https://www.npr.org/2019/08/05/748207152/you-2-0-tunnel-vision
Hidden Brain does a very good take down on this. 38 min well invested.
ETA: IQ is a lousy concept for most applications, and almost any measure has been demonstrated to be rife with racism and classism. I prefer to evaluate functioning.
Does “appropriate” mean more to you than apparently sincere and heartfelt? If so, in my experience, yes, something useful feels better than that. After all, why suddenly trust powerful people who suddenly claim they’re sorry for abusing others?
Why are you so hung up on forgiveness?
Indeed, money does make people less vulnerable. And eliminating poverty is definitely one of the most pressing issues we are facing. I’m not sure if that adds up to a strong case for financial restitution, because I doubt that this would bring many people out of poverty.
Yes, that one is a strange religious misconception (Calvin was largely responsible for that, if I remember correctly), though I’m happy to report that in recent years I see less and less people subscribe to that.
Not once in my live I have actually seen that happening. Have you?
But I can understand why even somebody who is hungry would prefer money, so I would not be offended when they actually said so. Even if they take my money to buy booze or cigarettes, I’m actually fine with that. Took me a while to figure that out, though.
I see no reason for you to be pilloried, but I do wonder, why are you even asking this question? Has this happened to you?
Anyway, in the unlikely event that that happens, I’d say you’re welcome to feel whatever you feel. Maybe just move on, and give the sandwich and drink to someone else.
I laid out above what I think makes up a meaningful apology. Does reading that resolve it?
I am “so hung up on forgiveness” because I see how it helps people deal with distressing live events in a positive and constructive way. If you spend your cognitive capacity dwelling on the past with resentment and anger, you obviously can’t use that capacity to shape your future. And that’s what forgiveness is basically about: taking back control and responsibility about your own life.
On top of that there’s research (and I’m not talking about all that religious stuff) that indicates that forgiveness has a positive effect on people’s physical and mental health.
I share your sentiments about IQ, and will find that this is also mentioned in the article I linked. It’s actually a quite clever study design, you might still want to read it.
Okay, thanks for the link so I could review its components. Yes, that resolves it for me, especially the bit about “adequate restitution” (even though you go on to say you don’t think financial restitution is appropriate in this case – I disagree).
You’re laying a lot of work to be done on the victim here. I’m surprised you didn’t throw in something about also about how they need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
We’re talking about racism here. It’s pretty rich for a bystander to place such heavy emphasis on the need to its victims to get past their “resentment and anger” by forgiving the perpetrator of yet another racist incident. Saying that racism’s victims need to work toward “taking back control and responsibility about your own life” also expresses little concern with the effects of yet another racist incident, let alone the many other instances POC face otherwise, often daily.
Yeah, if POC would only forgive white people whenever they do something racist, things would be so much better, right? 
Can you really not hear what that sounds like?
As a matter of fact, yes. Person in Safeway parking lot with said sign. Went into Safeway, procured sandwich and bottle of OJ, brought out to person, who said “How about money instead?”
eta: I prefer truth in advertising; at least give me notice you want money, not food.
I gave a donut to an Inuit woman a year and a half ago, her face lit up. But then I realized she’d smiled at me previously in the subway station. I was trying to acknowledge her as a distant cousin, and she’d moved a bit further over, into an area that might not be happy to see a homeless woman there. So I almost spontaneously gave her the donut because I had some. For a while after that, I did carry a cold drink, it was sunmmer, when I went by there, but she’d moved elsewhere.
I know a few times I’ve not had change and someone has been insistent, but since the time I remember the same guy had been in another city a few weeks before, I think he clasified as a panhandler who was well off. Most aren’t but there is a subset who don’t really classify as homeless.
I als o remember almost forty years ago, someone panhandling through the winter and I’d give him a few coins each time I passed. And then about spring he said he owed me quite a bit, and gave me a handful of change. I said “things have changed?” And he said " yes". I never saw him again, so I assume/hope something changed for the better.
I think some of this discussion about money assumes someone is poor. Then an influx of cash can make someone “happy”, but likely because they have money, not because the situation changed. If you have little money, getting a chunk lets you do things you might not otherwise do. Even just getting it as a chunk means you can plan and do some things that regular but smaller chunks doesn’t allow.
If you have “some money” a payout will not rectify the situation, the disconnect between rectifying the situation and getting money is more obvious.
I’m not saying giving change to panhandlers is a bad thing, but small change may go to “trivial things” because there’s no hope of accumulating enough to make change. “I can only buy a chocolate bar, so I might as well”, while as a chunk of money, you can dream, you can plan, you can get something more substantial than a chocolate bar. Or as a chunk, you may feel like you shouldn’t fritter it away, so you keep most of it for a rainy day.
But that’s about money, not being homeless or treated badly by a bank.
One thing the cousins want is to be perceived differently. That includes the assumption that having money means drug money. But it aso means that however bad things are, it doesn’t mean everyone has a sad life, with poverty. So we can’t assume a chunk of money will change things.
We were a prominent, well off Metis family in Red River 150 years ago. My great, great grandmother felt racism, but the money provided a buffer so the worst wasn’t there. Others had more to lose from the coming of settlers from the east, not just racism but the loss of land and way of life. (and we were a new people, in between, it was far worse for non-Metis natives.) We got a museum, The Ross House Museum in Winnipeg, and Winnipeg can’t sell the old police HQ because it was “Metis donated land”, actually sold at a low cost, on the condition it be used for public good. If Winnipeg sells the land, the money goes to the cousins.
Money makes things easier, it doesn’t fix everything.
Corporations themselves are incapable of experiencing regret.
An apology from a corporation is, to me, just an attempt to manipulate public sentiment.
If a corporation is in a position to apologize for something, then it also ought to be in a position to be regulated in a punitive way that figuratively breaks its arms until everything is fixed so it doesn’t happen again.
It was nice of you to procure the sandwich and OJ. What did you do when the person asked for money?
I would’ve pointed out the discrepancy between the sign and their request, explain that’s why you bought food, and ask if they want it or not. Again, if not, just move on.
Yes, homeless people’s pleas could often be better stated, but I don’t think poorly stated pleas are much of a thing for me to get huffy about.
I will give you my own example, so n=1: take that as you wish.
I will never forget the crimes and abuses I’ve suffered over the years, but being in a financially stable position now, at this point in my life, has buffered the long term impact of it all. The money gave me the physical and mental space to ‘get over it’. If I would have been expected to find forgiveness first as a condition of being able to move on, I would have been rightly offended.
The onus shouldn’t be on the victims; they need to be put in a better position first, and then they can decide how they feel about what happened to them.
Corporations don’t have hearts. They are heartless. They’re a machine made out of law.
There is a whole lot of stuff to unpack in this post, and a lot of missing background and detail. Having now read a bunch of articles, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of overt racist activity at the time of the incident. Although unfortunate at the time, the story became racial 19 days after the fact. The initial criminal indicator was mis-matching identification numbers, not the fact that the ID was a status card. Police responded to a credible report of a fraud-in-progress with whatever information was given to them. Apparently the “child” was described as a 16 year old South Asian. Given the background of the increasing incidence of fraud, counterfeit ID, identity theft, the ongoing gang war in Metro Vancouver, perhaps the actions of both the bank teller and the police were justified. Or at least understandable in the heat of the moment. I’m going to reserve judgement until all the facts come out.
That said, if I was the Grandfather, I’d be really pissed-off. Perhaps even the Canadian royally pissed-off.
None of what I have written diminishes the various plights of First Nations, Inuit and Metis in Canada. Many Canadians recognize that and support reconciliation.
Yeah, I figured that out too, working night shift and being approached by people in grocery store and gas station parking lots in the middle of the night.
Not my job to police a homeless person’s behavior.
“but they’ll just buy drugs!” yeah? Well the government takes taxes out of my paycheck without asking to buy drone strikes on childrens birthday parties. I pay Exxon or Shell for gasoline and they use that money to destroy the environment. What’s worse?
I think any organizations is essentially a group of people, and not a machine made out of law. Because it’s people who act, and not the law. The law provides constraints, but one can chose to ignore those, at least for a while.
So the people in the organization can choose to take responsibility for what the organization does. First and foremost that is the CEO‘s job, if they do that, others will follow. It’s definitely within the CEO‘s power to offer a sincere apology, and make sure things change for the better.
We still need to change the law and break up corporations, but it‘s not the law that stops the CEO from showing some decency.
Well what do the people complaining think I am gonna spend the money on?
A corporation is nothing more than a legal device specifically designed to shield the ownership and leadership from the liabilities generated by the operations of the corporation. Take an economics class.
Outside that, a corporation might do many things, but it is simply a way to make lucrative contracts without risking your own personal collateral.
I now hear what that sounds like to you. And that is not what I meant to say. Forgive me for not making myself more clear:
When I explained to you why I am “so hung up about forgiveness”, I was pointing out why reducing or eliminating the mental load of a distressing live event beneficial for the victim. Correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I read I believe we both agree on that.
And if that is the case, I believe our focus as a society needs to be on supporting victims so that they are in a position to choose whether or not they want to forgive. I hinted at that when I said:
I should have explained that the rest of society is not a bystander, we all need to work towards a world where this can happen on a large scale. Reducing the victims vulnerability is a part of that. Does that stilI sound like telling people to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”?
Yes, dealing with trauma does require some effort on the part of the victim. I’m afraid there is no way around that, even though that seems unfair. There is scientific consensus that the earlier a victim is able to work on a trauma, the better the long-term prognosis. Therefore for all the trauma we were unable to prevent, the least we can as a society do is support victims to work on that as early as possible.
