The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Makael James,
Chicago, IL
Racial Inequality has been around since our great great great great grandparents have been around. In today’s generation it looks different because of how the men in power set it up and all of it leads down to death and violence.
Leah Perlongo,
Sunapee, NH.
Ever been asked “Where are you from?” and the answer they expected was not the town you were born, but a country you’ve never been to? I find it frustrating that we in USA assume that people who look a little different are probably from another country.
Alan S. Doctor,
Cambria, CA.
I was born in San Francisco on 15 Sep 1930. Dad was Scotch/English and Mom was Polish with a dash of German. Both 1st generation born in USA.
My neighborhood friends were Hispanic, Oriental, white and refugee Jews from Germany. In high school I liked to walk home through the Fillmore district and fell in love with Dixie and other jazz. I would stop in front of the Negro clubs to listen and was frequently invited in. Never a problem.
I excelled in Army ROTC and graduated a Cadet Major. I enlisted Army in May 1949 and had Basic at Fort Ord, CA. The armed services were integrated by order of President Truman in 1947, I believe. The Army was struggling with this, still is. I remember a few black Trainees and one in my Platoon. He and I became friendly enough for me to go to his home in Compton, CA for a weekend and he came to my home in San Francisco for a weekend. We both had asked for training as an automotive mechanic and travelled together to the Ordnance Automotive School in Atlanta, GA. We departed Los Angeles via UP and were not treated well because we were Soldiers. We changed crews somewhere in Texas to SP. What a difference. Very good treatment.
Our duffle bags were delayed and we only had the OD uniform we travelled in. The bags showed up in 3 or 4 days and we had clean clothes. We decided to look around Atlanta and took the civilian bus downtown.. The driver stopped just outside the main gate and ushered all black troops to the back of the bus. We were shocked. I had heard about Jim Crow, but new nothing about it. The two of us could go nowhere together. After graduation I was assigned to an Ordnance unit at Ft. Riley, KA and saw more Jim Crow, Not as severe as in Atlanta.
On 15 Sep, 1950 I celebrated my 20th birthday in Pusan Korea and spent the next 12 months serving with the 1st Cavalry Division as an Infantry man and eventually as a Squad leader. We had a few black troopers and I don’t think that anyone really noticed. I was too busy trying to live. I was pleased to have people I could trust on my flanks.
I spent my 3rd year of active duty at Ft Huachuca, AZ where I served as the Bn. Personnel Sgt. Returned home to San Francisco, Got married and re-enlisted in the Army Reserve and, eventually, the Calif. Army National Guard. I retired with the rank of 1st Sgt. in 1981. There was a large number of Hispanic soldiers in the National Guard. My unit had one black officer and one black Platoon Sgt. I don’t recall any problems with anyone. We had a job to do and we worked together. My personal concern at that time was Vietnam. We were not ordered into active duty
thank God.
My unit was sent to perform Riot Control in Watts during the race riot in 1965. We spent 9 days on State Active Duty. We were definitely in harms way. I recall an interesting event at the border between Watts and Compton in a strip mall. We had a few of us there as guards for 2 days. The shop owners set up tables with food and cold drinks for us. A very nice, white haired lady who was black came to me. She took my hand in hers and said “Sgt. you keep those G—D— N—– out of Compton. They don’t belong over here.”
My wife passed from a kidney infection after 45 years with me. I am re-married to a lovely lady who moved in across the street. The rest of my life has been pretty White. In Cambria I have several Hispanic neighbors. Hard working, good people raising their families. My daughters are doing well. My amazing granddaughters who are middle school age are doing very well. My grandson is a disabled Veteran with 2 tours in Iraq. He wanted to be like Grandpa so he joined the Army.
I am 87 and counting. I hope to pass 100. Disability and pain be Damned!
Terry Campbell
Concord, CA
How amazing it’s been to pass from the viability of youth to become the unseen senior. It’s hard to comprehend as we were the generation that would never grow old.
Carol A.
Los Angeles, CA
As an African American woman of a certain age I feel a sense of failure that our generation has not made this world safe for our children.
Jedd Birkner,
Torrance, CA.
Race is a social construct. Prejudice is a way of expressing ignorance and fear. Senseless hatred is passed from generation to generation. I pray that the people in my country with hatred in their hearts for those they perceive as “the other” become a smaller and smaller minority with each generation. I grew up in a lily white suburb in the 1960’s. Race was something we saw on TV. I neighbor told me a racist joke once when I was around 5 years old. I repeated it to my father, a WWII vet. He told me in no uncertain terms that the language and sentiment I was repeating was not tolerated in our house. I am grateful to my father for that lesson. In my village there were two groups of blacks: the Jones family and the sons of the Nigerian ambassadors. I considered them blacks but I was on a first name basis with five of the six (the oldest Jones brother was an upper classman and, accordingly, I didn’t rate to be in his social group). I am grateful to live in California now in a diverse community. The differences make life interesting, learning about a bigger world. It pisses me off that so many people can be to ignorant and hateful still. Move on, idiots.
Malcolm Harris Jarvis,
San Diego, CA.
Unfortunately, the apple does not fall far from the tree leading, in many cases, to generations of racists. Racism in any of its myriad, ugly and self crippling forms will always be deeply entrenched and ensnared in the soul of countries and their citizens unless we have the unthinkable, ie, thought control. It’s almost impossible to name a racial group that some other group doesn’t profile and hate. It just seems to be a very natural condition of being human.😥
The constant and incessant fighting for money, sex, and power demands racism as its demagoguery.
