Ralina Joseph: Racial exhaustion is about the moment where we are experiencing the denial of racism… the inability for us to really speak plainly, to speak truth to power in the ways that we need to. And how we can feel really overwhelmed by that… and feel like we should just shut off and turn away from the important work of racial equity. And so how do we not give up?

Raechele Pope: Welcome to Student Affairs NOW. I’m your host, Raechele Pope. Today we’re talking about the new book, Racial Exhaustion: How to Move Through Racism in the Wake of DEI, and I am thrilled to be joined by the author, Dr. Rowena Joseph. At a moment when many people are feeling weary, wary, or just simply overwhelmed by the conversations about race, this book gives both language and a pathway forward.

Rather than asking whether we are tired, Dr. Joseph asks, what does our res- exhaustion reveal, and what might it take to move through it with greater honesty, stamina, and care? It is a timely and deeply useful book for anyone trying to navigate race, equity, and institutional life in this current moment.

Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and learning community for thousands of us who work in, alongside, or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We hope that these conversations contribute to the field and are restorative to the profession. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays, and you can find us at studentaffairsnow.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.

This episode is sponsored by Evolve. Evolve offers four leadership coaching journeys designed to expand capacity and build capabilities, empowering courageous leadership to transform institutions and reimagine the future of higher education As I mentioned, I’m Raechele Pope. My pronouns are she, her, and hers, and I’m a new professor emeriti, and former professor and senior associate dean for Faculty and Student Affairs, and the chief diversity officer for the Graduate School of Education at the University of Buffalo.

I’m joining you today from Minneapolis, Minnesota, my new home, and the ancestral home of the Dakota and Ojibwe peoples. Now, let’s get to this really important conversation. Dr. Joseph, let’s begin by having you introduce yourself to our listeners. What would you like us to know about your work, and what brought you to writing Racial Exhaustion?

Ralina Joseph: Thank you. Thank you so much, Raechele, for having me on. My work, so I am a scholar of race difference in communication, and a scholar and a practitioner, and I’ve been doing this work for the last couple of decades in higher education. And while I started off doing work that was really a bit more theoretical- it became more applied over time. And the work of racial exhaustion has really been about working in and with our communities, and trying to help people give a voice and to provide some solutions to this problem that is really plaguing so many of us today.

Raechele Pope: Yeah. It is a fascinating book, and I’m so glad I had an early chance to look through it.

Yeah. I designed this discussion that we’re having today in a f- some things that stood out to me, and the first was- … was this naming of the moment. One of the things that feels so powerful about this book is that it gives us language to something that- … many people have felt but n- didn’t know how to name.

What do you mean by racial exhaustion, and why did it feel important to put language to that experience, especially right now?

Ralina Joseph: Thank you. And yeah, when people say the title, they sigh because it’s yes, it’s, it is. It feels like it’s naming something. So that’s been one of the most gratifying pieces of being able to share the book.

Racial exhaustion is about the moment where we are experiencing the denial of racism, where we’re experiencing the ignoring of racialized disparities the inability for us to really speak plainly, to speak truth to power in the ways that we need to.

And how we can feel really overwhelmed by that, and we can feel like we should just shut off- and turn away from the important work of of racial equity that so many of us have been doing for decades. I know so many of your listeners have been doing for their whole lives. And so how do we not give up?

Raechele Pope: You know what’s fascinating about that, this is a time period when it is both racism is denied, and yet at the same time, so public and so visible.

People feel- Yes … less hampered by barriers or embarrassed by it, or feel it’s something they have to hide. People seem to be very open about it. Yet- Yes … at the same time denying it exists.

Ralina Joseph: Absolutely. Absolutely. And it’s interesting because I think that the openness in some ways is is is gratifying in a weird way ’cause we, you can see what people have been thinking and have- been planning. But then that coupled with the whole sc- scale denial and then the lack, I think, of so many of our public leaders to name these moments. And and for so many of us who have been exhausted to be able to get together and to mobilize in the ways that we’ve needed to.

