Even as I read the description of this book, I wasn't fully prepared for the structure. Seeing what people think about race without the chance to explain it really opened my eyes. I also enjoyed that the thoughts of others were not one sided. Some of the responses angered me, but that is how you have discourse surrounding. Not everyone sees race in the same way and getting that viewpoint is needed.

Who woulda thunk six-word sentence could spark so many thought provoking conversations. But then the author asks is there anything else they would like to say and the words flow.

This book reads like a fireside chat friends in deep conversation. The quotes written in a variety of colors, sizes, and fonts, beautiful pictures, and stories that range from a few sentences to several pages long. It is clear that the American people have definitive views of race. Some of the stories will affirm some views and negate some others. There are heartwarming stories and heartbreaking ones. There are some that are shocking. Without a doubt, the collective is fascinating. Thank you Michele Norris for expanding awareness of how race plays out in the lives of people across the country.

I would like to say thank you to all the participants who were invited to participate and was open and honest.

I received a galley copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Incredibly thought provoking, this book touches on so much. It began when the author asked for postcards with six words about race. Many poured in, and some included more information. They were eye opening.

As I live in the South, my first thought went to racism shown to Blacks by Whites. While much of this book was about that, there was so much else.

Other information was included about: immigrants, Japanese Americans during WWII, the autistic, slavery, lynching, adoption, the disabled, white trash, Arab Americans after 9-11, what it’s like to grow up racist, how Germany overcame the racism of Nazi beliefs, among many other things.

This is an exceptional read for anyone hoping to increase their understanding of racism. I am so grateful to have learned from it

While the nature of this book makes it more of a coffee table book than something you sit down and read for hours, it's a diverse and valuable repository of lived experiences of Americans related to race and racism. An edifying and important read.

Our Hidden Conversations is a beautiful, necessary tapestry woven of first-hand understandings of race and how entangled the concept of race is in the American psyche. Broken up visually into a pleasing array of photographs, quotes from the six-word project described in the intro, and essay format information throughout, this is a strong and important book for all to read.

What Americans Really Think About Race
Michele Norris challenged Americans in the Race Card Project https://theracecardproject.com/michele-norris/
to answer a prompt - what are your thoughts on race in six words (six words only!). First postcards, then virtual, 14 years later she is pulling them altogether for a book

The responses are grouped together including submissions that agree and disagree. Some include pictures and backstory and even followup done by Norris herself. More than 1/2 a million people responded. Answers spanning all races and ethnicities, incomes, education and genders identities.

You will be lost in this book as. you read what fellow American really think. It;s a unique, telling, thrilling and heart breaking and all too real. The question here is - what will you do once you finish it?
#OurHiddenConversations #Michelenorris
#Simonandschuster

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Our Hidden Conversations is a very unique and eye opening read. Since this was an ebook, a lot of photos were not included as the file size would have been astronomical! That being said, I cannot wait to get my hands on the physical book so that I can devour it in its entirety. This book broke my heart and I just want to give everyone a big hug and tell them how special they are. It also made me very angry at the ignorance that still exists in this world. This book is a safe place for very difficult conversations. I will be purchasing a title for my library.

I received a free copy of this book thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster; all opinions expressed are exclusively my own.

DNF at just over 50%, but that is a reflection on my schedule, not on the book itself. My review by necessity won't cover the whole book, but I read enough that I feel comfortable recommending this book to anyone! Obviously the topic is highly charged, and the examples of cards the author compiled run a gamut of opinions from all kinds of people. The book is fantastically well researched, spanning the history of the US and beyond, All in all, a powerful work!

This book was absolutely incredible and I am so grateful I was given the opportunity to read it. I’ve read many books on the topics of race and identity, but this was so unique in that it incorporated anecdotes and experiences from such a wide variety of people with interspersed analysis and commentary from the author. It gave me so much perspective and so much to think about, and I think it is an invaluable tool to help start challenging and necessary conversations on the subject of race with almost anyone.

Loved this book and I would definitely recommend it to anyone and everyone, especially those who live in the United States. We need more books like this.

"Race, Your Thoughts, 6 Words. Please Send."

An invitation. A challenge. A dare more daunting than composing Haiku.

The responses contain multitudes of clever, insightful, provocative, amusing, furious, compassionate, simple, and complicated personal revelations, inquiries, and declarations.

A prologue, introduction,twelve chapters of interviews, essays, images and more, an epilogue, acknowledgements, gratitude passage, about the author, and image credits for the abundance of compelling photos map the path of this author's "magnificent detour" from an intention of writing "a book about about how Americans talk and think about race" during Pres. Barack Obama's political ascension to The Race Card Project. Our Hidden Conversations is an origin story that starts with the author's intriguing family and moves outward, eventually encompassing thousands of people and more than one-hundred countries. The project and the conversations continue.

Hidden Conversations is a must-read book. Michelle Norris started The Race Card Project over 14 years ago by asking people to submit six words about race. Submissions were originally on postcards and then became virtual submissions. Later, people with submissions were asked to share their backstory regarding their six word choice.

The six word phrases and personal stories are poignant, tragic, mesmerizing, thought provoking, gut punching, and memorable.

Some of the six word phrases include:
Hate's passed down like family heirlooms
He's my dad, not the gardener
Black boyfriend visited. Nana called police.
Will my son get shot too?
International adoptee. Parents praised. Children unwelcome.
If found hung, not a suicide.
I'm not your damn China virus
I grew up scared of myself
I think I am becoming racist
DNA testing changed who I am
Good Asian girls don't get raped
I'm only Jewish when it's safe
Mixed baby coming, soon in-laws afraid
Mom's secret children, my mixed-race siblings
I think grandma had a secret
Lady, I don't want your purse
Race, is someone expected to win?

