This sheer Black exhaustion sometimes sounds like cranky disregard for white awakening when in fact it may only be our refusal to any longer consider white comfort. It is also the old recurring fear that this awakening may not last, that even though this time seems different, it may not be. White folk won't really stick with the hard work of genuinely reckoning with the racist past, and therefore we don't want to get too invested -- we don't want to get our hopes up too much. Our cynicism may indeed be a form of hurt, of pain, of racial world-weariness, of emotional depletion, and of soul deflation that comes out as anger or even rage -- a rage that is still hopeful because it believes that rage might make a difference.
-- Michael Eric Dyson, Long Time Coming, p. 199-200
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