Q&A: Author Michele Norris explores racial identity in 'Our Hidden Conversations'
Think for a moment about these various six-word statements:
No one is colorblind. Don’t pretend.
Bullies grow up. Black boys die.
Hated for being a White cop.
Prayed God would make me White.
When will race not matter anymore?
Those are just a few of the more than 500,000 powerful responses to the Race Card Project, created in 2010 by Michele Norris, a Washington Post columnist and former host of NPR’s “All Things Considered.” The emails, texts and postcards — all with six-word phrases — continue to pour in from the United States as well as more than 100 other countries.
Norris, whose Race Card Project challenged readers to express in only six words their feelings about race and racial identity, has collected the responses over the years. Now, she’s published many of them and written about the project and pertinent subjects about race in her new book, “Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think about Race and Identity,” published Jan. 16. She will appear Jan. 25 at the King Arts Complex.
Norris, 62, is the winner of Peabody and Emmy awards among others. She lives in Washington, D. C., from where she spoke recently by telephone about her book and the project.
Question: You write that your first book, “The Grace of Silence,” helped to inspire the Race Card Project. Among the family secrets that you learned late in your life was that your father, a World War II veteran, was shot in the leg by white police in Alabama. And your mother worked as an itinerate Aunt Jemimah conducting pancake demonstrations. How did such revelations and the memoir in general lead to the Race Card Project?
Michele Norris: When I wrote that book that talked about my family’s very complex racial identity, I knew that when I went on tour, I would have conversations about race … I thought no one would want to talk about race. I created the idea of inviting people into this space … taking this subject and diving into it in a very simple way — six words. It started with postcards that I dropped everywhere like a pied piper. It quickly became apparent that people were finding a postage stamp and mailing their words in.
Q: There is such diversity in the six-word responses. I imagine your reactions were equally diverse. Did you experience joy, anger, confusion, hope?
Norris: Everything you said and more. It sort of depended on the day and what landed in the inbox. It tickled every one of my emotions and still does. People are angry, plaintive, some stories steeped in real pain. I‘ve experienced a full gamut of emotions. I don’t know what to expect when I go to the inbox. The one thing I experience all the time is gratitude --- and awe.
Q: I assume you were purposeful in calling the project “Race Card.”
Norris: If I went back and did this again, I’m not sure I would use that title. It’s clunky, too many words. But what I was thinking at the time, I was trying to be pithy. I hate the phrase, “you’re playing the race card.” You might as well tell somebody to shut up. I was trying to take a phrase I didn’t like and turn it on its head.
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Q: Were you surprised that in the 14 years of the project, the majority of responses have been from white people?
Norris: Totally shocked. I don’t know why that is. Maybe it’s because I worked for so long at NPR, but I haven’t been there since 2015. … There’s a lot about this project that I would like to figure out. Why was it that this prompt at this time opened so many doors? Usually in conversations about race, White people get bystander status ... Often when we’re talking about race, something seismic has happened. But if you just say, tell me your experiences about race, and you don’t frame it around a headline, you get responses that are really intimate and are about people’s lives.
Q: After the killing of George Floyd, it seemed that people were striving to read books about race, especially works by Isabel Wilkerson, Ibram X. Kendi, Ta-Nehisi Coates, for example. Was that a passing interest or do you still see a thirst for this sort of conversation?
Norris: Since I just wrote a book about race, I hope there’s still an interest. But I do think we were in a reactionary phase after the murder of George Floyd. I don’t think it was a reckoning … but a recognition of a lot of things that were broken. But look now at the backlash, against the teaching of African American history, against any conversation about race, the backlash against issues of inclusion. But whether or not people are still interested, the embers are burning. As America is steaming toward a majority/minority status with the tanning of America, my moral core hopes that people are interested because we have to figure out how to live with each other.
Q: What will be the impact on race relations in the U.S. with current attempts to diminish or erase black history from schools?
Norris: I’m concerned about efforts to erase any history. As far as race relations, it will have a chilling effect — and is probably already happening — on people who are writing history. But history usually finds a way. Do we really think we can erase history? Do we really think if we pull books from schools that kids won’t find out about what’s in those books?
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Q: What have you read on the subject of race that you would recommend Americans to read?
Norris: These aren’t necessarily about race but contribute to the idea of how we can get along: Clint Smith’s book, “How the Word is Passed” is about how we wrestle with difficult history. Wendell Barry (“The Gift of Good Land,” “The Unsettling of America”), David Blight’s “Frederick Douglass,” “The Black Book” about contributions of African Americans to American life by Toni Morrison, Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste,” “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson.
Q: Will the Race Card Project continue?
Norris: How do I turn off that spigot? Cards came in today. It’s a huge project and takes up a lot of my life and finances. The challenges are how do I keep it alive? But if storytellers of the future want to understand this moment in time, I hope that this work, this archive, will live beyond me.
Q: Are you more or less hopeful about race relations in the U.S. since this project began?
Norris: I remain hopeful because that’s part of who I am, but I don’t think (improvement in race relations) will happen automatically. It’s going to take a bit of work and a lot of intention. People have to be invested in figuring out how to work together.
Q: What’s next for you — more books, continuing at the Washington Post?
Norris: All of the above. And my podcast, “Your Mama’s Kitchen” (described as a podcast about cuisine, culture, ingredients and identities). Almost all those episodes wind up being about identity.
Q: As a journalist, do you ever worry that you predominantly write about racial subjects?
Norris: In everything I do there’s that through line … I used to be concerned about that, that I’d be pigeonholed. But it’s who I am now. And I have access to stories that other people don’t. Yea, it’s probably the most important part of my portfolio and that’s a good thing.
Q: At the end of “Our Hidden Conversations,” you tell readers your six words. Remind us.
Norris: Still more work to be done.
At a glance
Michele Norris, author of “Our Hidden Conversations,” will appear in conversation with WOSU “All Sides” host Anna Staver at 7 p.m. Thursday in the King Arts Complex, 867 Mount Vernon Ave. Tickets for the event, sponsored by the King Arts Complex, WOSU and Gramercy Books, cost $40, which includes a copy of the book. To register, go to Eventbrite.com. For more information, visit www.gramercybooksbexley.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Author Michele Norris to make Columbus appearance Jan. 25
