The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Molly McNulty,
Newton, NH
I feel like a lot of people may think white girls or girls in general are the same just because we like similar things or follow certain trends. When in reality we are all different but just like a few similar things.
Nona Lynn Simons
Orangevale, CA
My Six Words: Have you ever felt different from everybody else? I have and sometimes I still do! In the fifth grade, I was different because I was part Jewish and my classmates weren’t. They went to church and I didn’t. During the last week of school, one of my nicest classmates used the word “Jew” as a swear word. Where did that come from, I wondered. How could such a nice person say such a mean thing? Later, I learned I was all Jewish; my mistake! Also, my parents knew that we lived in an upper middle class, church going area, and racism and religious bigotry were the norm. So, they told us to pretend we were half Jewish to see how people would respond. I got it all wrong and told my classmates that I was a Christian. My middle sister who was in the 7th grade said she was half Jewish. I can’t remember what my oldest sister said. Somebody who knew my middle sister was an older sibling to one of my classmates. Somehow, they put “two and two” together and found out that I had been lying about my religious affiliation. Ooops! That made for a miserable year. My middle sister was always harassed because she was “half Jewish,” and she would come home in tears. My oldest sister found a boyfriend and a girl who became her best friend, so things were okay with her. Then we moved, and we were now all Jewish again. We were in a better neighborhood, but I did not fit in with the crowd. Just when I almost had popularity in my grasp, I found out from my middle sister that a classmate who was being taunted mercilessly was having a hard time because her parents were getting a divorce. I knew what growing up in a fractured home was like (my parents fought a lot). So, I defended the girl who was being taunted mercilessly and my popularity vanished, along with a number of supposed friends. In my first junior high school, the seventh grade class had a caste system of sorts; the most popular girls and guys were at the top of the social ladder. Cheerleaders and football players came next. The intelligent kids were in their own group. There were a few other crowds of kids who were part of the social structure and knew their place. I was first a “reject” (kind of like being an outcast in India), and later on happily became an “independent agent.” I didn’t belong to a crowd but I wasn’t a reject; for me, that was a step up in the world. The next year, I befriended two older kids and we spent a lot of time together. I had a history teacher who made learning fun, and I started to do well in one class. Then we moved to a different school, and I had a clean start. In this school, there was no caste system; just different crowds of people. There were the popular kids, the cheerleaders and athletes, the folk singers and political activists, a few rejects, a Christian crowd, and a few other crowds. I tried being with the folk singing group but did not have a guitar, so I did not really fit in that crowd. Nor, did I fit in any other crowd. When I was placed in one advanced placement class, I did not fit in with the intelligent students who had been in the same special classes for several years. I found a few independent agents like me, and thus fared better. No longer a reject, but totally unique; the square peg in the round hole! When we graduated from junior high school, all of us went to the same high school. The social system was pretty much the same, as was my standing. I was a political activist but not as far to the left as the peace crowd. I was not in the Christian group, cheer leading group, or drama club. I was the only person in my two advanced placement classes that took art and was not in any other advanced placement class! The art students were not academically inclined. Still a square peg in a round hole, but happier; I had more of a sense of myself. I knew where I was headed and who I was, and that was good enough for me. In college I met people from all different walks of life, from different places around the country, from outside the United States, from different racial groups. I realized that everyone was a human being, each unique in his or her own way, but still members of one family, the human family.
Bill Lee,
Simi Valley, CA.
I was raised seeing the world through the rose colored veil of white privilege. I now know this. Spoiled and clueless white Americans need to wake up to a new reality where we are just another face in a multi cultural crowd.
Sara Adams,
Minneapolis, MN
People treat me differently, make different assumptions about me, depending on which son is at my side.
Josh McCumber,
Palm Beach Gardens, FL
Truly listening. Asking good questions. Showing understanding and empathy. Not everyone’s perception is the same.
Paulie Toner,
Toronto.
