson, San Francisco, CA. About two months ago, I finally met a new employee in another department. This woman and I had numerous phone conversations but hadn’t yet met. I decided to stop by her office to introduce myself. Another employee was at her door as I approached. As I turned into her office, […]
Race: One piece of the story
Celeste Holder-King, Fort Collins, CO.
Race horses run, blinders or no
Marian Carpenter, Fort Collins, CO.
Biker gangs have love for me
Richard Haynie, Oakland, CA. I walked into a roadside tavern near Allentown PA that had several motorcycles parked outside. Loving bikes, I thought nothing of it. Inside, a motorcycle “club” were the only patrons on that Sunday morning. I ordered some food and, despite a warning from the proprietor, decided to stay and eat there. […]
The ocean does not see race.
Mary Mills, Los Angeles, CA. I am a black female surfer. (What stereotypes?)
Jive! Differences rub bow to fiddle.
Sarah Peterson, Fort Collins, CO.
I’m biracial. Being half isn’t easier
Jason Martin, CO.
Two Black Lesbian Daughters. Say What?!
Shelley Ferrand, USA. After the initial shock of their coming out, I realized that THEY are the long search for fruits of my 1960’s labor and radicalism. So, when I see the economic travesties in our community, after I pledged on campus 40 years ago to give it my all to help end my people’s […]
Not black or white. I’m gray.
Nikki Hyde, Los Angelos, CA. I’m a proud member of the multiracial community but still looking for a simple, clear word to describe what I am, not what I am not or what percentage of something else I am.
Welcome to Half-breed Nation Indian Reservation
Katie McDonald, Ronan, MT. Curious couplings of North America’s early settlers and smoke screens hiding the unspoken US “Cowboys vs Indians” history create unique and difficult problems for today’s “Generation X” Native Americans
Much of it is now underground.
Tom Gilles, Los Angeles, CA.
Judgment based on an individual’s ACCENT.
Ame Cruz, Sacramento, CA. It’s not just about blacks & whites. People tend to judge based on others’ accents as if they’re not good enough because they don’t know English well.
Wanted to be a black teenager
Elizabeth Hess, New Haven, CT. That photo is the end paper of my yearbook, Weaver High School, Hartford, Connecticut, 1975. I was one of about 15 white kids in a huge city school. I loved the laughter in the hallways, the treasured friendships, the “take me as I am-ness” of the classmates I most wanted […]
I’m a story. Aren’t you too?
Heidi Durrow, Submitted via Twitter: @heididurrow.
Embrace our roots. Embrace each other.
Cheri Atalig, Sacramento, CA.
I’m Mexican; Race is a Border.
Brian Federico, Nogales, AZ.
Untangling my family’s race relations (so much is hidden)
Jane DeNeefe, AL.
When will the next one go
David Rotenstein, Atlanta, GA. In April 2012, I sat in an elderly African American woman’s Decatur, Ga.,dining room with a digital recorder asking her questions about gentrification in her neighborhood. For more than a decade, developers have been buying small homes and tearing them down to build large new homes some people call “McMansions.” The […]
How to protect my black son?
Michael Bolton , Scottsdale, AZ. Understanding Race Project- University of Michigan Dad Caucasian. lived life in black neighborhood mostly. studied black history–college+leisure. love black culture esp music, classic jazz. slave narratives. am black myself but cannot pass as such. other dad, my partner, black, died. am now single dad, not planned. bringing up son in […]
“But you’re not like other Mexicans.”
Tom Vásquez, Seattle, WA. I was in high school when this happened. I’m a son of a Mexican-American, so I’m 50% Mexican blood. 50% French-Canadian and English. When I was in high school, I was struggling to understand what it meant to be Mexican-American. The other Mexican kids in my school … well, the ones […]
My children are black. I’m not.
William G. Duval, Fairfax, VT. My wife and I have a racially blended family in one of the whitest states in the union. I think it has made a difference in some admittedly small ways.
One man. Indivisible. Black. Gay. American.
Gandalf the Bae, Submitted via Twitter: @_A1va #theracecardproject
Hmong American muaj lub siab tawv
Janes Lee, Minneapolis, MN. I am a Hmong American male, residing in the most Hmong populated state though we are still very unseen. The service our people provided during the Vietnam War, known to the Hmong people as the Secret War, has been invisible to the public eye. How fitting of it for the invisible […]
I’m not the RIGHT minority.
Brianna Acosta, Leander, TX. All the U.S. is talking about is black and white, but what about the Mexican Americans? Discrimination against us has risen 50% in the last ten years while discrimination against most other races in the U.S. has gone down.
Sometimes White. Sometimes Black. Sometimes Latino.
Massiel Ramos, Bronx, NY. Sometimes your race depends on the people and culture you associate yourself with. If that’s the case, I’ll never fit into one solid category.
Threatened identities become our most important
Samantha Martin, Submitted via Twitter: @traveladvising #theracecardproject
This little light of mine. Let’it shine.
Michelle Breidenbach, Submitted via Twitter: @mbreidenbach #theracecardproject
People here mostly assume I’m WHITE
Anne Rubin, Submitted via: Instagram #theracecardproject
An Ignorant Way to Identify People
Татьяна [tɐˈtʲjanə] Submitted via Twitter: @montillathehun_ #theracecardproject
Black. Good hair? Indian in your family?
Nicole, New Orleans, LA. Black women are so obsessed with their hair that it can totally consume their life… “I can’t get in the pool ‘cuz I can’t get my hair wet”. “Girl, I can’t work out and sweat and mess up my hair”. “I can’t buy that. I gotta pay to get my hair […]
I’m terrified to talk about race.
