What Are Your 6 Words?
Posted by Michelle Moquin on January 6th, 2013
Good morning!
RACE CARD PROJECT CREATES NEW TYPE OF CONVERSATION
She asked for just six words.
Michele Norris, the National Public Radio host, was starting a book tour for her memoir, which explored racial secrets. Sensing a change in the atmosphere after the election of the first black president, and searching for a new way to engage and listen, Norris printed 200 postcards asking people to express their thoughts on race in six words.
The first cards that trickled into her mailbox were from Norris’ friends and acquaintances. Then they started coming from strangers, from people who had not heard Norris speak, from other continents. The tour stopped; the cards did not:
“You know my race. NOT ME!”
“Chinese or American? Does it matter.”
“Oh, she’s just another white girl.”
“Waiting for race not to matter.”
Such declarations brought the Race Card Project to life.
“I thought I knew a lot about race,” says Norris, 51, an award-winning black journalist. “I realized how little I know through this project.”
Two years later, the cards have become almost a parallel career for Norris, best known for her work on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” She and an assistant have catalogued more than 12,000 submissions on http://www.theracecardproject.com . People now send them via Facebook and Twitter or type them directly into the website, leading to vibrant online discussions.
Many cannot resist accompanying their Race Cards with explanations, stories and personal experiences. Norris, in turn, feels compelled to contact them, listen to their stories, and archive this new conversation about race.
The discussion is inseparable from this moment, when the page of America’s racial history is in mid-turn. Part of Norris’ inspiration came from a series of NPR interviews on race during Barack Obama’s ascent. His reelection has reenergized Norris’ multiracial community of six-word poets:
“Black babies cost less to adopt.”
“Never a Nazi, just a German.”
“Money on counter, not in hand.”
“You are dirt, so I scrubbed.”
Eric Liu, an author and educator, heard about the Race Card Project from a friend. He calls it “brilliantly powerful” due to the strict brevity: “It forces this profundity that you wouldn’t get if you let people go on for two hours.”
“It uses this format on the front end to unlock all of this expression and imagination,” Liu said, “and on the back end, once it’s out in the world, it forces people to see each other with new eyes.”
That’s what happened one Sunday when Celeste Brown, a graduate student from Florida, noticed the Race Card Project on Twitter and typed “We aren’t all ‘Strong Black Women’” into her computer.
A fire was lit. Women and men of all ethnicities gathered at keyboards from Los Angeles to Ireland. Comments flew: Isn’t Strong Black Woman a compliment? No, it’s strong like oxen — less than human. It doesn’t matter how we treat them because they will survive. Time to stop putting up walls and be vulnerable. I feel like I’m forced to be strong. It makes a woman sound like a weed, not a flower.
In an interview, Brown said that her statement unconsciously distilled ideas and experiences she had previously shared only with close friends, like the tension between being independent and needing a man, or the question of how black women can build careers without being stereotyped as too aggressive.
“I wrote the first thing that came to mind,” Brown said.
For Norris, such exchanges fulfill her goal of making it easier for people to talk about race. As a professional interviewer, she often sees racial questions lead people into “the pretzel twist” — arms folded, legs crossed, shoulders hunched. But with the Race Card Project, people express things unlikely to be spoken into an NPR microphone:
“Marry white to dilute the black.”
“I married a black man anyway.”
“When did your family come here?”
“Disagree with blacks? Automatic racist. Pathetic!!!”
Norris knows about reticence from her own family. In her memoir, “The Grace of Silence,” Norris describes a secret her doting father never told her: He was shot in 1946 by a white police officer in his native Birmingham, Ala.
Her mother hid something, too: Norris’ beloved grandmother traveled from town to town in the 1940s and ’50s dressed as Aunt Jemima to sell pancake mix, a custom that many now consider a degrading mammy stereotype.
By confronting her family’s secrets, Norris has inspired others to reveal their own.
Like the businessman in Los Angeles’ Koreatown who told Norris that he abhors Asian gangs, but secretly roots for them because they present an image of Asian manhood he doesn’t see anywhere else.
Or the elderly white woman who, along with her childhood friends, used to throw rocks at black sharecropper children walking by her home in Louisiana. She recalls the chill she got when one black girl was hit by a rock and turned to look her dead in the eye, a look that made her recognize her transgression. The woman asked her father what she should do. He told her, using the n-word, that she couldn’t hurt black people because “they have thicker skin.”
Or the story of Arlene Lee, who posted: “Birthday present; you are black, sorta?”
On the night before Lee’s 50th birthday, she was going through the papers of her late mother, an immigrant from Peru. Lee found her mother’s real birth certificate, plus a fake one she had used to enter the United States in 1958. On the fake document, Lee’s mother had changed her race from black to white.
