The project emerges The idea for the black & white photo project occurred to me several years ago, when I realized my young kids (then around 7 and 5) had no words for, and no emotional baggage around, racial differences. They were in a relatively integrated school (Project Learn School) in a relatively integrated neighborhood (Mt. Airy, Philadelphia) and they didnt call people black or white, because we didnt use those words at home or at school. They just described what people looked like, using brown-skinned or light-skinned when they wanted to make that distinction. So I thought: Wouldnt it be nice if we all looked at each other with that kind of innocence? Yet, of course, we as grownups already have black and white ingrained in our culture and psyches as racial descriptors, with all the associated historical pain. But what if we could see black and white, instead of as conflicted opposites, as perfect complements and reflections of one another? When a very dear and wonderful art teacher at Project Learn saw the project for the first time she said: This could heal the world!