We can also maybe embrace a genuine expression of human grace when we see it, even as we understand that history there.
[ETA] From the Root:
Brandt Jean said this was specifically about him and what he needed to do, not about her or about absolving the system. My hope is that this has a real effect on her, not in letting her feel like she is now forgiven and vindicated, but that she actually destroyed a human life for no reason and that she should use the rest of her life to work for a better society that final comes to terms with it’s racist past and present.
I was just coming here to post that, but since you beat me to it:
Well stated.
Yesterday I said Jean’s brother was a better person than I am, referring to his personal willingness to forgive his sibling’s assailant.
What I really meant is that I personally have very little capacity for arbitrary ‘forgiveness’ left; I find that my reserves are nearly depleted, and all I have left is untapped founts of rage.
Sure, but Brandt Jean gets to deal with this however he feels that he should. I think we can both be pissed at the shitty sentence and the white supremacy that it represents and accept that he felt the need to do this as a human being. Putting him in the “Green Mile” position because he decided to forgive her kind of erases him of his agency… WE don’t have to forgive her… the black community of Dallas doesn’t have to forgive her. None of us have to do what he did. He wanted to do this, and he’s not an avatar for our feelings. He’s a person.
I dont think he’s saying that Jean’s feelings arent valid, but everyone who’s acting like his forgiveness is how POC “should” act when we are regularly victimized and slaughtered is some straight up unrealistic “Magical Negro” bullshit. That expectation is insulting as fuck.
I agree with this, 100%, but I suspect you know that.
I think this is part of the larger problem of racism (or even of mass society) that we as individuals get flattened into these categories, so when someone makes a choice like this, it becomes a stand in for what that entire group of people should do.
i hope you understand that my highlighting of brandt jean’s impact statement came not from any expectation that he “should” have responded that way but was instead because of my unabashed awe that he responded that way. i try very hard to live an ethical life and i possess a forgiving spirit willing to turn the other cheek and treat others as i wish to be treated despite my agnosticism, but i don’t know if i would have the ability to do what that young man did.
High profile tragedies drag performative forgiveness behind them like chains. I wish Brandt Jean hadn’t publicly forgiven Amber Guyger because I think it plays into an unhealthy media narrative about race (see above), but it is completely and correctly none of my damn business how he grieves for his brother, so okay.
What was not okay was when Judge Kemp hugged Guyger after sentencing and handed her a Bible. Religious beliefs have no place in a courtroom. Dallas got part of this right – they convicted Amber Guyger for summarily executing an unarmed man in his own home; everything else about this —the comforting bailiff; the pious, sympathetic judge apologetically dispensing justice and unapologetically distributing the Good News —reeks of religion, class, gender, and race biases.
