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Title details for Self-Portrait in Black and White by Thomas Chatterton Williams - Available

Self-Portrait in Black and White

by Thomas Chatterton Williams
Thomas Chatterton Williams
Audiobook
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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.
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Publisher: HighBridge Edition: Unabridged

OverDrive Listen audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781684574988
  • File size: 132440 KB
  • Release date: October 15, 2019
  • Duration: 04:35:54

MP3 audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781684574988
  • File size: 132458 KB
  • Release date: October 15, 2019
  • Duration: 04:40:55
  • Number of parts: 5
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Formats

OverDrive Listen audiobook
MP3 audiobook

subjects

Biography & Autobiography Multi-Cultural Sociology Nonfiction

Languages

English

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.
Expand title description text
Biography & Autobiography Multi-Cultural Sociology Nonfiction