Until Our Lungs Give Out: Conversations on Race, Justice, and the Future

(Paperback)

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A 2023 Library Journal Best Social Sciences Title

From Library Journal's Starred Review: "All readers stand to learn something from this compelling book."

Award-winning author, scholar, and social visionary George Yancy brings together the greatest minds of our time to speak truth to power and welcome everyone into a conversation about the pursuit of justice, equality, and peace.

This interwoven collection of searingly honest interviews with leading intellectuals includes conversations with Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler, Cornel West, Robin D. G. Kelley, and Peter McLaren. Each conversation bears witness to the weighty moment in which it was first conducted and presented by Truthout and Tikkun magazines while pointing to ramifications, future hurdles, and practical optimism for moving forward.

Learning how to speak about such topics as white supremacy and global whiteness, xenophobia, anti-BIPOC racism, fear of critical race theory, and the importance of Black feminist and trans perspectives, readers will be better able to join future conversations with their peers, those in power, and those who need to be empowered to change the status quo.

Reviews

Having admired the philosophical career and writings of George Yancy for some time, this reviewer can confidently assert that Until Our Lungs Give Out is another significant contribution to a long series of important texts on race and inclusion. Yancys works are never easy, nor are they designed to pacify readers, even those who agree with their premises. His works are designed to open dialogues in an honest, vulnerable, and productive manner. This collected volume portrays individuals speaking honestly about their experiences, academic studies, and community involvement in a way that demonstrates how difficult conversations on topics such as the innocence of whiteness, body perceptions, and local and global racial discrimination can be meaningfully conducted. While emotion is honestly portrayed and acknowledged, the discussions are critical and philosophical. The speakers adhere to reasoned discussion and philosophical standards of argumentation. Indeed, when contextualized, each conversation represents a cogent response to the situations examined. In following philosophical rules of engagement, the book challenges readers to recognize and own their reactions to what is said and to engage in an active rather than passive reading experience. Reading this book is both emotionally and intellectually challenging. However, it offers a way of undertaking difficult conversations that go beyond the binary entrenchment currently affecting politics, society, and education. Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. * Choice Reviews *
Until Our Lungs Give Out is an important book on race and anti-Black racism that will command attention and reflection because it looks at the fundamental needs of humankind: equality, justice, and peace.University students, scholars, journalists, social activists and readers will find the book thought-provoking and an extensive research tool. * Library Thing *
Award-winning Yancy presents this collection of interviews that are replete with ideas and insights about all that the pursuit of justice, equality, and peace entails. The author brings together leading intellectuals and philosophersNoam Chomsky, Judith Butler, Cornel West, and Eric Foner, for exampleto discuss the topic in raw, searing honesty. Author/scholar/activist Frank B. Wilderson III describes the impact of unrelenting oppression against Black people, and there are powerful chapters such as the one called, "To Be Black in the U.S. Is To Have a Knee Against Your Neck Every Day." The book also includes observations by somewhat lesser-known people: author Chelsea Watego; British-based political sociologist Akwugo Emejulu, and Brian Burkhart, and more. Explicitly addressed is the preposterous suggestion that everyone just "move on" from thinking about racism. This books contributors say that the only way society can do that is if white people go through some type of kenosis about their prejudices and notions that people do not deserve the same rights. All readers stand to learn something from this compelling book. * Library Journal, Starred Review *
George Yancys new book Until Our Lungs Give Out: Conversations on Race, Justice, and the Future is not for the faint of heart. The volume, a collection of interviews with leading intellectuals, explores the historical trajectory of whiteness and anti-Blackness and their manifestation in education, healthcare, politics, and religion. The books range is as geographically broad as it is intellectually all-encompassing, yet despite what might seem an unwieldy range of topics, there are certain structuring themesin particular, the persistence of anti-Black racismthat give the volume a coherence of vision and purpose. Perhaps the most impressive characteristic of the text is the diversityracial, gender, cultural, national, and religiousof its participants. The volume is not dominated by one disciplinary perspective, and as a result, the interviews/dialogues never become one-dimensional or myopic.I highly recommend Until Our Lungs Give Out for anyone who desires to obtain an informative and insightful understanding of a range of urgent issues. The careful reader will enjoy a truly rewarding intellectual experience. Moreover, open-minded white readers need not be offended or made to feel guilty by the powerful critique of American society the book mounts. Following Yancy, I believe that the courageous reader will experience an initially traumatic but ultimately invaluable kenosis. * Los Angeles Review of Books *
