"In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate."
—Toni Morrison
Janice (Jan) Gross and Heather Lobban-Viravong
More Than Skin Deep: Conversations at the Color Line
Jan Gross and Heather Lobban-Viravong
We are two women once "assigned" to a mentoring arrangement.
One was young, inexperienced, Black, and wary of the other who was twenty years her senior, well established in her career, and White.
Reluctant and uneasy at first, we agreed to meet... talk, walk, listen to each other.
We built trust and began to speak openly and confront shameful truths.
We wrote collaboratively, exchanged poems, and exposed the unspoken realities of being Black and not Black.
We knew that our approach was needed in a polarized world.
We wanted others to "see" and "be seen" in a meaningful way.
We asked a theater professional, Lesley Delmenico, to adapt our manuscript into a 30-minute Performance followed by guided small-group discussion.
Funded by a Mellon Presidential Grant for "Connecting People through Humanities," we launched our live performance. The audience was responsive and asked for more.
They told us why More Than Skin Deep: Live Conversations needs to reach those who hunger for hope and the opportunity to engage in thoughtful conversations.
Now available for public programming, learn about our Performance. Contact us for further inquiries.
The Authors' Story
Beginnings
Two women from two different worlds: one, a Jamaican-born girl raised in the Bronx; the other, a white girl raised in a working-class neighborhood in Detroit. Twenty-two years apart in age and experience.
Assigned as mentor and mentee, they struggled within society’s unconscious biases and crafted their own racial reckoning with difference.
Creative Collaboration
They interweave conversations, poetry, dialogue and self-reflection about being Black and not being Black. They speak their truths.
Their conversations tell the story; poetry sings its soul. Candid interracial perspectives shape their thoughts in the "diablog" (See Blog), like being stopped by the police in Sample: Driving in Black & White