The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Joseph L Collins Jr
Omaha, NE
Ashland Avenue in Chicago was the street you could cross at 69th street or you would get beat up by White men/boys in the early 60’s. A white priest was a defender of the neighborhood that let that hate happen. God is about Love and that religious leader did not speak it.
Hailey Gregory-Hamersma,
NE
Ava N,
West Point, NE
I am a junior attending Guardian Angels Central Catholic in West Point, NE. I have always lived in a small town, and the school I attend is predominantly Caucasian.
Noah Jay Geneski,
Norfolk, NE
I am a white teenage boy and I have heard countless stories of the discrimination of people with even the slightest change of skin color. These other human beings who should be treated equally and respected are instead treated as stereotypes and characters. I get judged by my personality and overall character, while people with darker skin tones get judged based on their traits they can’t control. It is barbarically unfair.
Elizabeth Furstenau,
Pierce, NE
In this life, so many people are judged because of where they come from or what they look like, but we are all the same. I am a student at Pierce High School, and I do not understand why people are so judgmental.
Tim Minter,
Bellevue, NE
I am the descendant of slave holding Americans. My ancestors owned a plantation in Sedalia, SC – and, along with that plantation, slaves to work the land. Predictably, reconstruction bankrupted them – sharecropping wasn’t as efficient as outright owning people.
Family lore always sought to justify slave holding. I was taught at a young age that the civil war was the “war of Northern Aggression,” and that my ancestors fought against an invading Northern Army. Regarding the slaves, I was told that my ancestors “treated them like family” and that “they took our family name because we took good care of them.” (No, it was because we took their original identities away from them.)
A few years ago, I was standing in line to vote. I was wearing my military uniform on the way home from work. That uniform had a nametape on it with my last name. This little old African American lady saw my last name. She wanted to know if we were related. I didn’t have the heart to say “maybe,” because of what the implications of that might have been.
As I raise my children, I am trying to teach them to reckon with our family past. They dont need to be ashamed for what their ancestors did, but they also shouldn’t take pride in the things they did wrong either. Since the past is never dead – it’s not even past – they need to know where we’ve come with so they can understand the seams in our society. There is no way that the descendants of the slaves my ancestors owned did not have some negative impact from that atrocity committed upon them. We can’t make right that historical wrong, but we can make sure that we don’t commit our own. In an era where bigotry and intolerance thrives unashamed, we must be clear that all people have value.
Anonymous,
Omaha, NE.
My mother is black and father who I never knew was latino. When I was 3 my mother met and married a white man fresh off the boat from Europe. Together they had a daughter,my baby sister. I only ever knew this man as any sort of father figure and because I was so young when he came, called him Daddy (his name) or just plain dad, but he was far from an ideal father figure and gave me a hard lesson on race early on. Though my mother insisted that all of her children be treated exactly the same, we were not equal,because my stepfather clearly favored his own child over myself and my older brother, also half latino. I felt like a 2nd class citizen more and more as I got older,because my baby sister had so many things I didn’t. She had dual citizenship, got to visit overseas, my dad talked to her in a special language (his native tongue),and attended a private school.
He constantly compared his child to my older brother and me,calling her European and making her think she wasn’t black. He labelled my older brother and me as black b*a*****d*s and my mother a black w*h**e. He’d scream these things at her when he was mad ,telling her she was raising two juvenile delinquents and how black women made the worst mothers. When my mother was out of the house he would take his anger out on my older brother and me,NEVER his golden perfect European child, with physical abuse and berating us that we were worthless and only ever going to be gangbangers or streetwalkers,because everyone knew black kids were stupid and nobody cared about them. He told us we should be grateful our mother married him and he agreed to raise us, how lucky we were to have a father,because most worthless black kids don’t have a dad. He told me these things for my whole life and like any other child I believed him wholeheartedly…..until I left for college a few years ago and discovered that not only was it okay to be black, but was actually a celebrated thing. Slowly I began to lose my stepfather’s indoctrination of self-hatred.
Recently I went home for the holidays and and after getting drunk dared to ask him why he had treated me as he did and how could he possibly claim to be madly in love with a black woman,while having such animosity towards her black children? His answer stunned me, “You are not dead. You are not a prostitute. You are not in prison. I did not abuse you for being black. I saved you from being black!” This man,this pro-European white man, who was the only father I ever knew did not save me…..he destroyed me.
Anonymous,
Lincoln, NE.
I teach Native Studies (among other things) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and I volunteer with the Native groups in the state prison system. Walking across the quad I see mostly white faces– walking across the yard not so much. Makes me sad. And mad.