Alicia Wolff,
Petaluma, CA
As a child in the ‘80s, up north, with a deeply religious family, I was raised to believe God didn’t see color and neither should we. It has taken me decades to understand how that overly simplistic view denies the reality of how race functions in our society and allows white people to continue to ignore how race-related trauma is deeply embedded in our country’s history and culture.
Kathy Devine-Henry,
Smyrna, DE.
Prior to my twenty-seventh birthday, my eyes were not completely open. Up until this point I believed that Martin Luther King Jr. had solved all the race issues in our country and equality for all was the law of the land.
Then I began teaching at a Juvenile Detention Center in Wilmington, Delaware. It was very obvious that the majority of the students housed there were students of color. For many years I struggled with this state of affairs.
Now it is clear to me that poverty and misperceptions continue to foster the unequal treatment of our most vulnerable group, our children. My hope is that we all work to shed light on why certain children’s lives are not valued as much as others and build new perceptions, thus new realities, through this enlightenment.
Trying,
USA
I’m trying to. Aside from mild instances of bullying and othering as a child, I have not really had overt, negative interactions around race, despite there not really being other Asians around when I was growing up. I am thankful for that. I did notice when my married name got me 2-3x the job interviews and recruiters as an adult… But have not really noticed anything else. And tbh, it’s not something I’ve focused on. I am still lucky with my lot in life at this point. My family has been able to build good lives for themselves, despite coming here with nothing… And for that, I am grateful. They have found friendship and support in the communities in which they have settled, it feels like.
I grew up largely in mixed communities of people with predominantly white, black, and hispanic backgrounds. The worst overt racism I can ever recall is when some kids made fun of my dad’s accent, after he turned a corner in a hallway in my elementary school. They weren’t white. But that’s still pretty mild, especially if you consider what happens to some kids in the inner cities. I do remember it being a moment of anger, something I don’t often feel.
That all being said… just about every single one of my best friends growing up were also black or Mexican. My friend groups were always more “diverse”… Even after I moved. When I moved to Nyc, I got to know many South Asians. Even when I ended up in a majority white, conservative state and town, somehow I ended up with the only 2 black girls, some native girls, and a couple of other East Asian girls at the high school within my friendship circle. I ended up with more gay friends than I expected too. For the most part, the common denominator was that these were all gentle, thoughtful, sweet people (my friends).
I’ve been seeing so much news lately and trying to understand the more complex race relationships in places like California and New York. It makes me angry, and sad. There are so many new stories, everyday. With videos, body counts even.
So I’m presented with all this information that seems… so damning. And it seems like there’s a pattern. And I can’t refute someone else’s lived experience like that, I know. There are likely problems that are unquestionable at this point. Maybe they’re regional, maybe not. Maybe they are cultural and require *lots* of nuanced analysis, and maybe humans just don’t make sense and there is no formula to understanding every single problem sometimes.
But I can remember **my** lived experience. All my friends, growing up. I can remember that even if we do encounter a lot of assholes along the way, we do not have to paint anyone with a broad brush, especially simply based on race. I can remember that people come with so many different histories and traumas. I can try to be compassionate. But it gets harder, every single day. Everyday that you feel unheard, and even targeted. You want to empathize. But you also want to have a voice. Do we have a voice? Can I be true to myself as naturally reserved and always aspiringly thoughtful individual, and still express myself? I am not vocal, but that does not mean I do not have thoughts.
Consuming the news wears on me. Trying to interact with people in any meaningful way on social media is impossible. It all gets the better of me at times. I wonder if my perspective is being distorted, or if it was just distorted all along. When is it cynicism, and when it is pragmatism? Perhaps the news I get is also… more selected, based on algorithms? Certainly not out of the question. I don’t know. But I have a growing unease about it, and I just want to understand, and solve the problem.
I want to understand what’s true, and I want to be able to see our problems clearly. Are we seeing our problems clearly? Can we even agree on what they are? Or am I doomed to live remotely in my old age, as far, far away from people as I can get? It would be a peace, even if it weren’t the peace my more idealistic, younger self had envisioned, long ago.