Raechele Pope: You talk about the ex- you bring us back to the exhaustion, and I love that one of the most important distinctions that you make is that not all racial exhaustion is the same. Can you talk about how racial exhaustion shows up differently for people of color and for White people, and why that distinction matters if we’re going to move through it honestly?

Ralina Joseph: Yes. Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to, as I was doing th- this was a different book than the ones that I’ve wrote- written in the past- … because it really came from from workshops. It came from- … the classroom. It came from things that I was observing and experiencing as opposed to me trying to name a phenomenon that I was critiquing.

And so I saw so many White folks that I was working with, students elders in the community who did not know how to engage in the same ways with talking about race that we do. And we know this is true. But what I thought that was interesting was their own exhaustion around it.

So it comes out differently. I think that particularly with some White liberals, there’s the sense that I’ve done this work. I’ve already proved it to you, right? And I don’t wanna have to keep doing it again, right? From other White liberals hearing it’s exhausting to try and continually call up Uncle Bob and talk to him about- about who he’s voting for because I’ve been doing this for so long. And then for others it really is racism, right? I think that racial exhaustion is also about refusing to hear and to understand and acknowledge that we still indeed live in a really racially bifurcated and and racist country.

Raechele Pope: And to talk about that now, right now is dangerous. We’re pulling it out of the schools. We’re not allowing people-

Ralina Joseph: That’s right …

Raechele Pope: to see it. And if all of this stands, if we’re- teachers aren’t allowed to name it, if we’re not- … allowed to talk about the past it’s really gonna change our going forward if we can’t you know- name what it is we’re talking about, be honest about what it is we’re talking about, and so therefore prevent it.

So it is- Absolutely …

Ralina Joseph: it

Raechele Pope: is it is a very different way of approaching it for those of us who’ve been working on this for years and years. Yes. There’s gaslighting going on.

Ralina Joseph: Absolutely. Absolutely. And in the midst of this gaslighting, the kind of shorthand that I use in thinking about racial exhaustion is that for people of color, it’s often exhaustion around experiencing racism and having- and being gaslit around it. And for white folks, it’s about exhaustion of having to engage in any conversations. So the exhaustion around just even talking and communicating about race.

Raechele Pope: And we’ve been doing this for a while. Isn’t it done yet?

I think-

…

Raechele Pope: That’s something both people of color and white people have in common.

We all wanna stop talking about it. We all wanna stop experiencing it.

And if we ever reach that point, then we would. It’s not like we’re, … as folks of color are saying, “Yeah, let- let’s keep talking about this because it feels good,” right?

Ralina Joseph: I think that part of the difference is that it’s that distinction between not just ta- the difficulties of talking about racism, but the- difficulties of talking about race.

And so the difficulties of talking about race for not, and I’m doing the hard work of trying to say that this is, I’m talking about racialization, so- Yeah … this is not to say all people of color or all white folks- Yep … but the ways in which we are brought into race.

But that, that for many folks of color, that it’s it’s comfortable to talk about race in lots of different settings. It’s not always with tragedy. That it is with joviality, it’s with with fun, it’s with jokes. It’s in all of the ways that we do it. And there’s a fluency there.

Whereas with white folks, it’s not just about the discomfort of talking about racism, but then you layer on it the discomfort of talking about race, of acknowledging whiteness, of understanding how whiteness is, white is indeed a race, and how that works and interacts with the way that our country has been established.

So- … it’s, There’s so many layers that we need to get through-

Raechele Pope: No wonder we’re exhausted.

Ralina Joseph: That’s it. That’s it.

