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Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity Audiobook
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Publisher Description
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 Conversations is 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.
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“The brilliant Michele Norris has spent fourteen years getting people to open up about race…The result of her noble project is this beautiful and inspiring book. It can help us all cultivate communities of bridge builders so that we can talk about race with both candor and love.”
— Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author
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“A must-listen performance of Norris’s riveting examination of race in America…The audiobook shifts between Norris’s clear, warm, thoughtful commentary and participants’ contributions, all delivered by a talented group of narrators… Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile -
"Eye-opening…an affecting examination of how race affects our lives.”
— Booklist -
“Offers crucial insight into how Americans think about race, combining the painful with the inspiring.”
— Kirkus Reviews
Awards
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A New York Times bestseller
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An Amazon Editor’s Top Pick in Sociology
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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An Amazon Best Book of the Year (So Far)
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About Michele Norris
Michele Norris is the author of several books, including The Grace of Silence, named one of the best books of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, and Kansas City Star. She is one of America’s most trusted voices in journalism, including as a host for ten years of NPR’s All Things Considered. She has earned several honors over a long career, including Peabody, Emmy, Dupont, and Goldsmith awards. She is a Washington Post columnist, the host of the Audible podcast Your Mama’s Kitchen, and the founding director of The Race Card Project, a Peabody Award–winning narrative archive in which people around the world share their reflections on identity—in just six words. Before joining NPR, she spent almost ten years as a reporter for ABC News and also worked as a staff writer for the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times.
About Michele Norris
Bleak December Inc. is a multimedia company founded by Canadian actor and filmmaker Anthony D.P. Mann.