Kevin Crowe, Thomasville, NC In this world, there are those that will try to lessen others because these “others” don’t fit a mold. Whether it’s due to your skin being too dark or too light, because of who you date or love, or even something as trivial as the clothes you wear. There are some […]
I’m brown but, I’m not hispanic.
Vaniza Bailey, Wilkes Community College, Wilkesboro, NC Don’t Assume, Get acquainted! Not all brown people with dark hair are Hispanics, they could be Filipino, that girl beside me is Hispanic and she’s my best friend. Yes, we seem to look alike its because Filipinos were colonized by Spain for a long time, long enough to […]
African American woman who loves people.
Imani A Coleman, Concord, NC I am an African American woman who loves people. However, I understand that there is a lot of work the world has to do to bring more understanding of all people. Race is…
“You really aren’t a real Mexican.”
Ai Lee Blankenship, Lexington, NC I come from a home that consists of a Deaf mother and father. My father is Italian/white while my mother is Mexican. Instead of learning both English and Spanish, I have learned English and American Sign Language in order to effectively communicate with my parents. I have always heard the […]
You are stronger than you think
Deitra Dowdy, Thomasville, NC Life will come with many difficulties and inconveniences. Just push through them and you will be amazed at what you can overcome.
Not every white (person) has white privilege
Kayla Miles, Lexington, NC I don’t believe anything else needs to be said.
I am a United States Citizen
Kinyata, Greensboro, NC I’m a student at Davidson County Community College and this post was an assignment. I chose I am a United States Citizen because so often people hear my name and ask what country am I from. Sometimes it’s frustrating when people assume my origin-based off of my name.
Don’t turn your back to it
Hollie Hill, Denton, NC
The skin I’m in is resilient
Temeka Robinson, Thomasville, NC
Every Life Matters, Every Single One
Cameron Hunter Duncan, Salisbury, NC
Everyone is unique, embrace your difference
Aaron Williams, Davie County High School NC/Davidson County Community College, Mocksville, NC Everyone is different, instead of fighting our differences we should all work together to embrace them. Each difference sets us apart and makes us unique. When we accept these differences and encourage others, we will all be more successful.
Change is uncomfortable but desperately needed
Kim Hill, Wilkes Community College, Crumpler, NC We all need to lean into the discomfort and make the changes needed to be better people for our own sake and others.
Everyone is more beautiful on the inside
Christina H Beltrami, Community College, Wilkesboro Stony Point, NC This race card project could open many doors to those who are trying to have an open mind. I hope the words I chose reflect how I act toward others. It’s true that everyone should be beautiful on the inside more than the outside. There are […]
We Aren’t Here to Take Your Jobs
Erica Jaimes, Wilkes Community College, North Wilkesboro, NC I chose these words because it is known that immigrants, Hispanics in particular, take away jobs from American workers. However, we create new jobs by forming new businesses, spending our incomes on American goods and services, paying taxes and raising the productivity of U.S. businesses. Immigrants are […]
Everyone’s unique in their own way
Kelsey Call, Wilkes Community College, Wilkesboro, NC Wilkes Community College I feel like everyone has their own strengths and no one should be judged for being who they are.
We could do so much more.
Kaitlyn Eller, Wilkes Community College, NC We are at a standstill right now when we should be taking action to spread love, kindness, and encourage unity. We have the whole world at our fingertips through our phones and yet we continue to sit back while discrimination impacts so many. Change begins with just one person. […]
Life’s boring if everybody’s the same
Joanna Benitez, Wilkes Community College, Yadkinville, NC I chose those six words because I have realized that many people are judged based on their religion or race, etc. I believe that its good that everyone is unique. It would be better if we all just got along and instead of judging or discriminating other, we […]
Looks Do not Define Intelligence
Tatayana T. North Wilkesboro, NC
Connection is what brings us together
HOPE CRAWFORD, PURLEAR, NC I believe touching each other in deep meaningful connections; relating to one another in life’s joys, hardships, and life experiences are what help bring us together as one.
Be Stronger Than Your Strongest Excuse
Drew Sink, Lexington, NC
The “Inside” is what is important!
