A public university hosted a theater productions in which actors lamented their whiteness, whined about “all white spaces” in American society and claimed that striving for colorblindness is tantamount to racism.
That university is the University of Oregon, which hosted an adaptation of “The Race Card Project,” last semester, according to Campus Reform.
The production is based off the work of former NPR host Michele Norris, who runs a website that encourages people to play their own personal race card by coining a six-word sentence about their experiences with race and posting it on her blog.
“How would you distill your thoughts, experiences or observations about race into one sentence that only has six words?” reads Norris’s website.
At UO’s production, student-actors were given considerably more than six words.
“I’m never asked about hot sauce,” revealed one of the students, an Asian woman — an apparent indication that society is explicitly racist.
Another performer, a white male, details how he once held the view that since he never chose to be white, he was not responsible for the actions of other people. Thankfully, a university education set him straight.
“I’m learning,” he said. “Being white in America comes with this legacy all its own, and while I may not know why I am white, I know that I can help change that legacy.”
Some of the participants managed to express more mature views on race — that it shouldn’t matter, that it is a shoddy way to define someone, and also, that it will be a “total non-issue when the aliens arrive.”
Norris’s website also contains some enlightened commentary on race, albeit in six-word nuggets. “Put your color aside; think bigger,” urged one, written by Karen Schneider, also of the University of Oregon.
The Daily Caller’s “race card” was submitted to Norris’s website but has not yet been published. The DC wrote, “People: Individuals, not racially predetermined automatons.”