Raechele Pope: I think a lot of people who listen to Student Affairs NOW work in institutions that spent the last several years, this kills me it’s 2026 when we’re recording this-

Ralina Joseph: Yes …

Raechele Pope: and we spent the last several years, especially the last three or four years following the murder of George Floyd- and the, that session of racial reckoning. We spent the last several years loudly embracing DEI language. You know- … institutions were coming out so clearly. This is, we’re not going to do this, and we’re naming it, and now- Yeah … in many cases quietly or not so quietly backing away from it. And you write about DEI as a moment that for many institutions never quite became a movement.

What do you think that movement or that moment, I’m sorry, that moment revealed? What do you think it failed to do?

Ralina Joseph: Yeah, that this has been one of the hardest parts of this time, right? That I think that in that DEI moment that many of us who had been doing this work felt like, “Okay, this is

It’s finally it. This is the tipping point. This is the tipping point- That’s right … we’ve all been working for,” right? And we felt acknowledged. We felt, many of us personally, professionally, in terms of the work that we needed to do institutionally. And yet I think that our institutions did not embed the values, the work, and the ways that we needed to make true institutional transformation.

And that was why it stayed as a moment and didn’t actually become a movement. And we see … It was, the fact that we were able to reverse so many gains so quickly-

Raechele Pope: Yeah …

Ralina Joseph: and in places that had reluctantly made changes in particular. So this is a time when I am trying to continue to have hope and to think about what do we actually do at this moment to continue the work of institutional transformation in ways that not only attend to our exhaustion but think about creating the moments of belonging, of inclusion, of removing the barriers for those who are experiencing the most harm that we do this across the institution.

Yeah. So even as we’re not able to do the same type of naming that there’s … This is not the end of the work. It has to be a re-imagination of our work.

Raechele Pope: Yeah. I think you really hit on something there with what many of us who felt like like you said, we’re at the precipice. We got it. We got up over the hump.

We’re here. We’re ready to go. And institutions talked about embedding this. Yes. Talked about changing structures. How quickly they turned around. So I think you’re really, you really hit on something there-

Ralina Joseph: Yeah …

Raechele Pope: that many of us have felt.

Ralina Joseph: Absolutely. And I think that’s, there’s a lot of lamenting of changing of language. Yeah. And I hear that. And I think that with new frameworks, so you know, where I am at UCLA, we are talking about inclusive excellence.

So the true… So many of the things that we were espousing in terms of the embeddedness of change-making throughout the university, but actually trying to make that happen.

And I think there’s ways that we can really embrace the moment to bring more people into our work. And not the folks who have been doing it for decades and are exhausted but those who haven’t necessarily thought that belonging, inclusion is for them.

But that once we say, “No, this is actually, this is really aligned with what is the mission of our university. This is not- … this is not the scary thing that you might have thought it was. This is how we can serve all of us best.”

So I think there’s opportunity here too.

Raechele Pope: It is. I think there’s, there was a moment where we had to sit down and just be shocked and disappointed and center into, in a sense, that exhaustion or that-

Ralina Joseph: Yes

Raechele Pope: And all of that. But to recognize this is not the place to stop. This is not the place to give up hope,

Ralina Joseph: yes.

Absolutely.

Raechele Pope: Now, another thing I really appreciated about your book is that you don’t just critique the problem, you actually offer a way through it. You introduce this framework of critically communicating race, radical listening, sitting with discomfort, radical speaking, and reparative dialogue.

Can you walk us through that framework and why communication is such a critical site of change?

Ralina Joseph: Yes, thank you. I spent 20 years in a communication department and this book comes from a program, a racial dialoguing program that I ran there. And so seeing the work in practice really made me realize we need to, to…

I need to come at this with some tangible skills. And the first place that we have to start is with listening. And listening differently, listening across difference, listening w- without the intent to respond, but rather to just hold someone’s ideas. Radical listening is also about being really conscious of when you might need to not pipe in at all.

You might need to not respond at all, and just simply to try and take in the perspective of of another. And particularly if that perspective is underrepresented has been silenced, is hard to hear. So that’s really the first piece of it. And this is really hard work, and so the discomfort comes in immediately, right?

