Jan 05, 2022

Tessa Thompson Covers Ebony's December/January Issue

Introducing The Cover Star Of Ebony's December/January Issue, Tessa Thompson

Raised by parents of different races—her father, the singer-songwriter Marc Anthony Thompson, is Afro-Panamanian; her mother is half white and half Mexican—Thompson had room to explore this issue while growing up in Los Angeles. In previous interviews, she has talked about how, in high school, she established a “racial harmony group,” a regular sleepover composed of 20 students of different races. One year, she joined as a Black student; the next, as a Mexican student. She tried to label herself as a white student the third year, but her classmates vetoed the notion. She wasn’t confused or conflicted, but rather she wanted clarity about the extent to which identity is a creation.

“Getting to watch a woman unravel, getting to watch that on-screen…I don’t think that Black women are allowed to exist in narratives like that very often,” Thompson says.