The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Latoya Baerlocher-Turner,
Newport News, VA.
It’s fun watching people attempt to imagine my face from my name. My first name is notably of African American origin, but my last name tells a different story, so people don’t know what to expect. And it’s always the same vice versa when people who’ve met me, learn my name. I enjoy confusing them. My identity is not merely one portion of me, it is everything that has contributed in total.
Thomas Lloyd,
Fair Oaks, CA.
Ralph Tobias,
Corpus Christi, TX
I feel that hyper-focusing on our superficial, earthly race goes against what Martin Luther King, Jr., said about the content of a person’s character.
Loren Broyles,
Spokane, WA.
We all have our own path and yet we all want to be happy and avoid suffering.
Mika Derifield,
Wadsworth, OH.
It’s so sad that we live in a world that requires labels. Applying for a job, home, or even a social media account? In the first few questions you will be asked race, gender, age? WHY? I AM JUST A HUMAN.. aren’t we all?
Joel DiMaggio Wein,
Sunrise, FL
As long as we allow compartmentalization and grading of physical differences within the human race, there will always remain a need for the self-appointed epidemic of bigotry starving minds and stunting humanity’s growth to greatness. We are humans who are descendants of humans. As the saying goes in American football, “When you get into the end zone with the football, act as if you’ve been there before”. Humans have survived many life-threatening challenges all across the globe. We should know by now that working together, regardless of our independently individual genetic patchwork, we will grow wiser and stronger if we choose to accept our differences as diverse opportunities to build and work together as one race; the human race.
Faride Yamin,
Houston, TX
A single race, the human race.
Jacqueline Novogratz writes in her book The Blue Sweater:”John W Gardner believed humans thrive in relationship to each other, and that communities to which each individual feels a sense of belonging.”
I’ve always been different. I sometimes upset people (because they think I’m ) trying to teach them something, but really it is myself trying to understand the world around me. Being a “less occurrence mind”, I see things differently; I don’t see the need for boxes, I don’t see wraps, I see the inside, I see movements, I see eyes, I see smiles. I feel my own fear, and I see it in others. I see my happiness and I see happiness in others…then I realize I belong to a single human race. Faride Yamin
David Andrews,
Lone Tree, CO
The term was invoked to justify discrimination. There are many cultures, but one race.
Debbie Taylor,
Ann Arbor, MI.
My mother passed away on December 14, 2012 of liver cancer at the age of 80 and she spent her last afternoon and night in Ann Arbor Hospice.
The staff was loving, kind and professional. One nurse in particular examined my mother with such tenderness and care that I was moved beyond measure.
It was such a contrast to the experience she’d had at the hands of another medical professional as a middle school child. While playing with her brothers in a small town near Columbus, Ohio, she fell on a piece of glass and was carried by my uncles to a white doctor’s house. He stitched up her wound WITHOUT any anesthesia, leaving a scar to carry the rest of her life. She never shared that information herself — my uncle was the first to relate the story. Progress in some areas of health disparities has surely been made, but I am concerned about others who have no access to the kind ministrations of a St. Joseph’s Hospital or a fine hospice.
Sharing the words came easily and quickly because my mother raised us to have respect for EVERYONE, including ourselves. All of her children and grandchildren were taught that race was a strange, artificial construct and that “people are people.” So my six words were not the result of a personal revelation, but rather a sigh—one that I wished to share with others. I appreciated the opportunity to do so.
Thank you for your interest.
Debbie Taylor
Sabrina Fuentes,
Apple Valley, CA.
Some people are racist and some people are not. It is a fact, but some individuals believe that if they stay quiet about the matter they are doing no wrong, but it is on the contrary. We are all one race, HUMAN. It is about time we remember that.
Elyzabeth Inez Smith,
Granbury, TX.
No matter what history has come to discover. No matter what the future has to uncover. No matter what excuses people can come up with in order to justify the racial lines man has created. In the end we ALL are the same race. The only race. The ever colorful and diverse race. The Human Race. Until we can come together as the Human Race and recognize that we are all a part of it, we will never live in a world without hate fueled by the hate we ourselves have created.
Shane Anthony,
Antigua and Barbuda
All this inequality among the human race is unneeded, it will only lead to further diversions and devastation between human beings.
Richard Perez,
Antioch, IL.
Multi racial marriage
Jason Argent,
United Kingdom
As a white male, living in a predominantly white neighbourhood, working in a predominantly white workplace and profession, it is easy for me to say that everyone is the same. But it is also hard to think of ways to increase diversity while treating everyone truly equally.
As a biologist, I know that we are one species. For some of our early evolutionary history we could perhaps have been regarded as distinct races, but that term does not seem valid for the last few centuries, perhaps even millennia.
Rather than brush our differences under the carpet, I prefer to celebrate them. But that’s just an outlook on life and humanity, I fear it won’t do much to heal the divisions in society.
Matthew Workman,
Oviedo, FL.
We are all human beings. I’m not saying to throw away what race you are but to open your mind to a greater picture. We come into this world the same way and will leave the same way.
Larry Smith (Vietnam Veteran),
Saint Louis, MO.
I look around and see white fear of black people (especially black men) on the rise as reflected in the rise of white gun possession. I also see things staying the same or getting worse for black people in terms of economics, education and housing. I would just like to live out my remaining years in an environment where I feel like a human being. 66 years of this crap is enough for me!!
AC Hutchinson,
San Francisco, CA
Race, as we use it today, is a cultural construct as we are all learning. We are all spiritual beings and the more we learn to love and treat each other as we would want to be treated, the better we are. We are all human, and our love and hope for each other should be just that, not try to separate ourselves so we can claim superiority or whatever else the reasons may be.
Allison G. Hawthorne,
York, PA.
We all have to get up walk out our front doors and stand up and speak out, so our voices are heard. We have to vote. We have to stop being complacent. Sometimes I feel weary of struggling, when are we all going to be just human?
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