Journalist Michele Norris’ Race Card Project Sparks Discourse Around Racial Biases at SLU

ST. LOUIS — Nationally renowned journalist and Race Card Project founder Michele Norris visited Saint Louis University Tuesday to facilitate discourse around race, identity and culture on campus. 

The inaugural College of Arts and Sciences, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Engagement Speaker series was co-sponsored by the Department of Communication and the Division of Diversity and Innovative Community Engagement. 

In 2010, Norris founded the Race Card Project to provide a safe space for people to explore and share commonly held beliefs and attitudes on race, diversity, and bias in six succinct words. She addressed a large crowd in the St. Louis Room at SLU’s Busch Student Center, sharing a few personal narratives collected from more than 500,000 people worldwide.

“If you go to the Race Card project, and I hope you will, you will be offended by something you see,” Norris told the audience. “We hold a mirror up to society.”

Norris’ lecture “The Race Card Project: Eavesdropping on America's Conversation on Race” was free and open to the public. She guided a conversation around whether America had really become a post-racial society, an idea that was met with skepticism from the diverse audience.

To prove a point, Norris asked how many people have had the experience of walking into an elevator or down the street and encountering someone of a different culture than them, and they grab their purse or wallet. Mostly Black men raised their hands.

“Lady, I don’t want your purse!” said Norris, repeating the words of a Race Card Project participant from Nashville, Tenn.

Norris described him as a big, Black man whose keenly aware of his color and size and goes out of his way to appear less threatening. She also spoke of a young, accomplished Black attorney who said she’s always pegged as the paralegal and a white man from Seattle who admitted to being “pleasantly surprised when he sees a minority doing well at something.” The talk ended with a Q&A session.

Earlier that day, sophomore Student Government Association president-elect Marquis Govan was among students from the Visual and Performing Arts Department who read submissions from the SLU community at the Clocktower.

“Race is a social construct.”

“I am more than your own subconscious.”

“My identity is not your capital.”

“Just beginning to unpack my privilege.”

“Race should not be divisive!” Govan read, admitting he didn’t agree with everything he had recited.

Even as that’s the case, Govan says it’s a step in the right direction. To be a radically inclusive community, he says it’s time to engage in these uncomfortable conversations to understand each other fully. Norris also met with journalism students for a roundtable discussion in Cook Hall at the Chaifetz School of Business. Norris is an opinion columnist for the Washington Post and a former host of NPR’s afternoon magazine show, All Things Considered. She also served as a special correspondent for NPR on race and identity in America.

Katrina Moore, Ph.D., associate professor of African American studies and history and associate dean for diversity, equity, inclusion and engagement for the College of Arts and Sciences, says now that we have listened to how some in our community express their identity, she urges us to move the conversation forward.

"We need to do better push for social justice and bring about the change we wish to see in the SLU community and beyond."  

About Saint Louis University

Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic institutions. Rooted in Jesuit values and its pioneering history as the first university west of the Mississippi River, SLU offers more than 13,500 students a rigorous, transformative education of the whole person. At the core of the University’s diverse community of scholars is SLU’s service-focused mission, which challenges and prepares students to make the world a better, more just place.