Our Hidden Conversations

What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity

By: Michele Norris, A Full Cast

Narrated by: Michele Norris

Peabody Award–winning journalist Michele Norris offers a transformative dialogue on race and identity in America, unearthed through her decade-long work at The Race Card Project.

The prompt seemed simple: Race. Your Thoughts. Six Words. Please Send.

The answers, though, have been challenging and complicated. In the twelve years since award-winning journalist Michele Norris first posed that question, over half a million people have submitted their stories to The Race Card Project inbox. The stories are shocking in their depth and candor, spanning the full spectrum of race, ethnicity, identity, and class. Even at just six words, the micro-essays can pack quite a punch, revealing, fear, pain, triumph, and sometimes humor. Responses such as: You’re Pretty for a Black girl. White privilege, enjoy it, earned it. Lady, I don’t want your purse. My ancestors massacred Indians near here. Urban living has made me racist. I’m only Asian when it’s convenient.

Many go even further than just six words, submitting backstories, photos, and heirlooms: a collection much like a scrapbook of American candor you rarely get to see. Our Hidden Conversationsis a unique compilation of stories, richly reported essays, and photographs providing a window into America during a tumultuous era. This powerful book offers an honest, if sometimes uncomfortable, conversation about race and identity, permitting us to eavesdrop on deep-seated thoughts, private discussions, and long submerged memories.

The breadth of this work came as a surprise to Norris. For most of the twelve years she has collected these stories, many were submitted by white respondents. This unexpected panorama provides a rare 360-degree view of how Americans see themselves and one another.

Our Hidden Conversations reminds us that even during times of great division, honesty, grace, and a willing ear can provide a bridge toward empathy and maybe even understanding.

Confidence and bravery showing real honesty from many points of view!

Truly amazing and incredibly thought-provoking. Being willing to hold up the mirror and show the many different colors and points of view that exist in the minds of Americans is incredibly brave. I love that this book covered not only the issue of blacks, but also that of native American Indians, the Japanese and WWII Internment Camps, Asians experience, adoption and mixed race… It gives the reader so much to contemplate. Thank you Michele Norris!! You are truly an incredible human being with an amazing amount of grace! 

Everyone Should Read/Listen

Really well done, thought out, organized, and clear. I learned, understood, heard, and related. I appreciate the hard truths, ideas/feelings that I may not think of and the wide range of voices.

Honest and eye-opening look at race in America

This is the perspective of race in America we all need because it comes from everyday citizens from all races, ethnicities and walks of life. It would be an ideal place to start having much-needed difficult conversations and reconciliation needed to begin healing.

"Real" racial identies of "real" Americans

Listening to this book provided an amazing insight into what' s happening in the minds of the people that are evolving in the largest melting pot in the modern world. Real American stories from across the span of race and nationality. I would suggest that this book be required reading for every American.

a well-crafted deep dive into a very complicated subject

I am an unabashed fan of Michele Norris. Ever since her NPR days, her voice has brought a calm to my spirit like few others, and her "Your Mama's Kitchen" podcast makes me laugh, cry and think in equal measure. This book is beautifully crafted, and I am incredibly grateful that it is so inclusive in both its language and content. I even found my own origins on these pages as the descendant of German him immigrants originally from Kentucky. My 6 words: Southern white woman. I see you.