Michele Norris' 'Our Hidden Conversations' examines race and identity in the U.S.

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2024

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

More than a decade ago, former NPR host Michele Norris started the Race Card Project. It was a simple premise: She asked people to send in six words that summarized their thoughts on race. Now, hundreds of thousands of submissions later, Norris expands on some of those opinions and experiences in the new book, Our Hidden Conversations. In today's episode, she speaks with NPR's Steve Inskeep about the context behind some of the submissions — like "I wish he was a girl" — and the way feeling "invisible" has changed in recent years.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. If you work on a project long enough,
0:07.3	it's interesting to look back on it and realize, A, how much things have changed since you started,
0:13.1	and B, how much things have stayed the same. Let me back up. Real NPR diehards will recognize
0:19.0	Michelle Norris's name. For a long time, she was host of
0:22.2	the afternoon show, all things considered, and she eventually left NPR in 2015. Now, while she was still
0:28.2	at the network, she was working on this thing called the Race Cart Project, where she asked
0:32.7	people to send in their thoughts about race in only six words. These thoughts and stories are now collected in a book called Our Hidden Conversations,
0:41.4	what Americans really think about race and identity.
0:44.4	And in this interview with NPR Steve Inski,
0:46.5	they talk about the things that have and have not changed
0:49.0	when it comes to our thoughts on race.
0:51.3	And one of the starkest differences, she points out,
0:53.8	is who considers themselves
0:55.9	invisible? That's coming up. In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
1:03.7	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.
1:10.3	NPR reporters on the ground bring you
1:12.0	stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:17.9	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:22.9	The writer Michelle Norris has spent many years encouraging uncomfortable conversations.
1:29.2	Michelle is a former NPR news host whose work included in acclaimed series on this program.
1:34.1	Michelle's here, and Michelle, you know what to do with the microphone.
1:36.3	Tell people what the project was.
	...

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