Jennifer Blevins, West Jefferson, NC I am a student at Wilkes Community College and I believe that what is on the inside of a person is more important than what their appearance is on the outside.
Continuing struggle of mind and soul
Anonymous, Raleigh, NC
“You’re black? But you act white.”
Veronica, Hickory, NC
YES, I AM A SALTY CRACKER.
CATHERINE LINEBERRY, LEXINGTON, NC I can be very moody.
I’m White, from the south, have a truck
Tayler Shepherd, Glade Valley, NC I chose this race card because it stereotypes all white men from the south drive a truck and are considered “white trash”.
Coronavirus: Not Opportunity for Blatant Racism
Anonymous, Southern, NC Using disease origins to stereotype/profile people is just blatant racism, and it is extremely insensitive (and racist) when you “cover your face with your shirt” just for being near someone of Asian descent in public spaces.
Nobody talks about oppressed Hawaiian Natives.
KSt.C Charlotte, NC
I Am More Than My Hair!
Ja’Leia Etheredge, Durham, NC
I know my own worth
Zada Mitchell, Durham, NC As a young African American woman, I know that I have my worth as an artist. As a student. As a daughter, and as a human being.
Color Doesn’t defined Who You Are
Abigahil Garcia Trejo, Durham, NC
I descend from first American colonizers.
Kim Looby, Charlotte, NC I thought I was Irish and came here during the 1850s. But I’m actually 16th generation American. My family is responsible for settling America and colonizing it. I’m equally disconnected from any ancestral culture and distinctly American? I have a few German relatives left in Germany but they’re over a hundred […]
Ashamed to Acknowledge the Black Side
Heartbroken Grandmother, Durham, NC My granddaughter was never allowed to have contact with her father or us when she was a young child. He fought to see her but the court system in Indiana never held up the court orders for his ex-girlfriend to allow him visitation. This lasted well into her teen years. Though […]
You know why they chose you?
Alan Smith, Angier, NC. This was said to me by an instructor, as an 18-year old US Navy sailor, having just completed submarine training in Groton, CT in 1978. I graduated 14th of 98 in my class, and was presented with an award for excellence by the Eastern Connecticut Council Navy League of the US. […]
How is your last name Sanchez?
Chelsea, Burlington, NC I am constantly referred to as white, and I do not speak Spanish. I am mostly Puerto Rican and Italian and have the least amount caucasian in me in comparison to my other heritages.
JUDGMENTAL EYES ON 9/11 ANNIVERSARY -HIJABI
Reem Saed Charlotte, NC
Our tears aren’t for your consumption
Adrienne Davis, Durham, NC. I feel like white folks want to consume our pain and oppression but don’t want to commit to be accomplices in the work. Our pain is suppose to “help them grow”. No. That’s not how this works.
Why’d you invite the white guy
Mike Rockingham, NC
So was she born in Africa?
Anneliese, Mooresville, NC I am a sister to three black siblings that my family adopted a few years ago. One time while walking through the mall with one of my sisters, she was only about 2 years old, we were stopped and asked if she was from Africa? It is so surprising how some people […]
My Swahili children: chai ya maziwa
Paula Gormley Greensboro, NC I am white. My children are from two separate worlds: United States and Tanzania. We are living in the US, but I am grooming them for lives in which they, children of privilege, will have an obligation to help their African brothers and sisters. I always tell people that they have […]
Taught all wrong, now teaching others
Steve Jones, Durham, NC. I grew up in a segregated community and the concept that African-Americans (of course, not the word that was used) were inferior. It took a long time to get out of that mindset and even longer to acknowledge the privilege that comes with my white skin. It’s a privilege to be […]
White and raised by a man.
Roger Tryone Williams, Huntersville, NC. My name is Roger Tyrone Williams and I’m white. Additionally, I was raised by a black man. If you want to learn more, just ask.
Code-switching: an asset, not a crime.