“My mother raised me to be white and I am, at least by self identification I guess,” Lee wrote on the Race Card Project website.
“It breaks my heart that we never had a chance to talk about it, that she didn’t feel she could trust her only child to understand and that she didn’t feel she could ever come out of hiding,” Lee wrote.
“And now, I have a new prism through which to see things.”
So does Norris. “These six words are just the beginning of fascinating stories,” she says. “It’s the most interesting and rewarding work I’ve ever done as a journalist.”
Race Card submissions increased after the recent election. So did requests to use the project in schools or institutions, and more people than ever are including additional comments.
A book is begging to be written. Norris is talking with several institutions that are interested in permanently housing and maintaining the project. She will need assistance when she ends a leave from NPR that began last year, when her husband took a role with the Obama campaign.
So many threads lead to Obama. It’s clear, Norris says, that he opened the door for this conversation. But few people mention the president by name in their six words. He is mentioned far more in additional comments, and almost always in Norris’ follow-up interviews.
“It appears that his ascendance has made people think not just of his story and his place in history, but also their own,” she says.
And what about Norris’ own place? What are her six words?
When the project began, her words were personal, born of her experience as a black Minnesota girl with a slight speech impediment who was advised against pursuing a four-year college degree. “Fooled them all, not done yet” used to fit well.
But now, after what the nation has experienced these past few years, and the gratitude she feels toward thousands of people who shared their stories with her, Norris is reminded of a quote from the legendary dancer Alvin Ailey: “The dance comes from the people and must always be given back to the people.”
So today, her six words are:
“Still more work to be done.”
********
Readers: Here’s two I came up with: “Rant about racism until it’s dead.” ”Being better than someone has no color.”
What are your 6 words? Blog me.
Stacy: That’s unfortunate because women are, as Addie pointed out, “awesome” to be with. I posted the video for fun (I thought it was funny!) but also as Monica pointed out “to bash straight women who are against same-sex marriage,” not just to bash straight women, of course. I didn’t post the male version that you pointed out but yes, I am bashing those men too who are against same-sex marriage.
Nikki: With all I did for my family, there have been many a time when I was married that I wished I had a wife….still do.:)
Chad: Thank you.
Anxious: Thank you too for the compliments. I have more to say but my time has run out. I will address your comment tomorrow.
Peace Out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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January 6th, 2013 at 8:53 pm
If ‘having a wife’ meanssoneone who takes care of my life details so I can get some things done, I need one, but I’d rather pay fr omestic help, let’s call it what it is regarding the word usage. Now you know why the insitution holds little appeal : ), that vision of wife is not who I want to be, frankly I qualify as the lesbian who will marry your boyfriend better anyway!
Im trying to think of 6, get back to you.
Luv, Zen Lill
January 7th, 2013 at 7:22 am
I learned a lot about racism when I travelled around the world with the U.S. Marine Corps. What I observed was that even the Japanese people who all have olive skin, black hair and brown eyes chose to dislike a subgroup because of what they believed in.
You can apply this same observation to history with the rise of the Nazi party in Germany wanting to exterminate a whole race of people based on primarily on the religion of the Jewish people.
Hitler was even accused of looking like a Jew! I hate to say it, but racism is inherent in the human species and even if people all over the world looked alike there would still be some form of hatred or racism based on religion, beliefs or economic status.
My conclusion in life is to enjoy the diversity of colors, views perspectives and wonderful ideas that people have no matter whether I agree or not. Communication is the key to understanding another person and even the most unintelligent person eventually realizes the error of his ways. History has proved it.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:23 am
My six:
humans using their amazing brains sometimes
January 7th, 2013 at 7:24 am
Demonic whites created the ‘Race Card’ right? Who oppressed who?
January 7th, 2013 at 7:25 am
Blacks and white are the extremes.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:26 am
I am proud to be Black
January 7th, 2013 at 7:27 am
Mandana #4
Your reply is what it’s all about You are the racist!!!
January 7th, 2013 at 7:29 am
hearing blacks talk about how much they hate whites everyday you cant blame whites for not wanting to hire a black employee. they don’t want the racist angry hate filled exuse making black bastards around their company home customers family friends ex ex ex.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:33 am
Excuse me Ray #& I may live in Denmark, but it is clear to me that whites are the racist in the U.S and their evil laws prove it, so wake the hail up!!
January 7th, 2013 at 7:37 am
Men will use religion every time to stop women from freeing themselves from their domination. Invoking Islam, Indonesian province moves ahead with ban on women straddling motorbikes.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:40 am
It is cool to be Black.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:41 am
My color is woman, every time.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:41 am
I only race in my car.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:42 am
I am a mixture of races.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:43 am
I’d rather any color but
January 7th, 2013 at 7:44 am
Being black is dangerous for me.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:45 am
My race does not define me.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:47 am
I am me, you are you.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:49 am
Ignorance is racism, fight against it.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:51 am
La raza nos une a todos.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:53 am
Respect for culture equality is needed.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:54 am
Racism is my every day experience.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:55 am
Just wondering what color is human?
