The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Peter Nanula,
Newport Coast, CA.
I look white and was raised in mostly white areas, so no one knows I am half-black. Because they don’t know, they don’t make racial judgments. This feels hopeful – as we inter-marry (like my parents did) and integrate our society, bias and discrimination go away over time. We all become partly racial or ethnic, and then no one is “other” anymore.
Lisa Gullion,
Nocross, GA.
I only look white, I am a high percent of Cherokee (whom were murdered by the dozens for land), I am Irish who were shipped as slaves just like Africans (they were bred with africans for higher priced mixed slaves). My ancestors faced the same deadly history as your’s but I appear white. I am my future not my past and I will not carry past burdens to future generations.
Jacob Augare,
Kansas City, MO.
Words from my Blackfeet, Native American father from the Piikani Nation.
Mary Halling,
Milwaukee, WI.
Moving from New York to Ohio to Milwaukee in my 25 years on this Earth, I’ve encountered race in so many different ways. From celebrating and learning about all the different ethnicities in my classroom in elementary school, being bullied for being white in my urban middle school, to being incorrectly perceived as being “just like” my upper-class white counterparts at Miami University in Ohio, to working for an education/social-justice non-profit in hyper-segregated Milwaukee, I’ve learned how much race truly is a social construct. It’s something that is learned from our environments and the people in those environments. Being perceived as ‘white’ has yielded me an overwhelming amount of privilege, and it makes me feel sad that if people recognized my mixed identity (I’m partly Native American), I may not have been afforded those privileges. But, maybe, those girls in middle school would’ve been nicer to me?
Silvija Singh,
Pittsburgh, PA.
Unlike my sibs, I do not look white, altho I have a white mother. I do not get treated like a Latvian, the way the blond-haired blue-eyed cousins on this side of the family do. Complexion-wise, I look more like my father, who was from India. But among Indians, I am also ‘not Indian enough’ or not the right type of Indian…. This in-betweenness can be isolating, but it has also allowed my a unique perspective. I believe my thinking has, of necessity, evolved to be less ‘group-bound’.
Nicole Smeltekop,
East Lansing, MI.
At Michele Norris’s talk in East Lansing last night, a woman said this to me as Ms. Norris came on stage. The prevailing assumption that as a white person, white people can comfortably make racial comments they most likely wouldn’t say to anyone other than another “obviously” white person is frustrating. Equally frustrating is that I never know what to say back.
Mira Tanna
Orlando, FL
My father is from India, my mother from the Netherlands, and I am married to a man from Nigeria. I look white to most people, and my children look black to most people. When I pick my kids up from school or camp, I get curious stares and kids ask me if I’m their mother. Some venture further and ask how I can be their mother if we have a different skin color. I smile and explain that their father is a lot darker than they are and I am a lot lighter and my daughter or son are in between. Sometimes adults start talking to me about adoption, and I realize that they assume my kids are adopted. When my daughter had surgery a few years ago, the anesthesiologists were asking about her allergies or reactions or medication. One of them asked if I had ever reacted to anesthesia and I was about to answer when the other interrupted his colleague. It was clear that the doctor had assumed that my daughter was adopted and thus my reaction to any medication would be unimportant. Now that my children are getting older, they also notice these reactions and we joke about it. I tell them that when they’re teenagers, they will probably use the fact that many people don’t think we’re related to their advantage. I realize, though, that the assumptions made about me when I’m with my children (and without my husband) are often quite different than if the racial differences were reversed. I know that black women (or those perceived to be black) who have children who are perceived as white, are often assumed to be the nanny or caregiver of their children. In both cases, the assumption is that a mom cannot be biologically related to a child who appears to be a different race. However, the further assumption is that a white family would adopt a black child but not the reverse, and that a white family would hire a black caregiver, but not the reverse. I think it’s human nature to categorize people, so I have decided to take the looks and questions I get as an opportunity for a “teachable moment” rather than an annoyance. I know if I were on the other side of the fence, it would be more difficult for me to keep my cool.
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