On Race : 34 Conversations in a Time of Crisis

The recent barrage of racially motivated killings, violent antagonisms, and conflagrations has left many Americans reeling in the face of a so-called post-racial reality. In thirty-four interviews--some previously unpublished and others originally conducted for The New York Times'' philosophy column The Stone, but presented here unedited and with supporting materials--philosopher George Yancy critically engages some of the most influential thinkers alive today in order to highlight their most crucial insights into understanding the multifaceted dimensions of race in the United States.

With the recent barrage of racially motivated killings, violent encounters between blacks and whites, and hate crimes in the wake of the 2016 election that foreground historic problems posed by systemic racism, including disenfranchisement and mass incarceration, it would be easy to despair that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.''s dream has turned into a nightmare. Many Americans struggle for equal treatment, facing hate speech, brutality, and a national spirit of hopelessness; their reality is hardly "post-racial". The need for clarity surrounding the significance of race and racism in the United States is more pressing than ever. This collection of interviews on race, some originally conducted for The New York Times philosophy blog, The Stone, provides rich context and insight into the nature, challenges, and deepest questions surrounding this fraught and thorny topic.In interviews with such major thinkers as bell hooks, Judith Butler, Cornel West, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Peter Singer, and Noam Chomsky, Yancy probes the historical origins, social constructions, and lived reality of race along political and economic lines. He interrogates fully race''s insidious expressions, its transcendence of Black/white binaries, and its link to neo-liberalism, its epistemological and ethical implications, and ultimately, its future.