Self-Portrait in Black and White
Unlearning Race

"One way or another, we are going to have to figure out how to make our multiethnic realities work, and one of the great intellectual projects facing us - in America and abroad - will be to develop a vision of ourselves strong and supple enough both to acknowledge the lingering importance of inherit......more

3-1/2 stars The wordy summary of this book is this: Do you believe that color is inherent (let alone meaningful), or are you willing to entertain that whatever color you might think you see is itself the result of the perceptive act? [T]he inclination to erase and define ourselves against someother, i......more

3.5 stars? I'm perplexed. Williams takes on a dicey proposal: opt out of race. I know that race, like gender, is a social construct, and because of this we tend to live our lives by ascribing to preconceived notions about how we should act and be. This is problematic. But choosing to no longer ident......more

Wow. I finished this book a few days ago, but I just don’t know what to say about it. The author is a brilliant intellect and a modern thinker. Born to a black father and a white mother in the US, Mr. Williams always thought of himself as black. After his children were born with blond hair and blue......more

I have always been fascinated by race: what constitutes race; how do people self-identify; how important is it, and how has it impacted culture and history. Thomas Chatterton Williams grew up in a bi-racial home. His mother was a white woman, the daughter of a conservative preacher who attended Wheat......more