Molly Wanless Chapel Hill, NC To develop and maintain respect in my middle school English classroom, I teach that there are many “right ways” to talk and write. With technology and society being what they are today, no one owns or “rules” the conventions of our language. My students understand that their language and mine […]
Grateful for Painful Cultureshock Down South
Audrey A Fischer, Wilson, NC. When I lived in Virginia Beach, I didn’t notice race. Up north, it was so institutionalized that I barely knew any People of Colour. When I came down south in the eighth grade, I suddenly was the largest group, but our school was 60 or so percent minority. I was […]
Do I look like a Twinkie?
Jacob Tanes, Durham, NC. A stereotype that people call the Asian race is Twinkie because Twinkies are yellow on the outside and white on the inside.
Bleach your skin to be white
Walker Perry, Mooresville, NC
Oblivious to white privilege until educated.
Haley Perryman, Mooresville, NC
No big honker? You no Jew
Ilana Israel, Elon, NC. Elon University
Not Blind, Just Free of Hate.
Sarah M. Rebillard, Wilmington, NC I will never say that I am blind to the skin color of others, nor that I don’t see them as different from myself. A person’s perceived race is a fact of their existence and their reality and is a trait to be loved not ignored. People of color deserve […]
I’m Appalachian–it’s an invisible ethnicity
Catherine Vance Agrella, Asheville, NC. I’m white, and by definition am associated with some of the worst perpetrators of racism. But I also come from deep Appalachian Scots-Irish roots and have a clear ethnic identity. I do know what it feels like to be mocked for my speech, or thought of as a dumb hillbilly, […]
Hair: Long–I’m Cherokee. Short–European.
The Rev. Dr. Laura Mae Johnson New Bern, NC [stumble]
Some Dogs Just Don’t Have Names
Glenn Richardson Wilmington, NC Every spring we would travel from Washington DC to Oktoc Mississippi to help my Dad work the cows. He had about 200 head to push through the mucky shoot to the cattle squeeze where they were tested for brucelllosis, wormed, weighed, pregnancy checked by an arm length plastic disposable glove to […]
You aren’t gonna make it anywhere
Jaylyn, Charlotte, NC.
White, Korean, southern, AND atheist
Melanie Mills, NC. I am 1/4 Korean, but I only look caucasian. I live in the “Bible Belt”, but I am an atheist. I am so much more than what I seem. I am so much more than just WHITE.
My history is only slavery! Why!
King Kellz, Fayetteville, NC. We only learn what America has taught us about our specific race.
The plantation haunts my gay marriage.
Erik Shawn Frampton, Charlotte, NC. I am the descendant of a line of plantation owners in South Carolina. As a gay man, my upcoming marriage will finally occur on our 20th anniversary together. My larger southern family struggles to see my identity as sacred, just as they struggle still to see minority life as sacred. […]
Don’t assume I’m White, or Straight.
Jim Downey, Wilmington, NC.
Black Vietnamese. Speak spanish. Eat rice.
Hao Nguyen, Durham, NC. I wanted to say… Black Vietnamese. Speak english, spanish, vietnamese. Eat suong kho, pho, and corn dogs. Words that describe my mixed race/heritage children. Having to choose only 6 words, I had to put them in order of words that most describe them. Having to choose what comes first — black […]
He stood. She sat. For equality.
Linda Leigh Hargrove, Concord, NC. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the Lincoln Memorial and made a game-changing speech. More than 250,000 people stood in the audience that August day, including Rosa Parks who sat her way into civil rights history. It is because of their work that I have the freedom, as a […]
Sadly frustrated at the backward slide.
Pam Lepley, High Point, NC.
Race, the easiest way to discriminate.
AnnAdèle Lloyd, Asheville, NC. Appearance is always how we make our initial judgement of someone on first meeting.
Your family’s not inbred…are you?
Katie R. Phillips, Green Mountain, NC. I might be white, but growing up in the Southern Applachians is definitely its own ethnic identity. I didn’t truly understand this until I went to college, and brought friends home with me for the first time. One of my friends actually asked me if my family was inbred […]
Being Hispanic is not a crime
Navarro, Charlotte, NC.
Not from here, not from there.
