We made it!

WOW!! We made it to our goal in less than a week! Thank you so much to everyone who supported us and donated to this project!

We are over the moon that so many people support this project, and very pleasantly surprised. To be honest, we did not expect a response like this, and set the goal at $1,200 (an amount which just covers the amount we've spent on resources for the fieldwork stage, in addition to the take that Amazon and Kickstarter receive) as an absolute minimum we needed to finish the project and pay Kickstarter and Amazon. 

So now, on to the next stage of the project! We'll be continuing to conduct interviews in New York City, DC, Rochester and Dallas for the next few months, and will then start working to write up Race Monologues, create a play script for community theaters and schools to produce, format the book for classroom use, and finally, try to get the complete manuscript published.

Any donations you continue to make will allow us to conduct more interviews and create materials to aid us in publication. We’ve found a very talented web designer to rework our website and an amazing artist to create the artwork for the book cover, so things are starting to come together! 

Again, thank you so much for all of your support! We are so appreciative and excited that you all believe in the importance of this project, and that you believe in us. Please, continue to spread the word-- send our site along to your friends, family, colleagues, and let them know that while we've reached our funding goal, there is still a lot of work to be done, and we appreciate every penny they may be able to donate to Race Monologues!

Again, you can learn more about the project here: http://www.racemonologues.com/

And donate to our Kickstarter page here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/449235773/race-monologues

Thanks again for all you do!

The Event

Hearing UCSD students discuss the race-based riots that occurred on campus last March 4th, I’m guessing, mirrored the reality of the riots: energizing, soaked with purpose, but confused about direction and lazy about analyzation.

A fraternity on campus had a “Comptom Cookout” and explicitly printed that attendees should wear ghetto clothes, nappy hair, talk loudly, in ebonics- watermelon will be provided. Shortly after, a noose was found in the library. What could (and often is) brushed off as a harmless joke was brutally shoved into an act of intimidation and blatant racism.

UCSD had proposed 30% fee hikes, and students had already planned a protest for March 4th. So, students mobilized to merge protests- thousands gathered to demand more African American representation on campus and African American themes integrated into the curriculum. When retelling this story, though, people often comment that the African American population at UCSD is 2%- and they emphasize, that’s not to say that the events were justified in any way, but the population victimized was not a sizable number. And the students report that now, almost a year later, nothing noticeable has changed. Just as few black students roam the campus and just as much racism circulates.

That day, March 4th, people report, was more of a spectacle than a genuine protest. People occupied the dean’s office, demanded for more African American Studies classes and an increased dedication to diversity in the admissions process...but when 5pm rolled in, the students left...peacefully, with very little accomplished. The news I read about this event definitely reported differently- it reported fights and fireworks. And I don’t doubt that many students were (rightfully so) enraged and argued passionately for their values. But, the students I interviewed, some of whom were present in the dean’s office during negotiations, dejectedly said that it seemed like playing out scenes from a movie. A protest must include x, y, and z- and so they went through the motions.

The March 4th protest is well documented. The UCSD community got out their video cameras, audio recorders, iphone cameras, and everything in between to record every speech, every step in the march. Those involved were aware that this was an event to remember, an event that they’d later recount to their children (or at least, to interested anthropologists conducting interviews about racism) and say “I was there.”

It may be too soon to tell, but several people that I interviewed speculated that it was an event contained in itself. It had very little build up (things exploded rather quickly in a short amount of time) and produced no noticeable difference. That’s not to say that the event itself wasn’t important. It sparked awareness and discussions across the country about the US’s racial reality in an (incorrectly) self-proclaimed post-racial world. But that is to say that events like these, in isolation and with no ripple effect, don't automatically push us into equality in the way one-day protesters might hope.

This story is not profound

I get that a lot.

People will tell an anecdote- something that’s happened to them, or a friend, or something they’ve observed- and will finish with “I know that this story is not profound or unique.” We ascribe to the belief that the value of a personal story is in part measured by its creativity. My favorite personal story is when my friends and I were (incorrectly and with no evidence!!) accused of being prostitutes in Barcelona and had to sue the (highly xenophobic) president of our apartment building for defamation of character and blasphemy (yes, you can sue for blasphemy under Spanish law). It’s a story soaked in drama and humor, with powerful climaxes and resolutions, great linguistic misunderstandings, and- above all- it’s unique. It’s impossible that anyone will have the same story and highly improbable that anyone will have a similar story.

The stories of race in America are not that.

In 2003 when Sarah and I reviewed the first 100 stories collected, they organically fell into categories of stereotypes, of language, of identity, of social geography. Interracial relationships, gentrification, affirmative action, and environmental justice. Not only did the themes repeat, but stories themselves repeated- the names and places changed but the moments of racism, of pain, of inferiority neared formulaic.

Hearing stories of racism, one after another, is never uninteresting. But for me, the most interesting part is the perpetual sense of “I’ve heard this before.” Individually we are different people and situations are uniquely mediated, but the mental processes and associated feelings that accompany racism and oppression are surprisingly similar.