we are conditioned to accept that some of our work is in fact routinely expected to comfort; that the work of writers of color must often in some way console, educate, provide new definitions, great epiphanies, and, most of all—that buzzword of both the commercial marketplace and political theater—be relevant. Whereas the work of white writers must be free to: offend, transgress, be exempt, be beyond politics, beyond identity—to delight, in other words, in the myriad fruits of its political immunity. And their readers must, in turn, always extend empathy toward that lucrative and culturally
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