98 Quotes by Thomas Chatterton Williams

Like my father, I used to believe that hard work and mastery of a standardized exam was the fairest way for students like me to compete with those who had far more resources.

I am not immune to Oprah's charms, but President Winfrey is a terrible idea.

I do think that some form of reparations for the descendants of American slavery would go a long way.

I will no longer enter into the all-American skin game that demands you select a box and define yourself by it.

The problem is, authentic hip-hop culture is street culture. And so you've got middle-class blacks really emulating the norms of the South Bronx, which is not really in their best interests.

Why does a writer labor over nuance and context if it won't be respected, if a critic insists on ignoring the writing at hand in favor of a more convenient analysis of his or her own particular pet peeves and straw men?

Of all the things I feel, I do not feel myself to be a victim - not in any collectively accessible way.

I'm descended from southern slaves, and I'm descended on my mother's side from northern European Protestant immigrants.

The truth is that ideas matter... If we really want to repair what is wrong in our society, it is going to require not just new policies or even new behaviors, but nothing less heroic than new ideas.