" In conveying just how severe the Black experience could be, Sprigle and Griffin sought to hold whites accountable for perpetuating a system that caused needless hardship, and urged them to reach across racial lines to end it. Griffin especially made a point of stressing how whites, as the overclass and creators of a divided society, had a crucial responsibility to racially reconcile. This is not to suggest that there isn’t something inherently condescending in these experiments. But this condescension seems merely a natural acknowledgement of genuine power. It feels distinctly different from, for example, Thomas Jefferson’s paternalistic view of African Americans. Rather, Griffin seems to be saying that since it is white people who establish and enforce the rules, rules that have terrible repercussions for Black lives, it is up to whites to begin the process of dismantling them. "

― Esi Edugyan , Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling