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Racialized Forgiveness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2021

Myisha Cherry Open the ORCID record for Myisha Cherry [Opens in a new window]
Myisha Cherry*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of California, Riverside, California, USA
*
Corresponding author. [email protected]
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Abstract

This article introduces a concept that I refer to as racialized forgiveness. Cases that exemplify certain conditions that I take as paradigmatic of the problem of racialized forgiveness include instances in which: (a) who is forgiven or not is determined by the race of the offender; (b) praise and criticisms of forgiveness are determined by the race of the victim; and (c) praise and criticisms of forgiveness are, at least implicitly, racially self-serving. I argue that this practice is morally objectionable because of its psychological origins, moral failures, and negative effects. Accordingly, in order to dodge these pitfalls, we need to practice forgiveness differently.

Type
Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , Fall 2021 , pp. 583 - 597
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hypatia, a Nonprofit Corporation

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