The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Jasmine Dixon,
Virginia Beach, VA
Gods image of you is how we are created. This is the the body he wanted us to have. Along with that I am African American! A beautiful black women that grew to love every insecurity I have about myself.
Michael,
Virginia Beach, VA
Tanisha Pruitt,
Virginia Beach, VA
Cherish the moments that you have because you can lose everything in the blink of an eye.
Amanda,
Virginia Beach, VA
I was never one to think of myself as racist. Over the last several years I have watched the black community take over the media with their violent riots they call protests. I have heard their complaints about being shot by white officers just for being black…not for pulling a weapon on an officer or disobeying orders given by white AND black law enforcement. I have heard them cry about being oppressed. I have heard them argue that they don’t have equal opportunity and this is why they continue to fail as a community in general. I have also heard educated non-racist blacks talk about the embarrassment they feel because of the actions of the general assembly of their race. Here is my thought….I am of Native American decent, I am also “white”. I am a single mom, I had my son at 17, I have NEVER received any type of welfare, I have never held less than two jobs. I have raised my son on my own. I am currently working a full-time job, a part-time job, AND am attending college full-time with an anticipated grad. date next fall. I have a ton of student loans and was told when I applied for financial aid that if I were to claim my Native American heritage I would get more free money for school. I was told that if I were black and had more than one child, I would go to school for free. So PLEASE!!!! I BEG YOU to tell me how you are oppressed by the American System! I will continue to work and pay taxes to supply your food, housing, and healthcare costs while you continue to sit on your ass and pop out babies to increase your welfare benefits. I think it’s time to wake up and stop blaming the system or whites for your oppression….you oppress yourself and are STILL to pathetic to take responsibility. I don’t run around claiming that I’m oppressed because my ancestors went though horrible massacres and were stripped of their land. BY THE WAY…if you know black history then you will know that YOUR own race SOLD EACHOTHER! I would be willing to bet that while all these people are throwing around the race card 90% of them could not pass an exam on Black History! There is no United White College Fund…there are so many opportunities given to blacks in America that we have created a mindset of entitlement. It’s the black community’s responsibility to start educating their children instead of corrupting their young minds. Set them up for success and stop embarrassing your race…most of all STOP EMBARRASSSING THE HUMAN RACE!
Ashley L Velazquez,
Virginia Beach, VA
ODU
#Mixed
Meka Burnett-Gross,
Virginia Beach, VA.
Speaking correct English was a “must” growing up in my house but living in the south, I was often confronted by all races with “you don’t talk like other blacks, you sound white”. Speaking correct English obviously correlates to me trying to act like a different race too. Since when does commanding the English language mean I’m trying to act like something that I clearly am not.
Sylvia Jones,
Virginia Beach, VA
This is a thoughtful project to do. Everyone should give themselves a little time to think about themselves, positively.
Alyssa Bowen,
Virginia Beach, VA.
Akira Lee,
Virginia Beach, VA
I once had a woman approach me in a restaurant and tell me that I was really pretty. It was my 13th or 14th birthday, and I had dressed really nicely and was proud that someone noticed how beautiful I looked that day. I responded politely to her, and thanked her, upon which she asked me, “What are you?” I replied that I was Black, but she gave me this confused look and said, “But you’re too pretty to be Black. What else are you?” At the time, I didn’t understand that what she said to me was disrespectful and I ended up taking her hurtful words as a compliment. If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve known she said that to me was ignorance and would have simply walked away.
Petra Snowden,
Virginia Beach, VA
As a German-born immigrant I always felt this to be a sensitive question, especially when asked by my Jewish friends. I usually responded with a long story of his life , pre and post WWII , explaining that he was not a Nazi! The collective guilt of the German people I somehow carried with me my entire life.
Nicole Reynolds,
Virginia Beach, VA.
Race often goes hand and hand with self worth. Who am I in the world? What does that answer mean? How does it affect my life? Is there anything I can do to change that? I have Ugandan Blood, Taino Blood, Spanish Blood, Past African American Slave blood. What race am I? I’m human.
Ashley Garneau,
Virginia Beach, VA.
Queenie,
Virginia Beach, VA.
I am an African American mother of a 23 year old son. We have seen lots of race issues on the news, on television shows, and on social media in the last year. The response that I see many white people say is that they are tired of hearing about these race issues being in the news. If they are tired, imagine what we are.
Jim Michonski,
Virginia Beach, VA.
I grew up in a military family. The March on Washington happened when I was two years old. We mostly lived outside of the US until I was nine. I don’t have memories of and was not exposed to the racial turmoil of the 1960’s. One of the strongest experiences that gave me insight into what it meant to be black happened a couple years after moving back to the States. The community I lived in had no public pools. The only pool available for the civilian community was part of a social club. The club was for the most part segregated. At that time there was no explicit discriminatory racial policy but it seemed implied. Membership dues kept most people from joining.
My father coached and played sports. One year at the end of the baseball season he had a pool party for the baseball all-stars on the military base where he worked. The social club pool was not available in part, I believe, because there would be black boys attending the party. One black boy, a very athletic and talented ball player, who was also very polite and well liked, decided he would dive off the board on the deep end of the pool. He did this once or twice. We didn’t notice that as he jumped his momentum carried him to the shallow end where he could touch bottom. He couldn’t swim but we didn’t notice. A little later he dove again. This time he took too steep an angle and didn’t make it to the shallow end. He started flailing in the water. Several adults, including my father, jumped in to save him. In the aftermath I learned why he couldn’t swim. The reason was segregation and discrimination concerning public pools. We almost lost a great kid because there was no place for him to learn how to swim. I was introduced to racial discrimination in deeply personal and scary way. A peer almost drowned because of it. I also learned there are many of all races that found ways to get around the ingrained racial culture of the community.
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Audrey A Fischer,
Wilson, NC.
When I lived in Virginia Beach, I didn’t notice race. Up north, it was so institutionalized that I barely knew any People of Colour. When I came down south in the eighth grade, I suddenly was the largest group, but our school was 60 or so percent minority. I was called a cracker a few times, I heard colored people using ‘nigga’ in conversation. I was about as confused as a girl can be. Then I decided I wanted to know more about race. I learned things on the internet and began socializing with other groups, but the thing is I’m afraid to talk about race. I’ve become a little bit racist and I’m ashamed of it and I want to learn, but I can’t bring myself to ask. Open conversations are so hard because I feel like if I open my big, fat, unoppressed and privileged mouth I’ll seem more racist than Trump. I dont want my coloured friends to tell me how all coloured people feel, but just how they personally feel. It’s sad, and I don’t know what to do, but I’m glad I’m not so ignorant as I was up north
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