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Because the misdeeds and debts are carried forward to allow deconstruction of the culture of your target, so you can destroy their narratives, make them uncertain of how to act, deprive them of confidence and ideas.
Reminding people of praiseworthy past achievements wouldn't help.
Critical theory was created by people who wanted to change society in accordance with their ideas.
That's all there is to it. (added later: They were not even making any secrets about it either - they openly said as much)
If certain intellectuals are to be believed, of whom most prominent one is now James Lindsay, people using 'critical theory' do not even have a normative vision - they believe that by criticizing that what exists endlessly, a more just synthesis just somehow happens to arise.
EDIT:
added a clarification
Right, I've asked this question quite a few times of the grievance studies/critical theory types and there's no satisfying answer to date.
"Why is it that people living now can be held accountable for negative actions taken by their relatively distant ancestors... but also cannot be permitted to take pride or credit for positive achievements of those same ancestors?"
It is a strange theory that allows blame to propagate forward through time and across generational gaps to currently-living descendants and yet considers the preservation of familial wealth and status across generational gaps to be unjustified.
Seems like any grounds you use to discard the one can likely be used to discard the other as well.
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