Anonymous,
Philadelphia, PA .
For a long time, I have known that the concept of “race” is a false way to identify or classify human beings. Race is not a biological reality. In the 19th century, in Europe, the concept of ranking people by color was used to justify conquest and slavery. The attachment of slavery to color was born. Prior to that, empires did enslave their conquered peoples but did not attach ideas of superiority based on color to them. Those ideas developed with European colonization and imperialism. European “race” theorists even applied these ideas to different (white) nations and groups within Europe (read “The History of White People” by Nell Irwin Painter.)
Several years ago, I decided I would never again say I was Caucasian again. My ancestors are not from the Caucasian mountains. (Good article in Wikipedia on how Europeans got to be called Caucasian, probably by Professor Painter.) My grandparents were immigrants – Jews who came to the U.S. from Eastern Europe – Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania – in the late 19th/early 20th century. They were fleeing persecution and poverty. I decided when I had to state my “race” (such as when donating blood) I would state that I was an Eastern European Ashkenazic Jew, which is what my grandparents were. But I really wasn’t sure what Ashkenazic meant, so I googled it. To my surprise, I found a lot of interesting genetic information. I learned about the National Geographic Human Genome project which uses DNA to trace the migration of people from Africa (about 80,000 years ago?) and to see how they radiated out to different parts of the world. More than 99% of human DNA is the same. The tiny fraction that is different is what causes differences in different populations. The differences arose as humans walked out of Mother Africa and settled in different regions. If they were in isolated areas, they eventually became a gene pool and shared certain characteristics that other groups did not share. Some groups formed a gene pool because social customs forbade marrying out of the group. However, in spite of isolation, there is still more genetic variation within any one group than between different groups. But some individuals or groups never settled – because of wanderlust, exploration, migration, trade, war – and shared their genes with other populations all over the world.
I did get my DNA tested. I got my Mitochondrial DNA tested in 2010, and my autosomal DNA tested in 2016. I’m not a geneticist, or a biologist, and I had to learn lots of new vocabulary and concepts to understand what it meant. It’s nice to know, and it’s anthropology which is fascinating, but that’s it.
Julie A. Perkins,
NV.
I’m 22 years old, half African America, half Caucasian. Because I’m black, I have been racially profiled and discriminated against because of my gender and skin color. But I’ve also had the terrible taste prejudice from many black people due to my mother being white and me not being full black. The bitter reality of racism is, it comes from all races.
Maynard Hearns,
Santa Cruz, CA.
The black story in america is very simple: we were slaves, and then we weren’t. We were never given freedom, or equality. When we begged for it, we were lied to. When we Marched on Washington and pleaded our case, we were shot in the back of the head. When we sang for it, we were passed over it for those who could sing it whiter. When we wrote about it, we were left out of the american canon. When we exhibited moral character and “married up” we were called rapists. When we created shows that displayed to our intelligence without compromising our reality, we were sneered out in editorials.
When we cultivate our own beauty, we are ignored, or worse: “exoticized.”
When we dare to like ourselves and not be subservient out of reflex, we are shot in the walmarts, in the streets, and our killers are rewarded with a paid vacation.
Success for blacks in america comes with punishment. Nothing is more dangerous than to be unapologetically self-loving, yet able to go toe-to-toe with your white peers. They have magazines telling them they’re beautiful, stories saying they’re courageous, and smart, and funny, and thoughtful. They have a culture that tells them that they are, in a word, perfectible. To be black in america is to be faced with the notion that you are naturally imperfect.
And to succeed while black in america is to succeed in spite of your society, in spite of your nation–not because of it.
Steve Pederson ,
Submitted via Twitter: @stevped
Tiffany Wysocki,
Middletown, NJ.
Monmouth University
As I travel the world, I have found one truth: we are all innately equal in our drives and desires. We are driven by love and survival. We want the best for our families. We want to feel loved and have the opportunity to love. That’s it. That is the place we start. Not from our differences, but what makes us the same. The human condition is more powerful than our facades. If we can start from our collective human similarities, we collaborate and we win. If we start conversations and interactions with what makes us different and “other,” we judge…and lose before we begin. Change perceptions and you change reality.
