As a Matter of Fact, No, We Don’t Forgive you

Because your behavior hasn’t changed.

You know the routine: a Black man or woman is murdered by police and within twenty-four hours the media begins asking the surviving family members if they forgive the police or person who committed the murder.

With cameras glaring and video broadcast to the nation and world, grieving families are forced to confront the worst fears of their lives and forced to publicly renounce their grief and anger in order to make white America feel good and assuage their fear of seeing and hearing expressions of righteous Black anger.

Why does the demand for forgiveness always present itself to Black folk so early in the grieving process and What does it accomplish?

The demand to Black families to forgive white cops who murdered their loved one is the state’s first action to invalidate the real life and necessary emotional response to the horror of racism’s ultimate outcome.

It is racism’s targeted gaslighting.

“Your loved one is dead but do not grieve or long for them; do not express anger or seek retribution; tamp down your anger and forgive your killer before us all so that we know you will remain compliant and beholden to us your overseers.”