Topic: WorldNetDaily
A couple of WorldNetDaily columnists have gotten the idea that the way to fix what's wrong with black America is for blacks to forgive whites. Mason Weaver wrote in his Feb. 15 column:
What would happen if angry black protesters forgave white people? Real or imaginary wrongs are just as powerful. The NFL did not want black players. We forgave and now dominate the NFL. Professional basketball, baseball, boxing and other sports were discriminating, but we forgave the wrongs and started competing. What if we acknowledged the wrongs and forgave that old slave master? What if we forgave his children and grandchildren? We could compete, stop allowing racial caretakers and develop our own competitive spirit.
My first book, “It’s OK to Leave the Plantation,” outlines my journey from hatred to forgiveness and illustrates the powerful transformation I experienced as a result. It may not work for you, but it does seem to work for many. “It’s OK to Leave the Plantation” reveals that only slaves stay on the plantation. You can allow the world to define you, or you can define the world.
I know some people, both black and white, will not understand my call of forgiveness. But if we are free, if we are strong, if we are grown, what is wrong with standing tall and looking America in the eye and announcing we are here to compete and take what is rightfully ours: a place in the American Culture?
Larry Nevenhoven similarly argued in his Feb. 16 column:
Throwing more money at the inner cities in hopes of setting black Americans free from their agonies is just a splashier way of following Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s advice in his 1970 memo to President Richard Nixon: “The time may have come when the issue of race could benefit from a period of ‘benign neglect.'”
How much benign neglect can American politicians continue to pour on race issues without dealing with black Americans’ underlying problems?
Like the dream of my friend, black Americans in our nation’s inner cities are facing the back walls of their personal prisons built out of bricks of bitterness, anger and hatred. They must pivot around 180 degrees to walk out the open doors of their cells.
But like my friend, there is only one way to walk through their cells’ open doors. And that’s through forgiveness and repentance.
Forgiveness? Who do black Americans need to forgive?
Every white American. Every police officer. Every person they feel has held them back from being all they can be and all they can do with their lives.
Is this a mountain too big for them to overcome?
While both columnists demand that blacks forgive whites, neither similarly demand that whites apologize or ask for forgiveness. Weaver did try to explain why he's not asking for an apology, citing an incident in the Navy as a young man in which "a racist shipmate tried to kill me by dropping 2,800 pounds of steel and other metals on me":
Forgiveness is meant to alleviate white guilt and black anger. If America truly owes black America a debt from the legacy of slavery, then there are two choices. One is the demand for payment; the second is to forgive the debt.
I do not want anyone to confuse forgiveness with surrender. It is not a docile action; it is a powerful action. I am not saying surrender because others are too powerful. I am saying forgive because they are not powerful enough to keep you down. You cannot have racial reconciliation without racial forgiveness. And you can never have any real racial forgiveness until you have unconditional forgiveness.
[...]
I could have demanded an apology, special treatment, or punishment for the perpetrator. However, if I demanded anything from anyone, I would be dependent upon him. If I was going to be free, I would have to act like a free man. First, I had to totally forgive the hatred and attempted murder. I had to forgive whatever contributing factor I placed upon my country and white people. The real “liberation theology” was not new; it was very old – it was the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Of course, justice is a path toward forgiveness, so it's puzzling why Weaver apparently never pursued that. And while it's not healthy to hold on to anger, and sometimes one must forgive without getting anything in return, demanding forgiveness without some sort of apology to kick things off is arguably exhausting.
