By Dr Bertrand Ramcharan
Seventh Chancellor of the University of Guyana
Previously Fellow of the LSE and Fellow of Harvard University
Michele Norris, a highly decorated American journalist, is the founding Director of the Race Card Project. She wanted to understand the attitudes of Americans to race. So she started a project in which she distributed cards with the following written on them: “ Race. Your Story. 6 words. Please send.”
In the fourteen years since Ms Norris first posed this request, more than a million people have submitted their stories to the Race Card Project. Based on the replies she received, Ms Norris has just published “Our Hidden Conversations. What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity” (Simon and Schuster, 2024, 471 pages). It is an enlightening book and a riveting read.
In the presentation of the book, it is written: “The stories are shocking in their depth and candour, spanning the full spectrum of race, ethnicity, identity and class. Even as just six words, they reveal fear, pain, anger, exhaustion, triumph, and sometimes humour. … This unexpected panorama of responses across races, class, religion, and geography provides a rare 360-degree view of how American see themselves and one another.”
