“The harmed party should always have the first hand in establishing what counts as civil, what counts as worthwhile, and what will serve a greater good.” An excellent article on the expectation victims of racism should be forgiving.
Slacktivist adds more: “the miracle of forgiveness is that it inverts — it corrects — the prior power dynamic. The process of forgiveness acknowledges that the wronged party, the victim of an injustice, now has a kind of power over those who wronged them — the power to grant or to withhold forgiveness. This inversion of power is intolerable for The Powers That Be. It threatens their identity and source of meaning, i.e., their monopoly on power and choice.”
