Forgiveness and Mercy: more recent words..

Racial forgiveness is different than a theological premise; it is a cultural ritual in America which functions to atone for the past racism (as with the apologies from various denominations, such as Southern Baptists, in the 1990s) or in an attempt to provide African Americans a way to move forward and acknowledge historic and recent racial pain. These public acts of racial forgiveness are important, but they can also bring about ritual forgetting when co-opted by individuals or groups with little interest in atonement.

This ritual forgiveness and forgetting is one of the reasons America’s conversation on race is stilted, disingenuous, and dangerous. In a culture of ritual forgiveness and forgetfulness, no one is called to account for historic deeds done against others, and history is viewed as a malleable story to support the forgetting. That is why the conversation about the Confederate Flag and its meaning are simply swept away as a “cultural matter” or history, when the reality is that the flag was a symbol of resistance to the Union and, later, used as a way to continue the culture of the Confederacy and terrorize Africans Americans.

Forgiveness unfortunately, can birth forgetting: by the time the arraignment ended, the ritual forgetfulness had already begun. Politicians like Jeb Bush claimed not to understand why the shooter would want to kill black people and conservatives claimed that the shooting “was an attack against Christians”.

How long will forgiveness and the subsequent forgetting be a means to derail sustained efforts to confront racism in America? For black people, there is no forgetting of the history of American racism, or the complicity of Christians in that history. When a white man walks into a black church, sits for an hour, and then allegedly shoots nine black people dead, no amount of forgiveness given for his murderous act by the families of the dead can absolve America of its violent history of racism, no matter how much those complicit in that racism might hope for it.

And:

“I’d like to now apologize to the victims and the survivors,” Tsarnaev said.

“If there is any lingering doubt, I did it along with my brother.”

As he spoke in courtroom, he began to cry.

“I am sorry for the lives that I have taken, the suffering that i have caused you, the damage that I’ve done.”

“Immediately after the bombing, of which I am guilty of, there is little doubt about that. I learned their faces, their names.”

Tsarnaev also thanked the jury and his attorneys.

“Made my life the last two years easy. I cherish their companionship,” Tsarnaev said about his defense team.

He concluded his speech by asking for mercy for himself and his brother.

“I am Muslim. My religion is Islam,” Tsarnaev said.

“I ask allah to have mercy on me my brother and my family. I ask Allah to have mercy on the Umah. Thank you.”

**

If there’s anything in particular here to take note of — and I’m not sure we should generalize from such a tiny sample — it’s Butler’s use of forgivess terminology and Tsarnaev’s corresponding use of mercy.

Forgivness is taught in the Christian Lord’s Prayer, while The Merciful in Islam is one of the great and beautiful Names of God.

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