Thomas Chatterton Williams Quotes

I'm black because that's the way the world sees me.

Race in America has always centered on our mutual agreement not to see each other. White or non-white. Black or non-black. Mongoloid, Hindoo. We've always bought into to the crudest, humanity-denying forms of sorting.

Just call me black, if you want to call me anything.

I am black, and there's no getting around that, but being black doesn't define every aspect of my life.

A lot of the time, black people, we don't introduce ourselves as black.

If the idea of separate human races is a mistake to begin with, then monoracial forms of identification are fictitious and counterproductive.

I'm sorry if you're partly black you're partly black. You're not fully black.

At various points in my own life, I have been laughed at scathingly for calling myself black.

I definitely feel like, in America, even though race is a social construct... there's still a line drawn in the sand; there still are sides. Politically, there's a black side and a white side, and I stand unapologetically on the black side.

As much as I'd love to believe that we are 'post-racial' - an idea that really gained traction after the election of Barack Obama in 2008 - I can never escape the fact that in the world I am perceived as a 'black man' and, in certain parts of the world, as a 'black gay man.'

Have I had experiences by other people identifying me as black and behaving towards me as black? Yes. Just for as long as maybe somebody who was born categorised as black? No.

The system of racial classification is fiction, and we need to thoughtfully evaluate whether perpetuating it rigidly or allowing fluidity across the spectrum best supports human rights and social justice.

I feel that if you can transcend the color of your skin, with your talent, why carry that as a badge or a label?

The less I talk about being black, the better.

It's been a struggle for me because I had a chance to be white and refused.

I don't see a white woman. I see a black woman, even though my mother is white. Knowing that has made my life easier, I think.

Being black is not a matter of pigmentation - being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.

Growing up in London, with a hippie mom, I don't know that I'm most people's definition of what a black person is. I'm mixed, yes, but in the world I'm defined as black before I'm defined white. I've never been called white.

Many people believe that determining who is 'black' is rather easy, a task simplified by the administration of the one-drop rule. Under the one-drop rule, any discernible African ancestry stamps a person as 'black.'

The very definition of 'blackness' is as broad as that of 'whiteness,' yet we're seemingly always trying to find a specific, limited definition.

I've always had an interest in complicating the way that we perceive the black character, whether it's the black academic or scholar or activist or black intellectual.

Racial discourses and theories are socially constructed ... but repudiating race theory does not make it disappear in politics. Race matters ... because it functions as a marker and an anchor to establish and repudiate identity, status and position ... Races exist because racism exists.

There is a multitude of experiences that make up the black experience.

I'm not a token black guy.

I think the word 'diverse' is a cancerous word because it's life. It's a PC way of saying 'non-white,' and it ultimately suggests that white is the standard.