The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Emery Boyle-Scott,
Milwaukee, WI.
I want to belong in a group, and it’s nice to belong until someone looks closely. My whiteness is always sidelined when people learn about my lesbian moms. Don’t look closely and I have all the privilege. But, then it disappears and I’m not allowed, I’m questioned on everything. There’s no box for my diversity. There are literally dozens of us, but we’re not connected.
Ryan
Indianapolis, IN
Submitted via Twitter: @Antisthanes
Sheree King
Johnson City, TN
My kids, adopted from China, now ages 14 & 16 not only don’t look like me, but deal with issues I never had to deal with. Although they are very like me in religious beliefs, morals , and character, they look at the world through minority eyes, but have a “typical Caucasian” upbringing – if there is such a thing. They seem to seek out a mixture of race in their friendships, but have more minority friendships of many races not just Asian. I was raised not to see different races in my household – just people. I have strived to raise my kids in the same fashion with hopefully good success. They seem to seek out minority relationships. Perhaps to fill the void of parents not being able to relate to being a minority. It is tough though to explain my oldest ‘s African American boyfriend to my in laws who live in Mississippi who have traditional deep south views of black/white separation.
Amanda Sperow,
Chehalis, WA.
Oregon State University
Because I am a young woman with blonde hair, and I take pride in the way I look most people presume I am a “bimbo” or dumb blonde. It’s sad our minds don’t extend beyond the sexuality of an individual, and we can only see as deep as hair, skin and eye color.
Adrienne Zimiga,
Minneapolis, MN.
I was born and raised on the Pine Ridge reservation my first 12 years. Upon moving from Batesland, SD to Castlewood, SD my caucasian grandmother was concerned that my brothers, sister, and I could face social problems being part Native American (iyeska: mixed blood/race) in an all white community. She told us “Now you don’t have to go around telling everyone here that you’re Indians. Besides your just enough to make you look pretty.” It was a very confusing statement for me as an adolescent. I came from a place where I was very proud to be who I was as a person and now I have my own grandmother telling me it may be best to keep it under wraps that “Indian” part of me. Anyone who knows me knows THAT will never happen. I’m very proud of my ancestry, my culture, my heritage, and my connection to it. It is the driving force that has made me the person I am today.
Geoffrey Wodell
Wheat Ridge, CO
Many years ago an African-American Country-Western singer, Charlie Pride, released a live album. After one of the cuts someone in the audience yelled out “Charlie, how can you look like them and sing like us?”. I have remembered that comment ever since and now, as a Norwegian-American Jew who sings spirituals with Sankofa, one of America’s leading Concert ensembles, it resonates even more. Music doesn’t know color. Music only knows what is in the heart. Music reflects the soul.
Ruby Marlowe,
Brooklyn, NY.
Italian-Irish mom, Puerto Rican-Mestizo dad, never met dad’s family as his side was pretty bad along with dad who was never around. Me and my little brother look and act “Caucasian” (laughing at the now PC whites who treated us like crap in the 80s and now identify us with people who emigrated from the former Soviet Union because they feel bad) and I changed my name to stop getting harassed by Hispanics and blacks who accused me of being a typical hipster white person that treats race as a fad.
Katie Moore
New Echota, GA
I used to hate the way I looked growing up. My mom & brother had fair skin & freckles & I had darker skin & hair. I like the way I look now. I’m proud of my heritage. I am of cherokee, creek, German,& African decent. I stand taller than most women & my hair is almost to my knees & very straight with several shades of auburn & browns. I have a daughter now that took after her father more; wavy hair, fair skin, & blue eyes.
Katrina Nye
San Jose, CA
I am full Asian and my husband is a quarter Japanese. Once our son was born I asked my husband which one of us will have the responsibility to give him “the talk” about dealing with racism. My husband replied that it had to be me, because even though he was proud of his Asian heritage, he looked “American enough” to not have to deal with racism growing up.
Michael Swanegan,
Chino Hilla, CA.
Im a 22 year old African American male who lives in California. Whenever I enter a store, gas station, or even a movie theater. I feel an unwanted vibe as if I’m on the radar by all the managers and floor workers. A negative vibe as if I’m being looked at like about to steal an item. So i wrote my 6 words “why steal when you’re already looking” describing that vibe i always feel when i walk into a store.