Michael F., Suffolk, VA. As a white male, I’m afraid anything that I say about race will be taken as an attack on another’s, but I want to be part of the conversation too.
Different rivers run into same ocean 海纳百川
Ruomeng Huang, Oakland, CA. “I am a international junior student at Bishop O’dowd High School in Oakland, CA, in the English class of Ms. Sarah Tunik.
I am Muslim; I’m not a terrorist.
Ireen Sultana, York, PA.
Wow, you don’t have an accent!
Angelina A., Allentown, PA. I myself always get asked about questions about my racial and ethnic background and it never has bothered me. I usually always say I am half Dominican and half Chilean, then I go on to explaining that my dad is from Chile and my mom is from The Dominican Republic. Although […]
Not always proud to be white
Marylou Chicote, Bennington, VT. I need to do more!
I think I need fourteen words.
RW Wells, Little Rock, AK.
Yes, I can comb my hair..
Shaunise Allmond, Baltimore, MD. Society assumes since I am a black woman with natural hair I cannot do simple tasks like combing my hair. My hair texture is extremely curly and what some consider nappy. I have broken combs in the past and will continue to break them in the future. My problem with people […]
Being conspicous is a daily struggle
I.Maz, Submitted via Twitter: @DarkHairedDaisy #theracecardproject
Differences never change but opinions do
Molly W., Denver, CO. I am a 6th grade teacher and my class has been reading Fire From the Rock about the integration of Central High School in Little Rock in 1957. This six-word story was written by one of my students in response to our reading. http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/fire-rock
I actually know how to swim
シドニー Submitted via Twitter: @_sxdni
“Do you speak Chinese?” *face palm*
Amanda McClendon, Houston, TX. For starters, I’m Korean, so no, no Chinese for me beyond “ni hao” and “xie xie”, which I learned from TV travel shows. Secondly, I was adopted as a baby by parents I like to refer to as American Euro-mutts–English, Irish, German, French, and a touch of Choctaw, and that’s just […]
“Fair you entered before my son?”
Heidi Adelsman, Minneapolis, MN. Working for 12 years as a Pipefitter in Minneapolis and St. Paul Minnesota, I saw few to no people of color or women working in the construction trades unless a large contract required “minorities” to get the contract. One father of a Dunwoody trade school classmate asked if I thought it […]
White Middle-Age Male No Reservations Required
Mark Whitesel, Statesboro, GA. I’m becoming more and more aware of my privilege as I grow older and how much I have taken for granted.
“Very pretty for a Black girl”
Alexandria Marbury, USA.
Positive stereotypes are still negative, Asian
Catherine C., Fullerton, CA. All people see when they see an asian is a calculator, someone who is good at math, and science and has no social skills.
Life experiences shape our daily lives.
Kristine Yager-Rushton, Statesboro, GA. Our life experiences make us who we are. I grew up with a chronic disease that led to me having an organ transplant several years ago. In my volunteer work, I get to share my story as I help mentor future organ transplant recipients on what to expect. I often find […]
I’m not defined by my stereotype.
Charlene Dashiell, Manassas, VA.
Blacks Are Their Own Worst Enemies!
Anonymous, ND. I grew up in a small mountain town in Northwest Georgia after my mother ended her military career and took me back to her hometown. All of her maternal family and most of her paternal family was there, so she thought she would have a great support system,but her family was the greediest […]
Don’t let six words define you.
Olivia Olmos, Oakland, CA. I am a junior at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland, CA, in the English class of Ms. Sarah Tunik–s
So, which race are you today
Axel Broome, Oakland, CA. “I am a junior at Bishop O’dowd High School in Oakland, CA, in the English class of Ms. Sarah Tunik–
Family contrast black white shows beauty
Sherry Weaver, Woodstock, GA. Our family is a beautiful rainbow. We are pink with brown spots and brown with pink spots. We are just a family. I didn’t “rescue” anyone-we gave each other gifts. I was given the incredible gift of love and diversity, and they got a family who loves them and can appreciate […]
I am who I am, ME!
Debra Rosenberg, Phoenix, AZ. I am the person I am meant to be, and proud to be a Jew even though growing up I knew what it was like to be “Black”. I had to overcome many obstacles of prejudices.
To be socially excluded and invisible.
Savannah Ice, Australia.
Angry, confused, shocked, disoriented,worried, and aware
Steven O’Neal, Dallas, TX. Discrimination is still happening today and it will never stop
Unite a species, play more music
Chris Asercion, Centennial, CO. I play a lot of music. It is one thing that I have seen that can bring people together that have never met.
Not White, but not quite Black
Annette Maldonado, Rochester, NY. Hispanics are invisible a lot of the times. We are seen as not really white, but not quite Black either.
Like religion and law historically advantageous
Warner Squire, Bartow, FL. I’m convinced that much of our society and standards are based on perpetuating manufactured truths in order to manipulate people who have become way too busy to do their own research in SO many areas; not only do they have little time and resources, but they are taught from a young […]
My Daughter’s biracial, and I worry
Raenette White, Moreno Valley, CA. Shout out to California Baptist University.
The lies of my skin color.
Kitt Smith, USA. I have white skin, green eyes and brown hair. I appear every bit a homogeneous American white. I am not. I am a first generation American born to a Mexican illegal and a Irish immigrant. My family has no history here and no part in the oppression of black people. Both sides […]
You Aren’t Native, You Are White!
Taylor Danielle, Morris, MN. Being a “full” Native American is not defined by phenotypic gene expression. Yes, I am a blue-eyed, blonde Native American.
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