Because none of this work is meant to be done alone. Reparatively critical reading is not meant to be work performed solely by readers and writers of color. But the logic of empathy would have us believe so: it would have us believe that other people tell stories, which are there to make us feel things, the line between the two neatly delineated. The logic of empathy says “I feel your pain”—but the logic of inheritance knows this transaction has always been corrupt at its core. The story I’m telling is not just something for you to feel sympathy for, rage against, be educated by: it’s a story
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