Particularly for those who might have been on the upside of power and are used to experiencing being heard all of the time. And so to think about flipping that experience. And so I try and give some real tangible specific ways of how do you sit with that discomfort- … in order to move into that space of radical speaking.

The moment, m- many of us are comfortable immediately going to this space, and so I’m trying to say yes, and partnered with the listening as well. So this is the speaking truth to power, interrupting- … microaggressions piece of the book that is trying to give language, not to to call people out- but, as amazing Loretta Ross writes about, how do we do this calling in work- … while still staying very true to our convictions and how we need to continue to stay in the work in very clear ways. And that takes us to dialogue. And I end with dialogue as opposed to beginning with it.

I know that lots of universities have gone to dialogue almost immediately as something that we need to jump into, and my argument is that we need to do actually all of these other processes first. And that dialogue needs to be quite intentional. And so the intentionality around dialogue for repair in particular i- is something that we can we can work towards.

And so not just thinking about how do we sit together in here, but how do we sit together here and move forward together? So that’s really what that piece of the book is about.

Raechele Pope: And I think that’s such an important piece because we’re getting absolutely no models of that in our national discourse.

You listen to the news, you read the newspaper, and you’re listen- you’re seeing how people aren’t listening to each other at all and aren’t concerned with listening. And maybe they’re concerned with radical speaking, but it’s a whole different kind of radical speaking. It’s me- Yes, it is

showing you how you’re wrong and how you’re naive or how you’re whatever. And I’m so concerned that we’re not, And this has been going on for a while. Our national dialogues have been anything but instructive and- … are modeling behavior. And I think that your framework can provide an opportunity for people to learn to do this differently.

And if we’re not teaching this in universities, I don’t know where else it’s going to come from, but I think that’s, that’s- Yeah … gonna be really helpful. So I really appreciated your framework,

Ralina Joseph: thank you.

Raechele Pope: I also think that one of the hardest parts of this work, especially for educators, supervisors, and student affairs practitioners, is helping people stay in the conversations once discomfort shows up, right?

Yes. Yes So as soon as it gets uncomfortable, people wanna leave the conversation- … tune out or whatever. What does it actually look like to build greater capacity for discomfort-

…

Raechele Pope: Rather than treating discomfort as a sign that something has gone wrong?

Ralina Joseph: Yeah, so this is the part where I really have drawn upon not just colleagues and scholars in education, so I’m, I call on some of the work of the pedagogy of discomfort.

So what are the strategies that educators use in the classrooms themselves? And this is something that, many of us are trying all the time. But also from clinical psychologists. So I talk about some of the strategies from DBT or dialectical behavioral therapy that are really about mindfulness, about centering ourselves, about not letting our our emotions carry us away, but still hearing them, and and caring for ourselves in the process.

I think this is so much a part of not letting the exhaustion Yeah … take us away or take us out. And I say that in very real ways. We know that stress in particular for Black women, for other other women of color, other people of color, o- other folks who experience the daily inequalities, that this really impacts our life.

Raechele Pope: Yeah.

Ralina Joseph: And so figuring out, how do we actually take care of ourselves in the macro, and then in those moments when we’re feeling our heart starting to race, when we’re feeling that moment of starting to sweat and that anxiety, how do we learn how to breathe a little differently to stay there?

How do we learn how to center ourselves? And these are… I love that now so many schools have been teaching these strategies even to preschoolers.

Because certainly as a Gen X-er these were things and strategies that I had to learn as an adult.

But these are the ways that we need to figure out how do we move forward together.

Raechele Pope: Sure. I remember back in the probably late ’70s, maybe early ’80s, Judith Katz’ book, and the title of it is escaping me, but she often talked about leaning into discomfort.

And I love that phrase, that discomfort was important but we didn’t have to jump all the way in.

Yes. Figure out the ways that we could lean into it, because that’s a softer move into it- … and learning our capacity for discomfort by- … leaning into it and then continuing- That’s right … to move forward.

