Racialized Forgiveness

I shall introduce a concept that I refer to as ‘racialized forgiveness.’ Cases that exemplify certain conditions which I take as paradigmatic of the problem of racialized forgiveness includes instances in which: (a) Who is forgiven and not is determined by the race of the offender; (b) Praise and criticisms of forgiveness are determined by the race of the victim; and (c) Praise and criticisms of forgiveness are, at least implicitly, racially self-serving. I argue that the practice of it is morally objectionable because of its psychological origins, moral failures, and negative effects. Accordingly, in order to dodge these dimensions, I’ll claim we need to practice forgiveness differently.