Playing the race card, according to this New York Times article, is the idea “that people often invoke race as a cynical ploy to curry favor, or sympathy, and to cast aspersions on the character of others.” In other words, it’s using race as a tool to elicit a certain reaction or get what you want.

There is no shortage of criticism about the term “race card” and all it entails. Gilbert and Rossing, for example, in their article “Trumping Tropes with Joke(r)s: The Daily Show “Plays the Race Card”” examine how race is discussed and incorporated into The Daily Show, and point to the ways in which accusing someone of playing the race card is often used as a form of silencing any conversations about race.

Michele Norris’s The Race Card Project reclaims the idea of playing the race card by creating a space where anyone can submit a six word statement to “get the conversation started” about race in America. Here, people are asked to play the race card, and people have. Thousands of six word statements, often attached to longer explanations and personal stories, allow just about anyone to weigh in on the conversation. “I will never really ‘get it’” posts one woman, talking about her own white privilege. Someone else discusses racial stereotypes with the statement “I’m surprised you speak so well.”

The post that really caught my eye, however, was entitled “So I Am an ALIEN, Apparently” and was accompanied by Repeka Touli’s account of growing up and realizing what it means to be an undocumented person in America (and being called an “alien” for the first time). This made me wonder what effect the use of the internet and mass contribution have in opening the door for marginalized voices to be heard in the public. I don’t know as much about the system in the United States, but I have heard firsthand and secondhand accounts from Canadians about living as an undocumented person and the fear that is associated with it, and how accessing basic services like public transit or libraries can be terrifying. It is difficult to imagine anyone without immigration status willingly sharing their story in public spaces, or contributing to a conversation about race without fear of deportation.

Yet on The Race Project website, anyone with access to a computer may share their story. No, this does not encompass everyone; there are still many people in the world without internet access, or who haven’t been exposed to resources like The Race Card Project. But it does increase the amount of people who are able to talk about race and to share their narratives.

What The Race Card Project does, in accepting contributions and facilitating the sharing of narratives and dialogue, is not uniquely their own. Archive projects such as a Mass Observation and People Archive of Rural India (PARI) both rely on public contribution, though with the intention of building lasting archives as opposed to immediate conversation. PARI in particular aims to give voice to the marginalized by documenting the lives, customs, and languages of the people living in rural parts of India, including people without access to computers, by relying on journalists to act as facilitators.

One website, or even two or three, isn’t going to make conversations about race and whatever else accessible to everyone. Still, not everyone’s voice is going to be heard. Yet projects like The Race Card Project open spaces for dialogue from the marginalized and the privileged alike, and by doing so celebrate the idea that anyone can share their story and everyone’s life narrative can matter.

Works Cited:

Blow, Charles M. “Stop Playing the ‘Race Card’ Card.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 March 2015. Web. 24 January 2016.

Gilbert, Christopher J. and Jonathon P. Rossing. “Trumping Tropes with Joke(r)s: The Daily Show “Plays the Race Card”.” Western Journal of Communication (2013): 92-111. Web. 24 January 2016.

Norris, Michele. The Race Card Project. Web. 24 January 2016.