January 7th, 2013 at 7:56 am
A divided house will not stand. – Abraham Lincoln
January 7th, 2013 at 7:56 am
A lot alike, yet very different.
January 7th, 2013 at 7:57 am
“Greaser” is hateful and it hurts.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:00 am
Asian Piece of the American Pie.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:00 am
All people are unique human beings.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:02 am
Any prejudice is unacceptable to me.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:04 am
I don’t see color, do you?
January 7th, 2013 at 8:05 am
Faith, love, equality are all special
January 7th, 2013 at 8:05 am
If you weren’t born here, leave.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:06 am
It’s not always easy being white.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:07 am
Racism is hurtful, don’t ignore it.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:08 am
Just wondering, what color is “human”?
January 7th, 2013 at 8:09 am
____________ is a color not a race.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:10 am
The idea to identify people by “race” and “whiteness” emerged together to justify an oppressive supremacist system grounded in capitalistic economics.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:11 am
Humans are alike, yet very different.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:12 am
His color never matters to me.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:14 am
Your color a reason to hate.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:15 am
All people are unique human beings.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:16 am
together we are the human race.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:17 am
Race the barricade I can’t cross.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:18 am
An unfair situation between the skins.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:19 am
Be color blind. Judge the mind.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:19 am
Being nonwhite in America is still hard.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:20 am
Bring “the other” into your tent!
January 7th, 2013 at 8:21 am
Be yourself no matter what race!
January 7th, 2013 at 8:22 am
Only I can choose my race.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:23 am
Diversity doesn’t have to mean division.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:24 am
Being black in America is the hardest.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:25 am
WE will define the world again.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:27 am
Racism can solidify power and privilege.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:30 am
White power motherfuckers, today, tomorrow, forever!!!!
January 7th, 2013 at 8:31 am
Don’t judge people by their race.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:32 am
Race still matters in my neighborhood.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:33 am
Racism is calling a slingshot “nigger-killer”
January 7th, 2013 at 8:35 am
Racism is used to exploit others.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:35 am
It’s not just color. It’s everything.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:36 am
Believe in God and Her goodness.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:37 am
I have to agree with George, WN. Hence, my six are:
I feel hate for other races.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:43 am
Racism’s bullshit came back to bite.
My six for what happened to me when I said “we know how to treat our niggers in the South,” to a group of white looking marines.
I was stabbed in the back by some nigger passing. I am now without a working kidney and he is still in the marines. He was never caught.
Niggers are violent.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:45 am
Dividing by race preserves the race.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:46 am
I am as good as you!!
January 7th, 2013 at 8:48 am
Race is dangerous to talk about.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:50 am
America, you need more brown people.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:51 am
Children don’t see in color. Until?
January 7th, 2013 at 8:53 am
I’m forced to pass for white.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:55 am
Dirty Indian whore. I am not.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:57 am
Only white faces in my mirror.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:59 am
Racism speaks its hatred through lies.
January 7th, 2013 at 8:59 am
Trying to change my husband’s bigotry.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:02 am
Raised white-supremacist but I love brown-sugar.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:03 am
When we hate, we win Nothing.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:04 am
What we say to others, matters.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:04 am
Still feeling the pain of racism.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:05 am
Strangers only know you skin deep.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:05 am
Who are the prom kings and queens?
January 7th, 2013 at 9:06 am
Racism is a very bad virus.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:07 am
Is it wrong to notice race?
-
January 7th, 2013 at 9:09 am
You said colored: he’s only brown.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:10 am
Mom, their dicks are black too!
January 7th, 2013 at 9:11 am
Race builds pride, white is proudest.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:12 am
So different yet so the same.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:13 am
A reminder of our imperfect world
January 7th, 2013 at 9:18 am
Because you are different from me.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:19 am
Race is where you come from
January 7th, 2013 at 9:21 am
I’m only the color you make me!
January 7th, 2013 at 9:21 am
Be color blind. Judge the mind.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:28 am
Race should be discussed every day.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:32 am
Being Latina is not a crime.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:33 am
Because you are different from me.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:34 am
Race is the color in people.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:35 am
Black dad. White mom. Me?
January 7th, 2013 at 9:35 am
All of us need to exist
January 7th, 2013 at 9:37 am
Race is all different, that’s good.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:41 am
Great when you are the judge.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:44 am
Race affects how most people act.
January 7th, 2013 at 9:46 am
Essentially we are not so different.