May 12, 2025

208: Michele Norris: Race, Your Story, 6 Words, Please Send

47 minutes

“I wanted to create a vehicle that allowed people to talk about this allegedly toxic topic on their own terms.”- Michele Norris.

Could you describe your experience of race in America in just 6 words? That’s the very thing Journalist Michele Norris asked 200 strangers to do back in 2015, when she printed a stack of postcards with these simple directions: Race, your story, 6 words, please send. What began as an exercise to spark conversation became The Race Card Project, a growing online archive comprising over 750,000 answers from Americans of every ethnicity and corner of the country. The responses are at once tender and confronting, and they hold a mirror up to a part of American life that is often felt, but rarely openly discussed.

Show Notes

Resources:

"The Grace of Silence: A Family Memoir"

"Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity"

The Race Card Project

NPR's The Race Card Project: Six Word Essays

Your Mamma’s Kitchen Podcast

Similar Episodes:

Musa al-Gharbi

John Blake

Eugene Cho and Karen Korematsu

Transcript

Want more NSE? Join NSE+ Today! Our subscriber only community with bonus episodes designed specifically to help you live a good life, ad-free listening, and early access to tickets to our live shows.

Great Feeling Studios, the team behind No Small Endeavor and other award-winning podcasts, helps nonprofits and brands tell stories that inspire action. If your organization has a message that deserves to be heard, start your podcast at helpmemakeapodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy: Privacy Policy

Amazon Affiliate Disclosure: Tokens Media, LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

...more