The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
L J Laubenheimer,
San Jose, CA.
The thing lots of people miss with whites losing the majority is that no one race will be in the majority. We’ll all be minorities, which will ultimately remove a source of resentment and conflict. I’m white, I live in Silicon Valley. I doubt whites are the majority here anymore. But neither is anyone else. Some of the “minorities” have been in the US longer than my family, so how can I say they are less American than I am?
Ronnie
Annapolis, MD
The image of a child immigrant, who grew up to serve in the U.S. military is a bit cliche these days, especially after more than a decade of conflict. However, there is nothing cliche about an immigrant wanting to defend his adopted nation and his fellow Americans (both fellow immigrants and native citizens). Many of us, who have been given great opportunities by this great (even if flawed) nation, choose to defend it not out of all it has given to us but more out of our love for the grand ideals it stands for.
Choua Yang,
Green Bay, WI.
I was one of the lucky to escape Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War conflict. It was 1980 and I was only a baby when I came to the United States. As I progressed through school, I was immersed in western culture everywhere but my home; and it frustrated me to no end growing up. I eventually learned to accept my background and I’ve come to terms with my “baggage”, but where that has left me is that I can barely speak my own language, meaning I can barely communicate with my own parents. Professionally, I’ve advanced due to mastery of the English language. If you spoke with me on the phone and didn’t know my name, you’d never know I wasn’t Caucasian, that I wasn’t born in the US. But what this means is I get to be the token “minority” most places I go. They celebrate that with me, they are ushering in “diversity” but in reality, they only want me because I talk and think like they do. It’s a bonus that I can check the “Asian” box on the EEOC forms. Where it leaves me is I’m an outsider everywhere I go – at work, at home. My personal turmoil has left in a space where I don’t fit in anywhere.
Romaine Martin II,
Richmond, VA.
I Think Ancestry.com is very therapeutic. You can spend hours researching your family’s cold cases. One bit of information I found out left me feeling unsure of how to feel at all.
“Green Gore was born, in 1816, the son of Robert Gore (1783 – 1870/1880) and Tomsey Jarrel,(1778 – 1850/1853) in Island Creek, Virginia. On 4 April 1840, Green’s parents gave him 217 acres of land on Island Creek, in the Pipestem area of Mercer County, West Virginia. Green never married, but, two years after receiving his property, he began raising a family with his negro slave, Sarah. By 1850, he had four children by her.”
How do I reconcile the fact that my 3 x great Grandmother “Sarah” was held captive in a “relationship” where she was viewed as property? Some people would say this was a type of “love”… but to me at best it would have been a form of Stockholm syndrome. As a Black man, I can take no pride in the history…but as a human being I can acknowledge the past, explore the steps of my ancestors and be thankful I’m here to escort my family into the future.
Ty Pethe,
Seattle, WA.
For better or worse, we are social creatures that innately create groups of people like us. Whether it’s race, nationalism, gender, sex, ethnicity, economic class, sexual preference, religion, culture, age, sub-culture, political identity, philosophical identity, geographic identity, etc., we all tend to find value in our own (shared) identity. It tells us who we are and who’s like us. Unfortunately, it can create the struggles that define us. It takes great effort and thought to either reach past these identities or decide that they do not define us.
Picture submitted by Ty Pethe
Anonymous
Dallas, TX
As a teenager, I was a victim of an assault. For many years thereafter, I carried weapons. Whenever I spoke to anyone about the event, they’d suggest that I seek counseling — which I resented — because I was wanting their support against the aggressor. But no amount of “justice” heals the victim. When I finally sought counseling, I was told to “bless” my defensive tendencies, which counterintuitively allowed me to stop anticipating assault from every direction. I have finally learned that the most effective way to disarm a stranger is with a smile and a friendly word.
Carina Tillan
Hallandale, FL
My rebuttal to that is usually “Then what am I supposed to look like?” You’d be surprised how often people realize they don’t have (or don’t want to give) an answer to that.
And heaven forbid they learn I speak Spanish, almost as if it’s a greater accomplishment for me because I’m so fair-skinned. I would think that in this day and age, we would stop assuming “white” is the default, unless otherwise noted.
M. Griffin
Tampa, FL
As a public high school teacher I hear this word thrown around often and generally it is applied to brown skinned students. The exception is when your white and you’re “acting” like one of the brown-skinned students. I use the term “brown skinned” because many of the white students equate brown skin with “ghetto behavior”; loud, disrespectful, ready to fight, rap music, poverty…The list goes on and on. I challenge the students to remove it from their vocabulary or to just be honest about their prejudicial beliefs.
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