Forgiveness of Charleston church shooter prompts discussion - Yahoo News

Forgiveness of Charleston church shooter prompts discussion - Yahoo News: Many African-Americans are struggling with those same feelings as the nation begins to move past the tragedy in Charleston. Although many say their religious faith requires them to forgive, there is a question of whether a public narrative of quick forgiveness actually provides cover for whites to avoid facing racism.

"It makes us angry. It makes some of us want to explode," the Rev. Jonathan V. Newton said Wednesday during midweek services at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, which has increased security at its historic sanctuary since the Charleston killings. But forgiveness is "not about that person, it's about you," Newton said. "In order for you to be free, you've got to let it out."

One factor at play is that forgiveness is a strong Christian tradition, and African-Americans identify as Christians more than any other group in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly 80 percent of blacks identified as Christian in 2014, compared with 77 percent of Hispanics and 70 percent of non-Hispanic whites. A smaller number of blacks, 18 percent, identified as agnostic, atheist or "nothing in particular," compared with 24 percent of whites and 20 percent of Hispanics.

Beyond religious purposes, experts say, immediate forgiveness probably helped to forestall reactionary violence in Charleston, denying Roof the race war that police said he told them he wanted to start. Charleston remained peaceful after the killings at Emanuel, a stark contrast to the violence that broke out in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore after the deaths of black men in encounters with police.

The Rev. Norvel Goff, interim pastor succeeding the late Rev. Clementa Pinckney at Emanuel, said self-preservation is also a motive — forgiving does more for the person who is hurting than the one who caused the pain.

Myrlie Evers-Williams, former NAACP national chairwoman, said she was moved to tears to see the Emanuel families speak immediately of forgiveness. She said forgiveness was a lengthy process for her. Harboring thoughts of vengeance for the 1963 murder of her husband, NAACP leader Medgar Evers, motivated her activism, but for her own peace she eventually let it go.

"The hatred has ended up as a motivational tool, and the forgiveness has been a salvation for me," said Evers-Williams.

Historically, Winbush said, African-Americans have been expected to forgive for slavery, discrimination, Jim Crow segregation, attacks by the Ku Klux Klan and police violence. By meeting that expectation, he said, "in one sense we aid and abet those who would commit those crimes."

Ansley M. LaMar, a professor at New Jersey City University, pointed out that the civil rights movement was born out of anger, but the nonviolence and forgiveness it espoused is what people remember about it most.

"There was an understanding that there was a community of black people who were not going to take it if it kept on happening," LaMar said. "So being forgiving doesn't mean being a wimp. It doesn't mean, white folks, you can walk all over me. It means I forgive you, but I'm not going to let this happen again."