Racism will only end when humanity ceases to covet money, sex and power. To me, that means never.
Josh,
Monmouth University, NJ
#theracecardproject @MU
Erica Campagnaro
Cleveland, OH
I heard these words as I was briskly walking down a main aisle at a market, looking over my right shoulder as I crossed each side-aisle, trying to find the shampoo. At first, I didn’t process that the words were spoken to me. Then, bit by bit, like when your brain processes a fall in slow-motion, I put the scene together. A black gentleman, who seemed close to my age, had been walking slightly behind me and to my right, and seeing my behavior, he thought I was nervously looking over my shoulder at him. He had tried to be reassuring by changing his path from the main aisle to one of the side aisles, so he wouldn’t be walking behind me any more. After I put together what had happened, I found the gentleman and apologized, and tried to explain that my actions were not aimed at him. He apologized to me for being “overly sensitive, since these things happen all the time.” I can’t stop thinking about that misunderstanding. As a white Gen-Xer, I like to think that in my generation we’ve been successful at stopping racial stereotyping. I guess it’s easy to think that when you’re white.
Michiko Minoura
USA
I’m second generation Japanese American. This was a comment made to me by a student I met my first year in college. The International Student Association was planning a road trip and I wanted to come along. I did, but I wonder what would happen if I was white without an obvious foreign accent.
The last time someone asked me where I was from, I was in Iowa and he didn’t even say hello first. I wasn’t trying to be snarky when I answered, “Oregon.” He didn’t seem realize what a rude question that was and it was possible I was from the US. I have, however, seen white people try to be a bit more politically correct and fumble with with a question trying to ascertain my genetic heritage. The smoothest way I’ve seen this question asked was actually a statement: “You have an unusual name.”
My parents were born and raised in Japan but I was born and raised in the US. I have been told I’m first generation American, while my parents are not American, but Japanese. I am more “American” than my parents, but I believe that you can BECOME an American. It doesn’t matter where you were born; it doesn’t matter where you raised. I believe that denying that someone can become American is denying the promise of this “country of immigrants.” As for the lack of hyphen, “Japanese” is the adjective that describes the noun “American.” I’m not one part Japanese and one part American. And chance are pretty good that I don’t know your Japanese friend from where ever you are from.
Yvonne Rosenberg,
Sioux Falls, SD.
Born and raised in Fort Worth, Tx. Raised by Mexican American Grandparents who grew up in a generation where Spanish was not spoken outside the home because of white America. In raising me, they refused to speak Spanish in the home. I was referred as a “coconut” by those of the Mexican community. Often shamed by those who spoke Spanish, which lead to me feeling ashamed and embarrassed. If even as an adult I get “the look” for not knowing my native language. Racism is also hard as work within our own race.
Marie Henehan,
Sidney, IL.
I’m European American Vietnam generation female grandchild of immigrants. I have not ever been an activist. If all white people were like me, blacks would not have such serious problems. So with a pat on my back, I have been complacent and uninvolved, safe in my well-off white bubble. _I’m_ not a racist. I am also not at risk of being hurt by racism. I do not have to personally mourn Michael Brown or others. But I am now enraged, appalled, and feeling distressed and helpless in the face of these shootings. I started wondering why white people are not complaining about police treatment of blacks with the shooting of Kiwane Carrington and evidence of racial profiling in police stopping cars in Champaign Illinois. It shouldn’t be just blacks who are appalled – everyone should be appalled. I understand the threat to cops and the horror of cop-killers, but if it is easier for “you” to shoot a black male than another type of person, then “you” have to proactively figure out what to do about that. (And that “you” includes me.) That’s why I am upset that I am not part of the solution.
Mike Cruickshank,
England.
As an an Afro person, I feel that the dominant society (people who call themselves White) have subtle and blatant ways to say “You are other”.
Perfect example… These things called micro-agressions are the new way to say ” this is the society. You will always be outsiders, tolerated only”. When it was blatant (segregation), it meant that we HAD to work together as Afro people to prosper. Now that the myth of integration is sold, the achievers move into the dominant society and are swallowed. I am the living example. I love my wife (classified as white), but my Afro culture will be erased in 2 or 3 generations; I’ll be an old faded picture that my children and grandchildren will discuss…
This project is a brilliant way to open the debate properly; maybe people can face the reality of “race relations” in the world.
Abby
Oklahoma City, OK
I was working as a hostess at a restaurant a few years ago. We would seat servers/sections based on a rotation chart. Two older black women came in and were taken to the next section in rotation, which happened to be located towards the back of the restaurant. They were immediately angered when they realized I was heading towards that back section and stopped in their tracks demanding to not be put in the back. I said sure, not a problem, and offered a spot in the middle of the restaurant as that was the next section open. This wasn’t acceptable, and they insisted on taking the first seat by the front door, which didn’t have a server yet, which only added to their frustration as we had to find a server to wait on them. This whole time they were mumbling under their breath to one another about me trying to put them in the back. I didn’t put two and two together until a little later when I realized they probably thought I (a young white female) was doing it on purpose, very much like it probably had been when they were young. I immediately had mixed feelings, one being thoroughly offended that they thought I did it because of their race and other being guilt for not thinking ahead that these older black women wouldn’t want to sit towards the back of the restaurant due to past situations. My generation doesn’t tolerate and didn’t learn hate and segregation. That was then, this is now. Please don’t think that just because you happen to get set towards the back of a restaurant it is because the host is being racist. You just happened to walk in at the right time. I apologize for those people who have been hateful in the past, but please, don’t take it out on those us of who weren’t there.
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