Quote for Today: "The Sort of Bland Saluting of Forgiveness with Nothing Else Attached Is Empty"

The sort of bland saluting of forgiveness with nothing else attached is empty.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisicoates) June 21, 2015

And on the ways in which forgiveness (about which I posted yesterday) in the wake of an atrocity like the Mother Emanuel shootings can be a trap, a convenient cover for the refusal of those with power in their hands to do anything to change the conditions that produce such atrocities, there are powerful, fascinating, necessary conversations right now at Twitter. Here's a sampler of comments worth noting, which point out that there's a sentimental trope in American literature about master-slave relationships which exalts the forgiving nature of the slave, and that white Americans frequently co-opt the willingness of black Christians to forgive as a way of refusing to face the injustice of racism:

What's amazing is, in the next few days, we will see the same people praising love and forgiveness, calling for the death penalty.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisicoates) June 21, 2015

Their forgiveness should charge you to do something. Should charge you to make sure their grandkids are making the same speech.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisicoates) June 21, 2015

@tanehisicoates Forgiveness is weaponized in this country. And I say this as a Christian.

— Mr. Kaplan (@b_cubbage) June 21, 2015

Tell the truth. https://t.co/CPB9XjqKvd

— ProfB (@AntheaButler) June 21, 2015

@jelani9 @iHumble many white folks & not just in Charleston or only 2015 demanding forgiveness without atonement.Demanding. W/out atonement.

— Edward Baptist (@Ed_Baptist) June 21, 2015

How many of the folks now demanding Xtian forgiveness from targets of terrorism were same ones trotting out just-war theology after 9/11?

— Edward Baptist (@Ed_Baptist) June 21, 2015

I have questions about a God who Black people have called out to, a Christian God, that seems to at times ignore our plight in America

— ProfB (@AntheaButler) June 21, 2015

So the divine call for "forgiveness" and "love" is selective. And tends to fall hardest on certain people.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisicoates) June 21, 2015

In a country in which folks can move, seamlessly and without a scrap of thought (or shame), from the murder of nine innocent people in a church to babble about how God allowed the killer to be caught (the same God who would then have allowed those nine innocent people to be murdered), this kind of thoughtful, painful conversation about what concepts like "love" and "forgiveness" — and "God" — really mean in the real world is absolutely necessary.