Norris' phenomenal writing style weaves together a collective narrative about exclusion from people's experiences. Some of the stories are about the impact of DNA testing and learning that there are relatives from different races and ethnicities.

Norris indicates that we need to widen our aperture because race is a shape shifter and the flame that threatens our well-being.

Michele Norris has created a masterpiece of American history! I don't know how I was unaware of the Race Card Project since I was a loyal listener for her entire NPR career. Perhaps that says something about the privilege I enjoy that this vital and ongoing conversation about race did not register until now. But I am awfully grateful that her name drew me to this volume, one I will purchase for my local library as well as for friends. Norris' perceptive writing punctuating each section of the book is eloquent. She and her team have assembled many and varied examples of the comments submitted over the years since 2010. The stories and anecdotal reflections are, at once, heartwarming and heart breaking. There are some that may provoke anger, but even those will help to define how people's biases are formed and might give us insights on how to change our broken systems and the broken spirits that create and perpetuate them. Reading this beautifully written and exquisitely produced volume is a gift.

TW: violence, transracial adoption, microaggressions

I didn't know anything about Michele Norris' Race Card project before reading this book, and I'm glad to have read it. Norris asked people to send in postcards with 6 words indicated their perception of race and the answers were really varied. Participants shared stories of passing, lynching, adoptions, missing parents and societal stress that our perceptions of race can cause. If you've read other books about race, none of this will be new to you but it will still be valid. If you don't often read about race relations but want, this is a great place to start.

This book is truly amazing. It really gets at the heart of how tangled and nuanced is the idea of race in America. There are some stories that sound absolutely unique, and others that run as a thread . It is a very powerful book showing at once how we have come far regarding race but also how very far we have left to go. Some of the stories I connected with, some were shocking, some were heartbreaking. It is so interesting to see how everyone has their own little window on this difficult issue that underpins the American experience. Everyone should read this book!

Much thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for this ARC for review purposes.

What a great book. How six words when talking about race can lead to honesty. How those six words could make one see their own biases. Our Hidden Conversations what a fitting name because we all have those hidden conversations about race. A must read.

This book has been in process for over a decade, but it couldn’t be more timely. It seems we are as close to a breaking point of misunderstanding as we ever have been. What started as a small inquiry has expanded to one of the most comprehensive personal accounts and thoughts on race, ethnicity, beliefs, injury, misperception, and misunderstanding that we have. What makes it so effective, is that despite what I felt was overwritten commentary by Norris, each entry speaks as a valuable contribution to the layered conversation we all need to be having with one another.

Norris’ idea was brilliant in its simplicity. She decided to collect stories for what she called The Race Card Project. It began with postcards and then given the massive response, moved online. She asked people to send in a six word story about race. It seemed simple enough but after half a million responses, the stories were anything but. In that compressed number of words, the stories were complete, emotional, poignant, informative.

Here are some examples:

Beautiful differences made ugly by fear.
Mommy, why can’t we play together?
Native American voiceless in race conversations.
Stop pretending your racism is patriotism
Yes, white skin and still Mexican
You don’t look Jewish to me.
Asked for equality got integration.
Stop seeing my son as a predator.
Lady, i don't want your purse.

Amazing what a punch so few words pack.

It didn’t stop there. People sent in personal histories and photos. Some developed ongoing relationships with Norris and she was able to flush out their stories over time.

The only criticism I have is that many of the stories on a given topic were repetitive and Ms. Norris’ commentary was often more longwinded and preachy than it needed to be. Understandably, this was her platform and in that her commentary was to be expected. But don’t think the book needed to be over 500 pages and that could be discouraging to potential readers. I can see, however, how choosing from the half million stories would be an overwhelming challenge!

That aside, I learned so much and haven’t been able to stop thinking about some of the stories. This is an important book that should be required reading for all of us. It is eye opening and heart rendering. It makes news stories human. Perhaps, it might even make us more thoughtful of how we speak and act toward one another.

My gratitude to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this advanced readers copy.

What a thought provoking book with so many stories about how people are feeling about what Race and Identity means to them. I found that all the comments and stories are right about how Race effects them and I found myself trying to find a solution to the negativity but I think the answer is going to be time and to keep telling the stories of people who are happy that they've embrace who they are and agree that we all belong here and that we all deserve to feel good about each other.
As I read the book, I found myself feeling Happy, Sad, Triumphant, Angry about the stories people told in this book about how trying to change the narrative about race changed their lives and that they made a differences in the world, even in small ways. The extended stories of the people who filled out the postcards made me also believe that we are going in the right direction even if right now it doesn't feel that way.
I would love to see a volume II of this book because the more people see that we rather embrace each other then be angry with each other the better.

I want to thank Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an advance copy of this wonderful book that will kick start a better conversation for now and in the future.

This is poignant and impactful. The responses run the gamut between entertaining, scary, and soul-crushing and are all thought-provoking. My head was constantly spinning, and I was moved to tears multiple times. What a brilliant idea. I am grateful for the time I spent with all of these conversations. This has prompted several discussions with my friends as well.

Thank you to Michele Norris, Simon & Schuster, and NetGalley for a chance to read and experience this book.

A powerful and wide-ranging deep dive into thoughts and opinions on race/ethnicity from all walks of (American) lives/cultures/backgrounds.

This is also beautifully illustrated (even for a digital copy, so I can imagine that the print copy will look fantastic).

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.