Adriana Caicedo Hart , Indian Trail, NC. I was born in Colombia, I came to USA in 2003. My physical features, my accent and my skin color say I am not born in American, they say I belong to a different culture; but when I go back to my home country for a visit, I […]
Why’d you invite the white guy
Mike, Rockingham, NC.
God created race people created racism
Eric Evans, Tarboro, NC. Our God-given differences are meant to be appreciated not to keep us separated. As a Native American man I live in a world that doesn’t know what to think of me outside of a reservation or the pages of a history book.
Just like a ‘lectric clock ticking
Jimmy Hair, Charlotte, NC. A hard working black man I worked construction with 44 years ago used to say this. He meant it about his steady and prodigious work output, but I think of it now in terms of the slow but steady progress of improved race relations.
What’s the point when color fades
Spencer, Wilmington, NC. Everyone dies. And when we do die, there will be no color, just bones and dirt. It’s funny that race is so important when it doesn’t last forever. We only have a short time on the earth and yet we spend so much time dividing ourselves based on something superficial, that no […]
Look, another stupid white guy commercial
Gary D Patterson Gastonia, NC Here comes the stupid husband, boyfriend, tradesman, etc. in a commercial. He is almost always white. Why?
Didn’t process my privilege affects EVERYTHING
Mattie L, NC.
All races should be treated equally.
Marci Russell, Durham, NC. I don’t think people understand how serious the racist comments they say are. Even if they’re just joking, It’s hurtful. I wish people would just think before they act. If people just thought about what they are going to say before they say it, I believe the world would change one […]
Ashamed and embarrassed to be black.
Nobody, Durham, NC. I would change my race to anything non-black if I could. I don’t think white people understand how limiting it is to only be seen as a color and not as a person. When you’re black you can be the Scary Black Person, the Angry Black Man/Woman, the Thug, the Smart/Articulate Black […]
Black, Female, Spiritual, Dynamic, Resilient, Thankful
Pamela Bivens, M.A., Durham, NC. Awesome project!!
Asian-Indian, I cherish the American Dream
Vipin Gupta, Charlotte, NC.
I’m a bridge between two worlds.
Jazmin Whitmore, Asheville, NC. I am the result of two worlds but I was only raised in one. My father was Jamaican and my mother was European/Native American mix. My mother raised me. Although it was not her intention she raised me to be “white”. I did not realize how devoid I was of my […]
I thought I knew, but didn’t.
Erica Tjelta, Spartanburg, SC. After growing up and living in rural and small-town Wisconsin for my first thirty-six years of my life–it was a shocking eye-opener to move to the racially diverse and racism-afflicted major city of Charlotte, North Carolina. My seven years spent there were the catalyst of a change-of-mind that radically altered the […]
I am scared to drive alone
Ariel Foreman, Raleigh, NC. I just moved to North Carolina from Virginia. I’m scared to travel on highway 14 between Home and Raleigh especially at night…because it’s heavily monitored by police. I should not be scared of a group that’s suppose to protect me.
Empathy, we are all from Africa
Tiara McCall, Greensboro, NC.
Being brown doesn’t always equal Mexican
Cristal Alanis, Greensboro, NC. Based on the color of our skin does not determine our background. Central and South America have other countries too, not just Mexico.
Privileged whites must start the conversation
Marcia Ladd, Chapel Hill, NC. A group from my Presbyterian Church has been studying and talking about the black experience, white privilege and what we can do to make changes. We have learned the hard way we cannot go into a group of black folks, church or otherwise and tell them what to do. We […]
Sequence: Negro. Colored. Afro-American. Black. African-American
Alonzo Felder, Durham, NC. Called by many names over the years.
Yes, you are all my family!
Hillora Lang, Burgaw, NC. As a person with Asperger Syndrome I have always felt estranged from the human race. In high school I began working on my family tree, and it really helped to ground me and allow me to feel a connection to past generations. When doing genealogy research last year I discovered a […]
Stop pairing my ancestry with race.
Journey Brown-Saintel, Charlotte, NC. The system of checking off boxes to indicate my heritage is flawed.
