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This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. In 2010, a year into Barack Obama's presidency, people were declaring that we'd made so much

progress that we were close to achieving a post-racial society.

Award-winning journalist Michelle Norris wanted to know if that was true.

She wanted to explore how Americans really talk and think about race.

So she came up with this idea, she named the Race Card Project,

and placed postcards in airports and coffee shops that

asked a simple question, Race, your thoughts, tell me your six words.

Norris was sure that most of those who would respond would be people of color

because those are the ones we often hear talk about race. But over the last 14 years

a vast number of the responses, over 500,000, have been from white Americans in the

U.S. and the world. People from all walks of life sharing their most honest,

intimate and revealing thoughts about race.

Norris has turned the Race Card Project into a new book titled,

Our Hidden Conversations,

what Americans really think about race and identity.

Here's a snippet from the audiobook.

Mom's racism took my love away.

Dad said, date your own race.

My grandfather would hate. your own race.

My grandfather would hate my children.

...