Also wanted to comment on your “South Pacific” segment. I memorized that show in 1965 when I was in the pit orchestra for the high school musical. Always thought it was a bit of a copout that Lt. Cable gets killed and doesn’t really have to face bringing a Polynesian war bride back to “Philadelphia. PA” and dumping the “blue-eyed kid” to whom he was engaged. Would his “uncle and dad make me part of the partnership of Cable, Cable, and Cable”? It’d be a lot easier if we were “carefully taught”–then we could just be untaught. But what about the white privilege implied by “Princeton, NJ” and its comfortable replication that is never challenged till war introduces one to “coconut palms and banyan trees and coral sands and Tonkonese”? I’ts much harder to unprogram things one takes for granted than things one was carefully taught.
Anonymous,
Omaha, NE
Whenever I meet someone new, my first impression is “they’re Black”, or “they’re Latino”. I get so many assumptions just based off the color of their skin, and I’m ashamed that I do that.
Tory Robinson,
Omaha, NE.
I refuse to be fearful growing up in Texas, I learned fear is an obstacle. I now live in Nebraska a state that hides its racism but I won’t be broken because of the strength in my pedigree.
Flora Griffith,
Omaha, NE.
I was eight years old when I first began to feel like an outsider. My school was very segregated, white people hung out with white people and black people hung out with black people, ect. I felt alone, I was never truly accepted into the black, white, or latino communities. The phrases “You’re not ____ enough,” and “No, girl you aren’t ____ you’re ____,” began to ring in my ears. It was very difficult for me to make friends because of the borders between people. Today, I am the only person of color in my friend group, and one of the few people of color in my grade. Often after people hear my ethnicity say something along the lines of: “Really, you don’t act —-,” or “Well, you’re not really —-“. Quite frankly it’s infuriating. I also act and often when I talk to my friends about roles I want to audition for, if the character is a person of color they’ll naively say something close to “Well you don’t really present enough as —-.” I’m still grappling with my identity, but I’ve been getting better at calmly correcting the inappropriate remarks made by people who don’t understand. Although I’m young, I’ve come to learn that you are the only person who can define your identity and no other person should every stop you from being who you are.
Jess,
Omaha, NE
As a white woman who grew up in the midwest I was always told I shouldn’t talk about the differences, it was bad to talk about how my skin was different or my hair was different than another child. I think these messages have positive intentions, not to make someone feel bad for being different but I feel now as an adult that these messages do more hard than good. Embrace differences, discuss them, and learn to find what connects us. We don’t have to be scared of things that make us different that can be our strength. America is supposed to be a melting pot, a country that allows everyone to be their own person and embrace their individuality. I want to be a part of rewriting this narrative and helping to eliminate this unintentional microaggression.
Rob Hinton,
Omaha, NE
Many people in my family are/were incredibly and aggressively racist. Growing up I didn’t understand what the jokes meant or the slurs meant but I knew it felt off for some reason. The older I got, the more abrasive and hurtful the “jokes” became. My first girlfriend was African American and, living in Nebraska, this quickly opened my eyes to the glares, disdain, and contempt that she and her family endured day in and day out. As I grew older in the Marine Corps and met more and more people from different walks of life I realized more and more how hurtful and destructive those “jokes”, sneers, contempt and the like are to people and how easily they can become brainworms that feed the brain with all the anger and fear it can take.
I watched great Marines be disciplined for minor things while us white guys slid by. I watched MP’s harass my friend at the main gate of the base because he was wearing a plain white t-shirt, forbidden by Marine Corps uniform standards. Others in the group of cars with us had no issues, even though many had the same style of plain t-shirt on. I watch a good friend get sentenced to time in the brig and then dishonorably discharged after being 10 minutes late to our morning meeting. You guessed it, he was black.
I guess I’m trying to say that it’s important people be presented with things like this program where you can see a myriad of views and reasons in a non-confrontational way.
This is a tender but important subject and having more ways to create conversations is always welcome. These last few years have brought out a lot of the ugly in our country but I’m hoping for a brighter, happier future.
Dalton M,
Cozad, NE
Apparently having a mullet and wearing white tank tops makes you white trash. Fine then. Cool with me. Cozad Highschool
Sun Absy,
Omaha, NE.
My family is incredibly diverse, racially, culturally and religiously. I feel fortunate to have spent a life within environments where peoples’ superficial traits aren’t the focus. An aspect of overcoming racism and prejudices is learning to let go of categories and labels and to stop (whomever you are and whatever group you are identifying with) blaming, demanding and using aggressive speech to make your beliefs and emotions known. Coexistence at its most peaceful does require an amount of color blindness among societies, we are all the same physiologically, intellectually and emotionally. The ways we categorize ourselves become harmful when they become everything. I’m peacefully unapologetic for this perspective.
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