Category: Autobiography

  • During my first day of school in the United States I was told by a fellow classmate to watch out for the morenos. I was taken aback by the warning and in my bewilderment asked how to tell them apart. As a teenager trying to find his place in a new country, race was a…

  • ‘Blood quantum is important where I’m from…’

  • The artist and philosopher Adrian Piper’s direct and subtly intellectual approach to unpacking the tangled issues of race, gender, identity, and belonging has inspired a generation of socially-conscious artists across all media, although her impact is just now being fully recognized: she was the recipient of the Golden Lion for best artist at this year’s…

  • Op-Ed Thomas Chatterton Williams: My black privilege The Los Angeles Times 2016-01-03 Thomas Chatterton Williams A couple of years ago, I participated in an Aspen Institute symposium on the state of race. During the roundtable that followed the panels, as I spoke about my experiences growing up black in the 1990s, I was interrupted by…

  • Among The Wild Mulattos And Other Tales (By Tom Williams) [NPR Review] NPR’s Book Concierge: Our Guide To 2015’s Great Reads National Public Radio 2015-12-08 Michael Schaub, book critic Produced by Nicole Cohen, Rose Friedman, Petra Mayer and Beth Novey Designed by Annette Elizabeth Allen, David Eads, Becky Lettenberger and Wes Lindamood Identity, both racial…

  • BEST OF 2015: Not Quite White Madison365 Madison, Wisconsin 2015-12-29 Matthew Braunginn Matthew Braunginn I may never be able to truly “pass” or to be “race neutral.” I have always been and always will be “not quite white.” I reject those terms because I have been othered on their terms. I can never fully fit…

  • The Race Relations Act at 50: Davina’s story BBC Radio 5 In Short 2015-12-07 It is 50 years since Britain’s first Race Relations Act was passed, banning racial discrimination in public places. Davina Looker, an English teacher and blogger from London has spoken to BBC Radio 5 live about her “desperate” search to find an…

  • Black in a Foreign Land: In Defense of Dominican Identity The Huffington Post 2015-12-17 César Vargas I was born and raised in the Dominican Republic until I was two months shy of turning 13. The Dominican Republic has a peculiar color metric system–not necessarily on race. So it should go without saying that I wasn’t…

  • How To Be A Black Girl Thought Catalog 2014-12-03 Carmen Molina Chicago, Illinois I will always feel a little strange calling myself a black girl. Whenever I am at a party or somewhere where there are new people to meet, the question that every mixed girl gets asked at least once a week, every week,…

  • When You Grow Up Mixed Race Thought Catalog 2015-12-11 Evicka Chang Growing up mixed-race is confusing. It wasn’t until my third year of University when the theory of hybridity was introduced in a Lit Theory class that I even began to consider the complexities of my own existence. It was also then that I started…