On Forgiveness

“…for African Americans and other oppressed people, especially Christian ministers/missionaries have, for many years, conveniently, urged us to embrace this notion of "forgiveness"…”

Dear friends,

On Facebook and other forums, I continuously hear about the notion of “forgiveness”. I strongly denounce the notion that one person should "forgive" another person for an insult committed against one's self!. That is, if someone hurts you, then s/he must first forgive himself or herself and redeem himself or herself by righting the wrong. Otherwise, that person hasn't grown, by you forgiving them when they've done nothing to make up for the unsolicited and unwanted insult that was thrust upon you.

Consequently, to me, it is a shallow expression of moral superiority, if not a mockery of it, to allow a person to remain in a bed of deceit and wrongdoing, instead of, at most, waiting to give that person a chance to redeem himself or herself. Besides, if you forgive the insulter, and that person hasn't attempted to redeem himself or herself, then you will suffer mentally and emotionally, inasmuch as that will clearly affect your self-esteem. This happens to victims of sexual abuse every second of every day, particularly females, since females are sexually assaulted, often by a relative or family "friend", literally, every second of every day, somewhere in the world!!! It's bad!!!

So, for example, if I borrow $100 from you and don't pay it back, then why should you forgive me? However, if I forgive myself, and come up to you with the $100 at a much later time and ask for your forgiveness for not paying on time, that's a whole different story. Then you can show real moral superiority, by letting that person pay you back. Otherwise, you are drugging yourself into thinking that you have done something good, when you have not even shown the courage to reject another person's insult directed towards you, by him or her asking for forgiveness without redeeming himself or herself first. Again, it affects your self-esteem.

Finally, the person who is not remorseful about having hurt you won't care either, so you've done nothing to help either of you...You just allowed a criminal to get away with a crime, so to speak. There's nothing good about that! Moreover, for African Americans and other oppressed people, especially Christian ministers/missionaries have, for many years, conveniently, urged us to embrace this notion of "forgiveness", as if the social/citizen insults have ceased to occur.

Peace & Love,
G. Djata Bumpus.