In this episode, we speak with Thomas Chatterton Williams about his opposition to identity categories, the ethnic and cultural valence of black identity, the cultural challenges of abandoning race and racialized language, Islamism in France, and the French approach to race policy. We also survey the current landscape of the backlash against Critical Race Theory, the effectiveness of anti-CRT bills sweeping the nation, and debate the relative merits and faults of the Christopher Rufo strategy. Thomas Chatterton Williams is the author of 'Losing My Cool' and 'Self-Portrait in Black and White'. He is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, a Columnist at Harper's Magazine, and is a Hannah Arendt Center, and a Senior Fellow and Visiting Professor of Humanities at Bard College. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, and Le Monde, among other publications.