Thomas Chatterton Williams

Class of Fall 2017

Writer

New York

Self-Portrait of an Ex-Black Man

At the Academy, Williams will work on his second nonfiction book, an “exploration of and argument against” the way race is defined in the United States. He draws on his own experience as “a black man of mixed-race heritage who is now the father of a white-looking three-year-old.” The book began with his 2015 essay in the Virginia Quarterly Review, entitled “Black and Blue and Blond.” The essay was included in The Best American Essays 2016 anthology.

Williams has “tentatively and provocatively” titled his next project “Self-Portrait of an Ex-Black Man.” As he wrestles with this complex subject, he writes, “it is taking everything I have learned both on and off the page to figure out how to face myself and write it … not because I am no longer black or my daughter now is white—but because I have become convinced that these categories cannot adequately capture either of us—or anyone else, for that matter.”

Thomas Chatterton Williams completed his BA in philosophy at Georgetown University and MA in the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at New York University. In 2007, during his graduate studies, he wrote an op-ed entitled “Yes, Blame Hip-Hop,” for the Washington Post, which led to his memoir, Losing My Cool: Love, Literature, and a Black Man’s Escape from the Crowd (Penguin, 2010).

Williams is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, London Review of Books, New Yorker, Atlantic, Smithsonian Journeys, Le Monde, and Harper’s, among other publications.

Meet Thomas Chatterton Williams

A short portrait filmed at the Hans Arnhold Center, introducing the work and ideas behind fellows’ projects in Berlin.

Upcoming events

Discover what’s coming up in the Academy’s public program this semester.

View all upcoming events

Past events

Lectures, readings, and conversations from the Academy’s public program.

View all past events

Past event

Race and Identity: Thomas Chatterton Williams, Glenn Loury, Joyce Nyairo

The two scholars Glenn Loury and Joyce Nyairo will talk with the author and critic Thomas Chatterton Williams about topics such as racism, colonialism, state identity, and social movements.

14 Sep 2022

Past event

Self-Portrait of an Ex-Black Man

Writer Thomas Chatterton Williams will present his work-in-progress, Self-Portrait of an Ex-Black Man, the story of his American family’s multigenerational transformation from what is called “black” to what is assumed to be “white.”

30 Nov 2017

Past event

Race, Identity, and the Boundaries of Blackness

Thomas Chatterton Williams explores what it means to be a black man of mixed-race heritage with a white-looking daughter and white wife, in this reading and conversation with Rose-Anne Clermont.

6 Nov 2017