Ralina Joseph: Yeah. That’s right. And I think that sometimes if you think if this is really I don’t have to respond, I’m just trying to listen and understand.

Yeah. Yeah. I can respond later. I can figure out and take a little bit of time with that. But if the discomfort is really I just need to sit in the place and open my mind and heart to being- … able to hear- Yeah … a little differently, that can feel, I think safer for folks. And- Sure … so many things, this is a muscle, right?

Yeah. We train it, we practice, and we learn how to do better.

Raechele Pope: Yep. That’s a good point. So let’s bring this right back into higher education. How about that? How do… where do you see racial exhaustion showing up most clearly on college campuses right now for students, staff, faculty? And what might it look like for those of us in student affairs and higher education to respond differently?

Ralina Joseph: So it’s interesting because I think there’s a lot of anxiety about our students. And I see more desire and comfort coming from them. I think that there is a lot of anxiety and fear particularly in this moment from so many of our colleagues. Of just being afraid of, I’m not supposed to talk about these things, but I know I need to talk about these things, so how do I talk?

I spend a lot of time talking to people about, no, you can talk about inequality. You can talk about discrimination. You can talk about race. You can talk about racism. In lots of ways you can name these things. And you can, to, to the extent that you’re comfortable, share, share yourself with your students.

So I see the exhaustion so much more with our with our faculty. I see with so many staff members who have been through so many long years of crises and how incredibly exhausting that is with so many student affairs staff with our counseling folks with the people who have been dealing with crises.

And and I worry about people at this moment- Yeah … in particular. And part of it is the kind of the rolling back and not wanting to stay in the work, not wanting to say the thing that might be uncomfortable- … for our allies in particular. But so much of it is also about people have been working 24/7, 365 on crises and not having that time to actually repair and renew- and attend to their exhaustion.

Raechele Pope: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wanna move us towards the end of your book for a minute, ’cause I’ve been trying to move us through in pieces.

Ralina Joseph: Yes.

Raechele Pope: It, I’m wondering if you would write your epilogue differently today. Now, things have been moving at a pace. As soon as you get your handle on one thing in the news, something else comes up.

And so I was thinking about your epilogue really does land at a really important political and cultural moment. But of course, so much has happened since the book was written and brought to publication.

Yes. And if you wrote it today, it might have to be different tomorrow because of how fast this is moving.

Since then, we’ve seen even more escalation around race, immigration, public discourse, institutional backlash, and the active dismantling of DEI efforts. So if you were writing your epilogue today, what would you want readers, and especially educators in higher education leaders, to understand now?

Ralina Joseph: Yeah, no, it’s really interesting, ’cause I finished it right before the election the presidential election. And and I think that I, I was a little bit… I was in the camp of people who were surprised at how it went.

And and so I think that if I were to write now just being able to document that the list of all of the inequalities that you were starting to name one after another and to have that down and just witnessing this present moment I think that I would certainly be doing that work and really doubling down on us needing to come together- and and renew and repair in a different kind of way for this fight. I think that many of us have been… we were probably born in fight mode. And we’re very comfortable being there. But this has been a big one, and it’s been a different one. And I think that part of the problem is we haven’t had a chance to come together and to to let everything down, and then to be strategic, to come back together and to be strategic.

And and so it feels like it’s an even more urgent moment than when I wrote it, … which to me I’m like how is that possible after all of those- … those years?” And yet it is, and yet it feels like that. So I think I would be ev- amplifying the urgency even more of this moment, not just for us to come together, but to come together in this moment of care as we move forward.

Raechele Pope: I, and I have to say, living here now in Minneapolis and having lived here through what- Yeah … is being politely referred to as metro surge, but what I- … refer to as an occupation,

Ralina Joseph: yes.

Raechele Pope: How the people of Minnesota responded to that, like 20 and 30-degree below weather and they’re still out there saying, “No, this is not gonna happen.”

