Tom Williams: The TNB Self-Interview

Tom Williams: The TNB Self-Interview

The Nervous Breakdown
2015-06-24

Tom Williams, Professor of English
Morehead State University, Morehead, Kentucky

You’re a hard guy to track down.

I know, I know. I’m sorry. I just have a lot of obligations and duties—many roles to play.

What roles?

Husband, father, son, brother, department chair, mentor, friend, book reviewer, writer, etc.

So, mulattos, eh?

Yup.

Isn’t that kind of a politically incorrect term?

Probably, but then again, these days, what is the best way to refer to a person, like me, like many of the characters in my book, men and women who have a black parent and a white parent? Biracial—which I’ve used more than once—is simply too generic; mixed race has always struck me as sloppy. What’s that leave? Half-caste? Halfie? Multiculti? After a while, mulatto starts looking pretty good again…

Read the entire (self-)interview here.

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