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Freethinkers Festival: Thomas Chatterton Williams: can we unlearn race?

Ex-black, that is what the American writer and cultural critic Thomas Chatterton Williams calls himself provocatively. Whereas that while there is a lot of attention for the fluidity of gender and sexuality, when it comes to race we are still stuck in binary concepts. Should we stop using racial terminology?

Freethinkers Festival: Thomas Chatterton Williams: can we unlearn race?

Location

De Balie
Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10
1017 RR Amsterdam
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Questioning long-held convictions about race and identity

Growing up in the United States, son of a black father from the segregated South en and a white mother from California, Thomas Chatterton Williams never questioned his identity: he was black. This was so fundamental to his self-conception that he never rigorously reflected on its foundations. But his experience of living in France and becoming the father of two white-looking, blonde-haired children led him to question long-held convictions about race and identity. During Vrijdenkersfestival we invite Williams to discuss his quest to unlearn race. Did we bring in the Trojan horse with racial terminology, or is thinking in ‘black’ and ‘white’ the only way to address and fight racism?

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Freethinkers Festival: Thomas Chatterton Williams: can we unlearn race?

Location

De Balie
Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10
1017 RR Amsterdam
Show in Google Maps