The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Harry Dapron
I was a white, nerdy, shy, socially invisible teenager in senior high school. She was a beautiful, black classmate with a lovely, engaging smile that I would see when she turned around in her seat in Latin class to talk to me! I liked her and she seemed to care about and maybe even like me. However, in the 1960’s I knew that was as far as it could possibly go.
Kristina,
Zion, IL.
I’m multiracial, which caused an identity crisis in my teens. I was never enough of one race or the other to really fit in with anyone. So, I decided to just be myself. I can love all my ethnicities, and the people who were meant to love me understand that.
Aimiee Gauvreau,
Redondo Beach, CA.
I’m almost 47 now; I felt more alone as a child and teenager of the 70s and 80s.
I teach high school English in a beautiful California beach community, and the kids are more open now, yet I see how the aloneness persists within them too.
Maybe in another 50 years, people like me will not question where they belong anymore.
Victoria N.
Fortson, GA
My ancestors came to America just like many others. Just because I am white, does not mean my family “owned” “slaves”. When an African American girl says to me “you’re so lucky to have that hair” or “I would pay a lot for some of your hair”, it makes me mad. Hair or material appearances should not be what you see when you look at someone. It’s about what is on the inside, not the color of one’s hair or skin! I have strawberry-blonde hair so I get called a “ginger” from all races. According to some people, I only have “half a soul”.
Being called a ginger hurts just as much as being called the N word. I like to drink Starbucks so I’m a “Typical white girl’? That term is degrading to teenagers like me. Just because I am white, does not make me privileged. My dad only makes about $30,000 a year. My mother is unemployed and homeless! Being white does not make someone racist or privileged. Do you see colleges or scholarships for “white” people? No, but you see them for African Americans. Also, to the African American boys that get mad when a white girl says she has a preference: For MOST of us, it’s not because you have dark skin, it’s because our mind is not physically attracted to you. Stop calling us racist or our DNA makeup. Our generation only has control of the future, not the past, so get over it.
Jay Bailinson
Napa, CA
In lived in Oakland CA. during preteen and early teen years. I belonged to a Boys Club sponsored by the Chinese Presbyterian Church in Oakland’s China town area. I played on sports teams in a church league sponsored by this church. I was one of two white boys on the team and in the club. An important part of our practices (or especially after winning a game) was to go out and eat. One Friday night after basketball practice we were going to a hamburger place in East Oakland, Six boys in the back seat of the coach’s “clunker” and two upfront with him. When we got to the hamburger place we piled out being loud, happy, goofy early teenage boys. A group of white older young men was hanging out near one of the picnic tables. As we approached they started yelling racial slurs. The one that I remember clearly was “hey Chinks, go back to China”. I didn’t belong. It hurt that my friends were being insulted by guys with the same color skin as mine. I didn’t do anything. My friends will now think I’m like the yelling guys. I returned to the car. Sat in the back seat feeling sick, apart, and lonely. 15 minutes later all the boys returned to the car with our coach. Got in with all the food. Piled into the back seat, surrounding me with hamburger/french fry filled bags and goofy teenage boy silliness. Nothing had changed for us. I was still Jay. Part of the team and one of the guys. Yet in the core of my being on that night, I learned what race fear was. Our coach who was also a youth pastor talked with me later privately. I don’t remember the words, just the feeling of being loved, accepted, and honored as a person.
Tara Saltzman,
Evergreen, CO.
My teens arguing in favor of de-degrading(?) the word n*****, inspired by conviction that changing the influence of words (no longer receiving the word “n*****” as having negative intent or implication), changes relationships. wondering if they are empowered by the innocence of youth and lack of historic understanding AND regardless able to infuse real change through that space.
Corrine Ferrell-Macatee,
Baltimore, MD.
Me, bad bangs, my best friend, little girl with braids, my cousin, cute little Japanese girl. My nana and sister are here too, it wasn’t til I was in my early teens I even realized we weren’t all white, black or Japanese.
Max Davies
Newport Coast, CA
There’s societal wickedness, and then there’s personal stupidity. We can all do something about the former, but the latter is beyond anyone but the individual concerned. There are many understandable reasons why people do things that harm themselves and their loved ones, but understanding the reasons for stupidity doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strongly criticize those who practice it. The bigots and racists are quick to criticize, and they do so with bad faith. But those of us with good intentions shouldn’t allow them to prevent us from speaking very strongly against the lifestyles that bind practitioners to poverty and failure.
Toby Johnston
USA.
I grew up in Los Angeles the 80’s, rabid fan of all things rap. I am white and for many of my friends (Mexican, black, white, lower/middle/upper class, whatever) rap was the music of rebellion. I got called ‘wigger’ by my white(r) friends and heard a lot of hate spewed. And yet at the same time, through the love of the music, I came to understand the African-American & immigrant experience through very narrow lens.
I see this myopic perspective from a generation of kids who were grew up with rap. Rap created icons of disenfranchisement easily accessible by our teenage angst and yet simplified the narrative of what ‘race’, and in many ways ‘gender’, could be.
I think this myopia is easiest to identify in the bias of those who hated rap, called it ‘jungle music’ in the pejorative, but the misinformation worked both ways. Rap elevated a struggle but also define an individual’s potential in a very dangerous way.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love rap but I don’t confuse my love the music with an understanding of those peoples and neighborhood that it came from. I understand rap, and its later corporate sanitized little brother ‘hip hop’, as only a single voice in the discussion and not the whole choir.
Elizabeth Hess,
New Haven, CT.
That photo is the end paper of my yearbook, Weaver High School, Hartford, Connecticut, 1975. I was one of about 15 white kids in a huge city school. I loved the laughter in the hallways, the treasured friendships, the “take me as I am-ness” of the classmates I most wanted to sit next to. I was brave and outspoken by association, happy to be a part of a community made up of the coolest kids on the planet.
Anonymous
Dallas, TX
As a teenager, I was a victim of an assault. For many years thereafter, I carried weapons. Whenever I spoke to anyone about the event, they’d suggest that I seek counseling — which I resented — because I was wanting their support against the aggressor. But no amount of “justice” heals the victim. When I finally sought counseling, I was told to “bless” my defensive tendencies, which counterintuitively allowed me to stop anticipating assault from every direction. I have finally learned that the most effective way to disarm a stranger is with a smile and a friendly word.
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