Michele Norris discusses her new book on how Americans see race and identity

Geoff Bennett:

In 2010, award-winning journalist Michele Norris started The Race Card Project, where she asked people around the world to send her a postcard, and, in just six words, share their thoughts, questions, experiences, and aspirations about identity and race.

The result was astonishing. The responses were vulnerable, honest, and revealing. And she compiled many of the postcards into a new book called "Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity."

And Michele Norris joins us now.

Welcome back to the "NewsHour."

Michele Norris, Author, "Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity": It is great to be here.

Geoff Bennett:

The Race Card Project for you has been a 14-year pursuit.

How have the submissions tracked this country's racial journey over that same period of time?

Michele Norris:

Well, when we started this in 2010, we were two years into the administration of our nation's first Black president. And we were having a discussion as a country at that time about America being post-racial.

So there was sort of a whoosh of hope in the air. And a lot of the submissions at the beginning reflected that. Only one race, the human race. Can't we just all get along?

But, over time, the cards got deeper, and people started to share some of the things that the viewers saw in the introduction. The reason I ended a sweet relationship. I'm only Asian because it's convenient or when it's convenient. I'm white, not allowed to be proud.

And what we realized pretty quickly a couple years into this is that it was a little bit of a divining rod. Like, you could track things that were happening in the news or in society. They would show up in the inbox.

So, Trayvon Martin, for instance, the killing of Trayvon Martin, that did not become national news for weeks after he was killed in Florida. We were starting to see stories about people talking about an America that no longer felt comfortable to them or familiar to them in ways that we hear now, for instance, at far right political rallies.

That language that has been almost normalized, we were starting to see it early on in the inbox. So, as a journalist, it was not only interesting, but it was a very useful tool for trying to understand what was going on in America outside of the headlines, what was going on in really personal spaces in people's lives.

Geoff Bennett:

Yes.

Conversations about race in this country are so often trapped in the Black-white binary, but this book breaks free of that. It reflects a real panorama of race, class, age, background. What stories stand out to you? And did you pick up any through lines, any points of connection among people?

Michele Norris:

There were certain through lines. The patterns themselves tell a story. It's actually the name of a chapter in the book.

Geoff Bennett:

Right.

Michele Norris:

As we see a lot of people sometimes asking the same thing, sometimes saying the same thing.

We have hundreds of cards from women of color who say, you're pretty for a, fill in the blank, you're pretty for a dark-skinned girl, you're pretty for an Indian girl, or something like that, written in six words.

And so you see that sometimes people are all climbing the same hill, struggling with the same things. But the other thing that's interesting to me, Geoff, is that none of the cards reveal patterns. They reveal the way America is sometimes in conversation with itself without even knowing it.

Geoff Bennett:

In what ways?

Michele Norris:

So, some of the cards feel like they're in conversation. Like, someone writes in about mugged by Black teens, trust destroyed.

You get cards that people are talking about their fear of people of color. And then you get cards on the other side that fall into some version of, lady, I don't want your purse. You know, and so a card that came in, I'm not intimidating. You are intimidated.

And so it's almost like a conversation that people are having across difference, across some sort of chasm. And, sometimes, it happens in ways that, did these two people just talk to each other?

(LAUGHTER)

Michele Norris:

And then there are cases where people actually aren't talking to each other, but they're talking to me.

In the book, there are examples. There's a really interesting story about a couple. She's white. He's Iranian. They send in cards to The Race Card Project after listening to a segment on National Public Radio. They don't know that they have each sent in the card. But I recognize she's talking about her husband.

(LAUGHTER)

Michele Norris:

And, years later, I interview the two of them, and they're like, you sent in a card too?

Geoff Bennett:

In the book, you explore whiteness, which is interesting, because whiteness in this country is so often seen as the default, or, as you say in the book, the normative identity.

There are a number of submissions that fall along these lines. There's one card that says: "Being white is not a crime. It's OK to be white."

There's another card that says: "Do hillbillies get white privilege too?"

What do those submissions reveal?

Michele Norris:

Or another card that says: "Hillbilly is the wrong kind of white."

Those submissions were surprising to me, not the individual submissions, the volume of them. When I put the card on the — when I put the basket on the table and I ask people to share their stories about race, most of our conversations about race in America are by, for or about people of color, and they fall along that Black-white binary that you discussed.

But even when that happens, white Americans often have a bit of a bystander status. The conversation is usually led by or targeted at people of color. When I put that basket on the table, I never expected to engage in a 14-year odyssey of listening to white Americans talk about race. That was completely surprising.

And in most of the 14 years that we have been doing this work, the majority of the cards have come from white people in America.

Geoff Bennett:

Really?

Michele Norris:

Or we also have cards that come from more than 100 countries. The majority, though, from America.

And that was surprising and revealing and rewarding, as a journalist, because it helped me understand America in a different way. These are conversations that I normally don't have access to.

And, as you noted, in some of these cards, there's a certain defensiveness sometimes. There's a certain sense that this conversation doesn't include me, and when it does, I'm always made out to be the bad guy.

Geoff Bennett:

May I ask what your race card says?

Michele Norris:

When I first started doing this, my six words were, "Fooled them all. Not done yet."

Geoff Bennett:

Oh.

Michele Norris:

Because I am a brown girl that grew up in a Midwestern state. I'm from Minnesota. I had a speech impediment as a kid.

A life as a communicator was not imagined for me, in part because of who I was and where I came from and how I presented in the world. And I didn't see a track for that. Didn't see. There was no — there were no Gwen Ifills on the air when I was growing up.

Over time, my six words have changed. And it's in part as America has changed. We're in a hurry to get over this. We want to be post-racial. We want to see the finish line. And I think some form of debate will always be with us, because we're just such a variegated country.

And so my six words now are: "Still more work to be done."

Geoff Bennett:

Michele Norris.

The book and the intention behind it are extraordinary. It's called "Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity." And we also have to credit Kadir Nelson for this extraordinary cover art.

Michele Norris:

Yes. Yes. It's really wonderful.

And the — I wanted a book that jumped off the page, so there are lots of photos inside. It's a very vibrant book about a difficult subject.

Geoff Bennett:

Real privilege to speak with you. Thank you.