Demanding Apology, Demanding Forgiveness: American Expectations of Atonement in Anti-Black Violence.

American media is very quick to ask victims of anti-Black violence if they forgive their victimizers. The media's nearly reflexive framing is a symptom of the broader, cultural demand that Black victims grant forgiveness for racist violence. Reading Juliet Hooker and Myisha Cherry, this paper links...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social Philosophy Today Vol. 39; pp. 165 - 183
Main Author: Luttrell, Johanna C.
Format: Article
Published: Philosophy Documentation Center 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
fields @attributes:
  recordID: 1
pdfLink:
plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=170020841&site=ehost-live
header:
  @attributes:
    shortDbName: hlh
    uiTerm: 170020841
    longDbName: Humanities International Complete
    uiTag: AN
  controlInfo:
    bkinfo:
    jinfo:
      jid:
        15434044
        149E
      jtl: Social Philosophy Today
      issn: 15434044
      maglogo: N
    pubinfo:
      dt: 2023
      vid: 39
      pid: 2411
      pub: Philosophy Documentation Center
    artinfo:
      ui:
        170020841
        10.5840/socphiltoday202369105
      ppf: 165
      ppct: 18
      formats:
      tig:
        atl: Demanding Apology, Demanding Forgiveness: American Expectations of Atonement in Anti-Black Violence.
      aug:
        au: Luttrell, Johanna C.
      su:
        Violence against Black people
        Wells-Barnett, Ida B., 1862-1931
        Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895
        Forgiveness
        Racism
        Oppression
        Atonement
        Lynching
        Apologizing
        Americas
      sug:
        subj:
          Americas
          Violence against Black people
          Wells-Barnett, Ida B., 1862-1931
          Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895
          Forgiveness
          Racism
          Oppression
          Atonement
          Lynching
          Apologizing
      ab: American media is very quick to ask victims of anti-Black violence if they forgive their victimizers. The media's nearly reflexive framing is a symptom of the broader, cultural demand that Black victims grant forgiveness for racist violence. Reading Juliet Hooker and Myisha Cherry, this paper links the current preponderance of such demand for forgiveness to a demand for apology in America's lynching tradition. Drawing from Sonya Renee Taylor, Ida B. Wells, and Frederick Douglass, I give a history to both kinds of normative demands and show how, though they appear as seem-ing contraries, demands for forgiveness and apology function together as methods of anti-Black violence. I then draw from work in transformative justice to differentiate the perspectives of asking, giving, and demanding forgiveness. When understood through the perspective of victims, a certain kind of embodied forgiveness can have liberatory potential. However, observers' demands for forgiveness too often function as a method of racial oppression.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
    refInfo:
    copyright:
      @attributes:
        flag: Y
      dt:
        @attributes:
          year: 2023
    holdings:
      @attributes:
        islocal: N