It's not that I don't see your point about the role he plays in the discourse and the broader point about the existence of such roles, but my issue with your assessment of Thomas Chatterton Williams, among other things, is that it's far too reductionist when it comes to the actual person you're talking about.
He's better and more authentic than you're giving him credit for, and deserves more benefit of the doubt. Given how much attention you in particular have paid to the way that we all inhabit certain roles and make certain strategic career moves, shouldn't you'd be open to the possibility both that these complicated and fraught roles exist and that someone could occupy them without compromising their integrity. We're all reducible to these types if treated with insufficient generosity.
That VQR essay I mentioned is really good.
His two books are mixed, but neither of them is phony.
I understand why you don't want to occupy that role yourself, and of course there's nothing wrong with that, but why shouldn't someone who cares passionately about race in America and thinks that the mainstream politics of it are wrong take it upon himself to push back on that. You don't have to agree with him, of course, but I don't see why the endeavor is intrinsically dishonorable.