Yes.

Ralina Joseph: Amazing.

Raechele Pope: Yes. And so it’s we respond, and we see it happening, and it’s happening quickly. And that was just the biggest thing. They were… like the raising of rent money, the- … shopping for people who are too afraid to leave their home. All of these things- Yes. Yes … say that we have a capacity-

Ralina Joseph: That’s right

Raechele Pope: to respond to these things. And what we can’t do is slow down. Yes. Of course, oh, I can’t think of the thing I was going to say. But I, so I, I do realize that there are responses that we can have. And all the things that you had just said, that we are ready.

Ralina Joseph: Yes. And Minneapolis is a beautiful example of not just community care in crisis- but truly community love. Yeah. And the way that we can see the love, the bell hooks love that- Yep … that that the people of Minneapolis, embraced their community with is, was amazing. And I think that’s we hope that, that same sentiment will be able to spread throughout the country.

Raechele Pope: Yeah, we are seeing, as it rises in New Jersey and New York, and of course LA and all these places, we’re seeing some different responses. It’s not gonna-

Ralina Joseph: Yes. Yes …

Raechele Pope: and we are exhausted, but we are still responding,

Ralina Joseph: that’s right. And there’s a type of repair that happens with that- kind of response. Yeah. That kind of care that also feels, it feels reciprocal because it feels you know that it’s also coming back for you- That’s right … in the work that you’re doing. Yeah.

Raechele Pope: Okay, so we always wrap up this podcast it’s called Student Affairs NOW, so we always like to ask: What are you currently pondering, questioning or troubling as you think about this work right now?

And I I’m wondering if there’s some new thoughts or somewhere else that you’re going that might be helpful as we end this conversation.

Ralina Joseph: Oh my gosh, Raechele, I don’t know if this will be helpful, but what I’m really thinking about right now is the work of Black women and other women of color in this moment.

And how many people I am seeing are not being taken care of and are not taking care of themselves. That we’ve seen nationally the numbers of of how we have lost jobs at higher rates than- … than anybody else. And I worry that this is not being taken seriously by our leadership.

And it starts with just acknowledging this disproportionate load that many of us are carrying and that many of us have carried for so long, and really thinking about how does the community rally around and and take care of us as we have been the ones taking care of so many people for so long.

Raechele Pope: Making sure that that care gets around to everyone, yeah.

Ralina Joseph: Yes. Yes.

Raechele Pope: Rowena, I have to tell you, this has been a great conversation for me. It has been so wonderful being in your energy and in your space, so thank you. I wanna thank you for this conversation. I am so glad that you took the time to share your wisdom and to share this book with all of us.

And folks, I encourage you to get out, get this book, read it. It’s really powerful and so necessary for us. I wanna switch now and take a moment to express my gratitude to Nat Ambrosey, our incredible producer. Your efforts do not go unnoticed, and we thank you wholeheartedly for all that you do. I also feel I should stop here and thank our sponsor.

Given the current context of higher education, we need to invest in leaders with their capacity and capabilities to transform their institutions and the future of higher education. The Evolve Institute for l- Higher Education Leadership offers four leadership coaching journeys tailored to four different leadership levels.

Each is a three-month journey that includes individual and group coaching, plus a curated curriculum of s- of short, asynchronous video modules. We also offer Evolve for leadership teams. So if you’re ready to evolve your leadership voice, visit evolve-institute.com to learn more. You can find this episode and many others at studentaffairsnow.com.

Please subscribe, share with your colleagues, and leave a review. It helps us to continue building this learning community and keep these conversations accessible to the field. Stay in the loop with the latest episodes delivered to your inbox on Wednesdays. While you’re there, visit our archives. Again, I’m Raechele Pope.

Thanks again to Dr. Joseph and to all of you for listening. Make it a great week

Racial Exhaustion: How to Move through Racism in the Wake of DEI (NYU Press, 2025)