Jaime Misky,
Milwaukee, WI
I chose these six words because they have been a harsh reality I have learned as I grew up. From K4-5th grade, I went to a school in which I was very much a minority. Though many teachers were white and there were classmates who shared the same skin color, most of my peers did not look like me. However, this is not something I ever really thought about. I did not see color. My classmates were my friends. We played together at recess, shared stories and secrets, braided each other’s hair, jumped rope, held hands, and simply loved one another for the people we were. The best part was having the opportunity to experience these changes together. The following years brought significant learning curves from every side. We shared tough conversations that were ultimately life-altering. Through talking to one another we learned about each other’s cultures, the foods our mom’s like to cook, our different religions, the injustice blacks face in America especially, all spectrums of racism, white privilege, and more. We learned respect. In finally acknowledging our differences, and learning our common ground, we better understood one another and could more fluidly look past those differences to the people we knew before the prejudices of the world came crashing down on us.
I learned that it is important to see color and to recognize my own privilege; it is my duty to use my advantage to reach out a hand and help and be a voice for those who do not share my privilege. I learned to be confident in my beliefs, and to be unafraid to stand up for myself, others, and those beliefs. I learned a greater respect for every human being, no matter what. My high school experience at an all girls Catholic school brought many challenges, especially in regards to race and how far I was willing to go to stand up for my beliefs and the people I loved. This environment was drastically different, as I was one of many white people who looked a lot like me, and very few young women of color. I was now walking the halls, talking to, and becoming friends with girls who I knew varied in perception of the world, as they had had a different upbringing than I had had. I knew many of these girls were very well off and many held conservative and more traditional views. Through many experiences over the past four years, I have learned more than ever to respectfully have a conversation with someone who is drastically different than I am regarding politics, race, religion, gender, sex, money, and other controversial topics. There were many times I overheard or was directly targeted with negative dialogue regarding these issues. It was a significant reality check of just how privileged white people feel they are in this world, and how institutionally and ingrained in every part of life in America, white privilege is. My six word essay means exactly what it states: white privilege makes me sick. It is a part of life I wish I could erase and make it so that all people, no matter what, had equal opportunities and chances in having a successful life in the United States. I am hopeful, but apprehensive. I want to live out the ever-cliché concept of being the change I wish to see in the world; however, I know it is not simply as easy as that. I will, however, do everything in my power to make the world a more equal place. I will continue to evolve, as I continue my education in and outside the classroom. Though I am aware of the hatred this world can hold, I also see its beauty, unity, and hope. Maybe someday, white privilege will be nonexistent. I sure hope so.
Mekdelawit,
San Francsico, CA.
I have faith that people mean well; no one wants to hurt another human being for no reason. That’s a liberal belief. However, reality fails me at times and I lose hope. The reality is, many are willing to step on others to get to the top, but I believe it’s not of choice. Our system encourages aggregation, which could be a great motivator, but could also leave many in the dust. However, I know true equality is achievable.
Sam Kadish,
Newton, MA.
Race is incredibly important to our history. It should be a sidebar in our future. America is the great melting pot; too many people have stopped being proud of that. Race should add color to life; it should add life to culture. America will eventually fail if race remains the first way we judge others. The reality we live in, need not be the reality for our grandchildren. Our personalities, charity, economic realities, heritage and abilities should define us, not the color of our skin. We should be able to joke about each other’s races without fearing deep insult. If brown people have taken over half the businesses on Main Street, it should be an observation: I’m sad that bob’s barbershop is gone but you are happy about the great burrito joint next door. It need not make any body nervous that more names on this years baseball cards are latino. We are changing; get over it.
Kaylee Cole,
Boulder Creek, CA.
Everyone always says your white you get everything but really you white people don’t get everything they want. In reality white people are trying to make up there mistakes well most. If we keep trying soon this wont even be a problem.
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