These stimulating and wide-ranging engagementsfrom Noam Chomsky and Judith Butler, to Robin Kelley, Mari Matsuda, and Cornel Westremind us of the range and depth of philosophical knowledge that underscores George Yancys work as a public intellectual as well as a scholar. This collection of conversations is a must-read for those of us seeking deeper understandings of the complex interactions of race, class, gender, and justice. -- Henry Louis Gates Jr, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University
Until Our Lungs Give Out is a painfully relevant and indispensable book that brings together world-renowned scholars to collectively demonstrate what it looks like to face the horrors and deep conflicts of the world head on and to speak against them despite the dangers of doing so. As one of our nation's most searingly insightful philosophers, Yancy has prophetically modeled speaking truth in love and has steadfastly refused to sugarcoat the truth no matter the personal cost to him. This collection of critical conversations underscores the hard truth that we have neither been good stewards of the earth nor have we been good neighbors toward each other. We have failed to give the abundance of care that each one of us deserves. Until Our Lungs Give Out bears witness to a cadre of renowned peacemakers (not peacekeepers) who will fight for national and global justice, humanity and peace until their lungs give out. -- Kirsten Powers, CNN senior political analyst, New York Times bestselling author
Many thanks to philosopher and public intellectual George Yancy for this bounty of engaged thought from our foremost thinkers. We need this gift now more than everas a source of both perception and hope. -- Nell Irvin Painter, author of The History of White People
Robin D. G. Kelley poignantly captures the protests for racial justice during the surge in white nationalist retaliations. He states, 'If there is such a thing as the arc of the moral universe, it does not bend on its own. We bend it one way, our enemies bend it back.' George Yancys interviews with Kelley and many of the most important thinkers and doers of our times inspire many ways we can go forward from here. These interviews are thought-provoking, forward-thinking, and inspiring about next steps. -- Tera W. Hunter, author of Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century
Until Our Lungs Give Out is a timely and tremendously important book. It presents thoughtful and thought-provoking conversations between distinguished philosopher George Yancy and a dazzling array of the worlds most profound, original, and generative thinkers about anti-Black racism in the U.S. and around the world. -- George Lipsitz, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness
The title of George Yancys new collection of interviews tells it all: he gives voice to the top critical thinkers in todays struggle against racism and sexism, thinkers who persist in their struggle to the end, until their lungs give out. Ive never seen a volume which combines multiple perspectives with a united strong commitment to emancipation. Until Our Lungs Give Out gives hope, and hope is what we need in our dark times. -- Slavoj iek, author of Surplus-Enjoyment: A Guide for the Non-Perplexed and Heaven in Disorder
In this set of interviews, George Yancy invites leading intellectuals to tarrywith global white supremacy, planetary anti-blackness, nocent settler-colonialism, structural misogyny, and insatiable capitalist extraction. The message and messengers are deeply political, philosophical, and pedagogical. At once an act of defiance and radical love, Until Our Lungs Give Out asks us to peer into a futurity its authors likely will not inhabit. -- Zeus Leonardo, UC Berkeley, author of Edward Said and Education
Refusing to adjust to injustice, George Yancys interlocutors speak with passion and urgency attesting to Yancys skill as an interviewer. Listen to what they have to say, for the insights they express speak to some of the gravest issues of our times. -- Robert Gooding-Williams, professor of philosophy and African American studies, Columbia University

Author Bio

George Yancy is the author, editor, and co-editor of over 20 books, including Backlash: What Happens When we Talk Honestly About Racism in America. He is known for his influential essays and interviews in the New York Times' philosophy column, The Stone. Adding to his many awards in recognitions, in March 2022, Yancy was honored to discover an anonymous muralist known as Belove had painted Yancys larger-the-life portrait in downtown Denver. Yancy lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where he is professor of philosophy at Emory University.