The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Beryle Fobes,
Torrance, CA
Born at end of WWII to res-born Native American hetero male who later remarried a Japanese war bride. White mother remarried racist. Children married Black and Native American; grandchildren more mixed than me. Always looked White though, as do progeny. International family at varying stages of race awareness.
Jedd Birkner,
Torrance, CA.
Race is a social construct. Prejudice is a way of expressing ignorance and fear. Senseless hatred is passed from generation to generation. I pray that the people in my country with hatred in their hearts for those they perceive as “the other” become a smaller and smaller minority with each generation. I grew up in a lily white suburb in the 1960’s. Race was something we saw on TV. I neighbor told me a racist joke once when I was around 5 years old. I repeated it to my father, a WWII vet. He told me in no uncertain terms that the language and sentiment I was repeating was not tolerated in our house. I am grateful to my father for that lesson. In my village there were two groups of blacks: the Jones family and the sons of the Nigerian ambassadors. I considered them blacks but I was on a first name basis with five of the six (the oldest Jones brother was an upper classman and, accordingly, I didn’t rate to be in his social group). I am grateful to live in California now in a diverse community. The differences make life interesting, learning about a bigger world. It pisses me off that so many people can be to ignorant and hateful still. Move on, idiots.
Giselle Henry
Torrance, CA
The first person who taught me that looking more like my African ancestors than my non-African ancestors made me ugly was my mother. She didn’t say it directly, but she said by telling me to pinch my nose so it wouldn’t be so wide. She said it by saying how “pretty” my sister was because she had such “fine” features. Just recently I visited her and was telling her about an allergic reaction I had from a medication that made my lips swell up. She said, “That’s terrible, your lips are already big enough”. I have come to feel that I am beautiful, I am proud of my wide nose, my full lips because they are what makes me beautiful and what connect me to my African origins. The other side of my card says, “I say look black is beautiful”.
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