On Tuesday I attended the Sharp Speaker Series presentation “The Race Card.” The speaker, Michele Norris, is a journalist who worked for NPR and became its first black female host. In 2002, she wrote a memoir called The Grace of Silence about her experience with racism. The main focus of her talk was her project that she started in 2010 called “The Race Card.” In this project, she strives to create a platform for people around the world to talk about race by having anyone submit a response online about what race means to them in six words or less.
During her presentation, Norris gave an example of the work she does on a daily basis by reading through some of the responses that she receives, which to me was the most interesting aspect of the project because of the diversity of responses. One of the comments that stood out to me was “Father was racist. I’m not. Progress!”. I found this comment interesting because to me it felt like this person does not understand that just because they as an individual are not racist does not mean that race is not a significant issue because many people are still openly racist. However, it is difficult to judge this person’s views based on a six word online comment because we do not know why they think that way.
Norris also talked about the fact that many of the responses she receives are from white people, and that the variety of responses can lead to a more productive discussion, which is one of the goals of her project. For example, people of color who have grown up with racism as a part of their daily life may be surprised to read comments from white people about how race is not an issue anymore because they have such different experiences.
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