Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race
- ISBN-10
- 0393608875
- ISBN-13
- 9780393608878
- Series
- Self-Portrait in Black and White
- Category
- Biography & Autobiography
- Pages
- 192
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2019-10-15
- Publisher
- W. W. Norton & Company
- Author
- Thomas Chatterton Williams
Description
A meditation on race and identity from one of our most provocative cultural critics. A reckoning with the way we choose to see and define ourselves, Self-Portrait in Black and White is the searching story of one American family’s multigenerational transformation from what is called black to what is assumed to be white. Thomas Chatterton Williams, the son of a “black” father from the segregated South and a “white” mother from the West, spent his whole life believing the dictum that a single drop of “black blood” makes a person black. This was so fundamental to his self-conception that he’d never rigorously reflected on its foundations—but the shock of his experience as the black father of two extremely white-looking children led him to question these long-held convictions. It is not that he has come to believe that he is no longer black or that his kids are white, Williams notes. It is that these categories cannot adequately capture either of them—or anyone else, for that matter. Beautifully written and bound to upset received opinions on race, Self-Portrait in Black and White is an urgent work for our time.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2019-10-15
- - pages
- Paperback
- National Geographic Books
Similar books
-
The Perils of "Privilege": Why Injustice Can't Be Solved by Accusing Others of Advantage
By Phoebe Maltz BovyOr two parent, working class privilege in the context of widening inequality for single parent families? In The Perils of Privilege, Phoebe Maltz Bovy examines the rise of this word into extraordinary potency.
-
And Their Children After Them: A Novel
By Nicolas MathieuNicolas Mathieu conjures up a valley, an era, and the political journey of a young generation that has to forge its own path in a dying world.
-
The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person
By Frederick JosephTouching on everything from cultural appropriation to power dynamics, “reverse racism” to white privilege, microaggressions to the tragic results of overt racism, this book serves as conversation starter, tool kit, and invaluable window ...
-
Identity Politics in the United States
By Khalilah L. Brown-DeanIn this pioneering book, Khalilah L. Brown-Dean moves beyond the headlines to examine how contemporary controversies emanate from longstanding struggles over power, access, and belonging.
-
Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States
By Eduardo Bonilla-SilvaIn this book, Bonilla-Silva explores with systematic interview data the nature and components of post-civil rights racial ideology.
-
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
By Dr. Robin DiAngeloIn this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.
-
All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep: Hope--and Hard Pills to Swallow--About Fighting for Black Lives
By Andre HenryA leading voice for social justice reveals how he stopped arguing with white people who deny the ongoing legacy of racism—and offers a proven path forward for Black people and people of color based on the history of nonviolent struggle. ...
-
The Omni-Americans: Some Alternatives to the Folklore of White Supremacy
By Albert MurrayThe tribute volume Albert Murray and the Aesthetic Imagination of a Nation (Tuscaloosa: A Pebble Hill Book/University of Alabama Press, 2010), edited by Barbara A. Baker, collects critical essays, biographical articles, interviews, ...
-
Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life
By Karen E. Fields, Barbara J. FieldsA new edition of a celebrated contemporary work on race and racism Praised by a wide variety of people from Ta-Nehisi Coates to Zadie Smith, Racecraft “ought to be positioned,” as Bookforum put it, “at the center of any discussion of ...
-
Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture
By Thomas Chatterton WilliamsDescribes how the author's hip-hop culture radically contrasted with his book-loving father's endless pursuit of knowledge, revealing how the father-son bond eventually overcame the genre's rebellious messages.