There are plenty of Black folk who claim exhaustion. They say they aren't here to serve white folk, not here to educate them, not here to uplift them or to guide them on the path of racial righteousness. They think that is just another way to preserve white comfort and that the most effective way for white folk to overcome their dependence on Blackness is to learn to swim without the aid of Black lifeguards. Beneath that Black exhaustion is a sound reason and wide-awake rationale for such a stance. After all, the argument goes, if white folk really wanted to learn about race, they could have done so long before now. What can we teach them that they haven't already been able to learn? What can we say that hasn't already been said?
-- Michael Eric Dyson, Long Time Coming, p. 201
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