An Argument for Empathy & Imagination

Why You Should #DecolonizeYourBookshelf: First Thoughts

The very first essay I penned for medium was Why I Don’t Read White People Anymore. Without revealing too much, I can say simply that I actively stopped reading white authors six years ago. I knew, before publishing, that the essay would resonate with some while irking many others — the many others by default that BIPOC writers (and what we can imagine is not too far off from readership) make up 4% of the medium population.

That said, I hoped for the essay to serve as a foundation to the stance, position, and coverage I plan on having throughout my time on Medium. More, I hope that what I share can challenge the limited worldview we have been conditioned toward, historically and continuously, that defines whose story is and continues to be centered as the American ideal.

I decided to pen a #decolonizeyourbookshelf mini-series on the reasons why we should decolonize our bookshelves, to cover the gains a reader receives by engaging with such a practice — a practice, which, created the very foundation as to why I don’t read white folk anymore beyond on rare and exceptional occasions.

What Does It Mean to Decolonize?

Often, people ask me — what do we, or I, mean when we say decolonize? Why is this such a buzzword and why does it seem to villainize white people? I always chuckle (collegially, but also somewhat irritably) at this common opening because 1) it presumes my answer is representative of the majority, 2) it consistently centers on the devaluing of white folk rather than the healing of marginalized and indigenous folk, and 3) it suggests that decolonize represents a passing trend or fad.

The act of Decolonization is not a trend or buzzword. It is a practice that has existed for long as marginalized and indigenous peoples have fought against oppression. In a contemporary sense, this is a practice of folks with marginalized and indigenous origins coming into an understanding about both the tangible and intangible effects of oppression enacted upon them and their peoples historically and continuously as a result of colonization.

To decolonize is to undo the programming of colonization, whether violently forced or under the guise of benevolence. It is to challenge the narratives we have been taught and told (and continue to be taught and told and reinforced by institutionalized education, governmental practice, and social conditioning) about ourselves that privilege some and oppress others — these are narratives that, ultimately, stem from biased perspectives that control who tells the narrative and how the narrative is told. By decolonizing, we work to return, to sift through fractures, and to heal through remembrance and reimagination whole versions of ourselves prior to the ripping we’ve undergone and undergo as cultures amd peoples in the face of our oppressors.

To be clear, the center of decolonization is not to devalue white folk; the center is, and always has been, on the healing and humanization of marginalized and indigenous folk. More, decolonization will mean different things for different cultures and peoples given that we are as varied and diverse in cultural practice, historical interference, geographical and social environment, and life circumstances. In relation to this essay series, decolonizing our bookshelves is to take control of the narratives we hold relationship with and reframe what and how we read as way to inform our worldviews.

The First Gain of Decolonizing Bookshelves is Empathy Training

Empathy Training isn’t an official term by any means, but the definition can well be implied. Empathy, unlike apathy or sympathy, is when we have the ability to and honestly share the feelings of another. While we can never fully put ourselves into another’s shoes complete with personal experiences and individual responses, we can navigate how we receive and respond to what they share.

Of primary importance is differentiating an empathetic response from an apathetic one, when we feel nothing, and a sympathetic one, in which we feel bad for. In this latter case, this is no more than further distancing oneself from what has been shared, cementing the vision of the sharer as victim, rendering them less than a fully human experience that includes the victimization, yes, but also their agency and joy. To merely sympathize is a failure to both critically engage as well as see the other as fully and equally human.

As an example, reading a text written by an indigenous writer exploring life within the reservation may open one’s eyes to the cruel conditions of the reserve as created by United States, but it can, and rightfully should, also illuminate life beyond oppression itself. We, as readers, need to be capable of feeling beyond the pain itself alone. As another example, reading the story of a teenager from Central America in which they relay the many factors that informed their decision to journey north can open our eyes to the difficult and violent circumstances in which these youth live, but this should not take away from the courage or autonomy this child has enacted to make this decision. And, as a last example, reading the story of a victim of domestic violence that answers why they stayed when all signs pointed to the logical decision to leave, ultimately should and does reveal complexity. In all of these examples, that is the task of empathy training — to see those who go and undergo traumatic forms of oppression in their fullest complex selves.

In Relation, There is Reparative Imagination

Reparative Imagination is not an official term either, but it is one that I utilize quite often. Reparative is an adjective related to the act of making amends or enacting repair. In relation to the decolonizing effort, we can shift that meaning toward the act of healing through the use of imagination. Imagination, a technique we’ve witness countless artists utilize to create stunning and critical works that respond to and inform our world, is not to be taken lightly. It is a powerful tool and practice we should regularly engage with.

As an educator dedicated to justice and equity within the classroom, I used to open my courses with a seminar upon Rogerian Method. I’ll spare you theory and share simply that as rhetoric practice, it aims to establish common ground, and it attempts this feat by asking each party to: 1) read with empathy and 2) imagine with empathy. I always loved this dual focus because reading and imagining truly go hand in hand, particularly as we hold relationship with everything that we interact with, whether that is human or media or event or story. Internal and external dialogue happen continuously and in relation to this essay, it happens no less with books. I often tell my students: when you dialogue with story, whether you agree or not, you need to navigate that conversation with empathy. That’s the only way you can get outside of yourself and consider the worldview that informs the narrative you’re partaking in.

As a form of Reparative Imagination, Rogerian Method asks the reader to step outside of themselves and read and imagine with empathy. As a continuation of Empathy Training, not only does this reframe how we relate to what we’re reading, but it also asks us to decenter our experiences as the entrance point into the stories we interact with. It dictates that our own experiences should not be a litmus test we use to determine the proximity of relatability and “normal-ness” of the story itself, which ultimately runs the potential of rendering something unrelatable and therefore abnormal and other.

If we go back to those prior examples of the indigenous writer, the Central American teenager writer, and the writer who has survived Domestic Violence, none of those stories should be read only as comparison to our own lives. Take the story at its own, standalone, value and consider what lessons and truths are imparted there.

How Both Lend to Decolonization as Gain

I have always been an avid believer in the power of story to shift our minds. Lacing what we read through a decolonial lens, suddenly story can be mobilized as a font to engage with stories, lives, experiences, and subject matter completely outside of our own. As a technique to help us decolonize our own minds, when we diversify our bookshelves with stories completely outside of our own, it opens the pathway for the potential of inclusive perspectives that can seriously run counter to our own. And this, is more gift than curse, as it broadens the mind toward the collective or global community rather than the purely American or even, the purely white American, experience.

Mabuhay, I’m EA Garcia, and I’m a thriving eater of story. I reflect on all my reads across genres, forms, and categories. Since I only read BIPOC work and prioritize small, indie, and micro press work, you might find a new read! I also write on academia, publishing, & decolonization, ftw.

Feel free to recommend things in the comments below! I LOVE recs: particularly books, dramas, manga, & webtoons! Try to keep it BIPOC and marginalized ❤

Read about WHY I only read BIPOC folk, get a taste for my stance on decolonizing bookshelves, or look at some funky reviews of storywork!