Hartman’s utilization of the white abolitionist John Rankin’s admonishment of slavery through imagining himself and his family as enslaved demonstrates how it actually “inadvertently confirms the expectations and desires definitive of the relations of chattel slavery” (Hartman 19). Hartman recognizes Rankin’s intentions as well-meaning, but argues, “the effort the counteract the commonplace callousness to black suffering requires that the white body be positioned in the place of the black body…” (Hartman 19). This analysis of the “precariousness of empathy” acts as preparation for Hartman’s examination of how whites have often hijacked the black experience for pleasure, both as an instrument of empathy and with nefarious intentions. This
