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BC DonaldsonFollow1 min read·Aug 20, 2020 --
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I’m a little unsure about your criticism of Botham Jean’s family and the presiding judge, the Charleston nine, and Christian Cooper . With the exception of judge, whose role as a public
official probably imposes greater restrictions on her behaviour, is not the exercising of a victim’s grief and forgiviness their own, private affair. Is it really for anyone else to tell
someone not to forgive?
Of course, the exercise of justice is a different matter — that concerns all of society. I can understand how one can vehemetely disagree with a verdict or a punishment, and how this is
deeply linked to the history of oppression.
But I dont know that forgiveness should be treated in the same way. It is a personal, indeed sacred, process that a person must go through for their own healing — to criticise or interfere
in that process seems to me not to be accomplishing anything historically productive, only psychologically traumatic.
But, as you go on to reference black slaves who would inform on their rebellion-plotting compatriots to their masters, I wonder if you consider these forgiving victims to be such traitors,
also, to the cause, that they are no longer deserving of our compassion?