I owe you nothing, I’m not responsible
Tony Concorde, NC I am tired seeing white people feeling guilty or responsible for the misfortune of minorities.
Why is this still so hard?
Kaye Saunders, Chapel Hill, NC.
School integration enriched my white life.
Cynthia Waszak Geary, Baltimore, MD. I grew up in Durham, NC and attended Hillside High School as part of the first court ordered desegregation plan to achieve racial balance. I am heart broken that since that time there has been a steady and deliberate re-segregation of schools in the US. I am hoping for leadership […]
Beautiful kids, did you adopt them
Amy Hueitt, Gastonia, NC. I am a single mother of two children, one who is 8 with Autism, ADHD, and developmental delays. My daughter is almost 6 and typical. My son is black, white, and Mexican. He appears to be just Mexican. My daughter is black and white, she looks white. I am black and […]
For tradition’s sake, we mock others.
Kyle McDonald NC A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I got in an argument about race and sensitivity that started from watching football, of all things. I mentioned something about the fact that, if you think about it, the team the Washington Redskins is pretty offensive. His thought was “who cares?”. “People these […]
White Males discriminated against at work.
Mary Fruin, Charlotte, NC. I think that Rev . Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s Dream is nowhere near being fulfilled when our big corporations are illegally paying big bonuses to managers to hire & promote minorities and women (read: not white men) and giving soft metric well paying jobs to minorities while chasing White males […]
Glad of being an Army brat.
Rhonda Nottingham Durham, NC My father was in the US Army when I was born. We lived in many places among many types of people. We moved to nowhere WV when my father left the Army in order to care for my ailing grandfather. I went to an all white high school, as there were […]
It’s okay to be black, Promise
Maureen Shaw, Durham, NC. Thank you for doing this. This is a photo of my mother’s family, this is the reason why I wrote it’s okay to be black. I look at it an feel so proud of this photo. We let ourselves believe we are a people are people with shattered history. I’ve discovered […]
Whitey guilt do-gooders destroyed black family
Anon Ymous Charlotte, NC “Replaced slavery chains with entitlement chains” As a white with guilt, all I can say is: I’m so sorry, twice…
Adopted but am I still Mexican
Kasey Nichols, Clemmons, NC. I’ve known I’ve been adopted since I can remember and never questioned my ethnicity until I reached middle school age because we had to fill out cards with “check yes if Latino, African American, white or other.” Biologically I’m Mexican and Italian, but I was raised white with my dad being […]
I am not your model minority.
Jennifer Ho, Carrboro, NC. I’m an Asian American woman and often times in my daily life I’m the only Asian American person in the room, sometimes the only person of color. And it’s exhausting to deal with the stereotypes people have, especially because they think Asian Americans are a successful “Model Minority.” And so I […]
We’re one family divided by fear.
Andrew Kerbs, Asheville, NC.
Continually frustrated by America’s racial hangups
Whitney, Durham, NC. More 6-word offerings… – Life was less racial in Europe – Look black, more than half white – Ticked one box, denied one parent – Forced to deny half my heritage – Why should I pick just one? It’s not that race isn’t an issue in Europe, more that after nearly 8 […]
Skin not prison, come touch heart?
Linden Gibson Raleigh, NC I will never get used to being looked at by total strangers as a threat to their safety just by walking down the street. I see the fear in the averted looks, how they step aside or suddenly have something important to say to a companion, or seem to need to […]
We are all one human race
Susheela Chandrasekaran, Cary, NC.
55 mph means you black man.
Gregory McGriff, Rutherfordton, NC. I am an Ivy-league graduate and a board-certified medical doctor. Â The subject of race comes up all the time but the conversation that should follow is usually very short. Â When I see the speed sign on the road announcing 55 mph (or whatever the legal limit is). Â I know that posting […]
No, I don’t tan or perm.
Daniela Charlotte, NC Some people look puzzled when I say I am half Japanese. They tend to ask me if I perm my hair or go tanning because typically Japanese females have pin straight hair and fair skin. However they don/t seem to pay attention when I say HALF Japanese (I am also half Peruvian).
My race is a safety issue
Lauren Belton, Charlotte, NC.
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