Anonymous,
Orlando, FL
p>Disclaimer the person in the photo is not I but someone who looks like me.
My ancestry is Berber Kabyle (North African), Turk (Eurasian aka European and west Asian) and French( Western European). I look mediterranean light olive skin, brown wavy hair, big brown almond eyes, thick eyebrows, long lashes, long head, Mediterranean nose, full but not big lips, high cheek bones, oval face.
My nationality is American I was born and raised in the states my parents came here in their late 20s early 30s my dad loved traveling and came to America because it was so popular my mom came here following my dad.
Growing up I never faced any discrimination Except from people of color they always made it clear to me that I wasn’t one of them that my skin was too light and I looked white it made me hate my skin my features and my hair. I thought North Africans and Turks could be people of color but when I got older and did research I realized that Europeans, North Africans, and Middle Eastern people are labeled white legally on the census and college application. I didn’t want to identify as white because all of the bad things associated with it enslavement of people, colonization, racism, etc I used to hate when someone called me white but I grew to learn that being white is okay and interesting and fun like any other race so sometimes I would come across people who would label me white sometimes They wouldn’t and say that I am MENA or WANA and white I however check white on paper work since the us census labels my ancestry as such but I identify with being Berber, turk, and French and if I’m asked for my race I say mediterranean. However ever since the concept of race started Europeans labeled North Africans and middle eastern as caucasoid or Mediterranean etc so I wasn’t surprised when the use census had us under white.
My nationality is American
My ethnicity is Kabyle, Turk, and French
My race according to the us census is white and I usually tell people Mediterranean in person because I don’t fit the Nordic look.
Paul Audette ,
Submitted via Twitter: @wisereturn5m.
Natalia de Cuba Romero.
Massapequa Park, NY.
IN my heart and in my head I have always thought of myself as Puerto Rican, Born in Queens, NY to a Puerto Rican mom and a dad from Aruba and a bilingual home, lived in Puerto Rico for a number of years…but I’ve always looked like a white girl: sadly straight hips, no ass to speak of (at least in the way we think of ass in the Caribbean) light-skinned, green eyes, light brown hair that’s neither curly nor straight…oh! the tragedy! My black friends would urge me to just pass, cause it’s easier, but when you have “la musiquita por dentro”(the music inside), can you? When it is not exactly about race but about ethnicity and culture, what does it mean? Funnily enough, when my son was born, with exactly my white girl coloring, there I’d be, speaking to this nursing baby in Spanish exclusively, and the unbidden question would come up in my head: “How is this little leprechaun ever going to understand you? Look at him! He’s a gringo!” As if our appearance when we are born is our destiny, down to the language we speak. And perhaps it is. So do I wish I were born looking more stereotypically Puerto Rican? Yes, and no. I would have liked to be curvier, sassier. I would have made a career out of my mom’s insanely thick, curly, long dark hair. However, I like being the Stealth bomber of the Latino world. I may not look Puerto Rican, but here I am, watching, spying, learning about what white Americans really think..
Katherine Finn,
Virginia Beach, VA.
I do not look good for a white girl, or look good because I am white… I am me, and my race does not change or affect that.
J Smith
Kenya
I’ve spent several years living outside the US (Europe, Asia, Africa) and being half Japanese, I am always mistaken for being from the continent of Asia. Even when I tell people repeatedly that I am also half white and that my Japanese side of the family has been in the US for over 100 years, people still ask me about what life is like in Japan. People bow to me, ask me how to roll sushi, or tell me the two words they know in Japanese on a regular basis. I think most of it has to do with the media in the US in that almost everyone they see in Hollywood is white and hence, they have a really hard time understanding how an Asian looking person can also be American.
Kimberly Dorsey,
Detroit, MI.
I am bi-racial and have been raised in a white family inside Detroit. I have suffered many racially motivated injustices in my travels and it makes me angry when people pretend race doesn’t matter. It matters when you are the one being discriminated against.
Ty Martinez,
Submitted via Twitter: @TyMartinez_tmb.
I made a visual representation to accompany my #racecard#insixwords
@michele_norris Sometimes. “I use pictures when words fail.”
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