Forgiveness has more power than political agenda in hateful tragedy

By David McElroy · June 19, 2015

The murders of nine people at a Charleston, S.C., church this week were a tragedy, but I’m just as appalled by the reaction to the shootings as I am by the murders themselves.

Nine peaceful human beings were worshipping and praying at Emanuel A.M.E Church in Charleston. They were joined by a young man named Dylann Storm Roof, who sat among them for some time before pulling out a gun and murdering almost all of them. This story would already be a horrendous tragedy, but it’s been turned intensely political by the fact that the victims were black and the murderer is a white man who hates black people.

Nobody on any political side has anything to say that would solve the problem of racial hatred or bring back the dead victims, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying to prove themselves right by turning this into an excuse to push their existing political agendas.

I’ve seen some conservatives try to turn this into an argument in favor of having more people armed. Those people say that if the victims had armed themselves at their prayer meeting, someone would have pulled out a gun and shot Roof. I’ve also seen some conservatives who say that racism wasn’t an issue in the shootings, despite the fact that the murderer has made it very clear he hates black people and wants to start a race war.

I’ve seen some progressives try to turn this into a debate over the Confederate battle flag. Those people apparently believe that if that old symbol of the South didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be racists and the murders wouldn’t have happened. I’ve seen others — including both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — use the murders as an excuse to push their existing anti-gun agenda, apparently forgetting that those who want to murder people doesn’t necessarily need guns.

I don’t have a way to stop people from hating each other. I can’t prove it, but I suspect the tendency to hate is built into the DNA of what makes us human. If we were suddenly all one race and one religion, hateful people would find some other basis upon which to hate each other. Eye color? Attached or unattached ear lobe? Height? Hair color? I don’t know what they would choose, but there will always be something.

“Our” group will always be somehow better than “their” group in the minds of many people.

Racism is a horrible thing, even if we can’t necessarily agree what racism is. Some people claim that for something to be racist, it has to involve a majority group somehow abusing a minority group. I find that to be dishonest and politically motivated. Broadly speaking, racism is any way in which a person treats another person negatively because of differences in race.

I’ve known hateful white racists, but I’ve known just as many hateful black racists, especially when I worked in politics.

The fact that racism and other forms of hatred will probably always be with us doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to deal with it, but when we find ourselves using other people’s tragedies to push our existing political agendas, we’re not trying to solve a problem. We’re simply applying our own political narratives to new situations. We’re try to prove we were right all along and that others should now agree with us. (And I’ve certainly been guilty of that at times.)

We have a serious problem with hatred in this world, but it’s not limited to race. I can’t say how to change the hate, but I know that love and forgiveness have something to do with it. I doubt anybody’s existing political agenda has anything to do with it.

The only people who have impressed me in this mess have been some of the families of the victims. When the murderer appeared in court Friday, some of the relatives of victims were allowed to speak.

“I forgive you,” said Nadine Collier, daughter of murder victim Ethel Lance. “You took something very precious away from me. I will never get to talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you, and have mercy on your soul. … You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. If God forgives you, I forgive you.”

Their willingness to forgive reminded me of the man who spoke out to forgive the murderer who shot up a theater in Aurora, Colo., three years ago. From his hospital bed, this man forgave James Holmes for putting three bullets into him.

Forgiving people doesn’t mean not holding them accountable for their actions. It doesn’t mean not stopping them from continuing to hurt people. Roof will pay a heavy price for his murders — and I doubt any among the victims’ families would object to that. Forgiving someone doesn’t necessarily mean you allow him to continue hurting you or others.

The murders in Charleston were committed by a racist man who I believe has mental issues. (I think mental issues are far more pervasive among humans — to one extent or another — than most want to admit.) Those murders were a horrible personal tragedy for the families and friends of the victims. They’re also a terrible national tragedy.

But using the murders as an excuse to push your political agenda oversimplifies a complex issue. I don’t have a solution to racism and I don’t have a way to make the world a safe place for everyone, but I’m appalled that so many people want to turn every tragedy into a partisan political platform.

My heart hurts for the families and friends of the victims of these murders.

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When Francesca Montanaro’s school shut down in March due to fears about the new new coronavirus, she had nowhere to go. Francesca’s mother is a nurse working long hours in New York City. The grandparents who would otherwise have provided child-care were old enough to be vulnerable to the bug, so they were out. That meant Francesca has spent the last few months with her dad at his pizza shop in the Bronx. In this six-minute piece from Radio Diaries and NPR, we take a look at what it’s been like to be a bright and typical 11-year-old thrust into a completely different world. She puts pizza boxes together and answers phones. She’s even learned to make perfect pizzas. I found the story touching. It reminds me of the degree to which children used to learn more about the real world than they do today. Even though she won’t follow in the pizza-making footsteps of her father, I’ll bet this will be one of the defining experiences of her childhood, one that she will treasure for years to come.

I noticed three instances over the weekend of people talking about Donald Trump’s “campaign of hate.” I wanted to correct them — because they misunderstand this narcissist — but I knew they wouldn’t get my point. It’s not that I’m defending him, because what he does is worse than hate. You simply have to understand the way narcissists think to understand him. Trump doesn’t hate. It’s worse than hate. He’s indifferent and angry with anyone who doesn’t obey him and worship him, those who don’t give him what’s called “narcissistic supply.” People believe that Trump hates blacks or Hispanics or foreigners or whatever group which he’s seen as hating. It’s true that he experiences rage at people who will not give him what he wants, but he’s not in touch enough with his real self to feel real hatred, much less to feel real love. He’s like a vampire who sucks all the available praise and adoration from any group of people — any way he can get it. He doesn’t love rural, blue-collar white folks, but their adoration gives him what he craves. He’s not emotionally mature enough even to hate. For a narcissist, people are simply objects to manipulate, depending on what he can get from them. Trump’s indifference is far worse than hatred. This isn’t ideological or political. It’s pathological. He’s not mature enough to hate.

The decline of modern culture can be seen clearly by looking at what passes for public discourse. There was a time when people who wanted their ideas accepted made rational arguments. It was assumed that most people were bright enough and rational enough to evaluate those arguments — and a surprising number of them really were. Today, the arguments are made in the form of irrational and simplistic graphics called “memes.” Because these graphics can’t convey complex or nuanced information, they present dumbed-down presentations of positions which are stunningly juvenile and seem designed to offend rather than to convince. We have regressed from books and dense pamphlets to a level more like that of angry kindergartners making crayon-scrawled hate notes to send to other children. Reason no longer plays a role in public discourse, and this signals the coming fall of this society.

Lucy just made possible friends with two little girls, but the girls are more enthusiastic so far than she is. Joy, 5, and Hope, 6, just moved in with their grandmother on my street. I didn’t know this, but while Lucy and I were walking, I heard a tiny voice from the darkness cry out, “Hi, doggie!” It took me a minute to figure out where the voice was coming from, but once I did, their grandmother, Rose, came out onto the porch and gave the girls permission to pet Lucy, which delighted the girls. Joy said she wasn’t allowed off her porch since she had socks and no shoes. Lucy was shy, but allowed them to pet her a bit, while the girls marveled about how soft she is. I hope Lucy will let them be her friends. It’s a joy to see how far Lucy has come since she came to live with me. She’s nothing like the “special needs dog” who I was told would never get close to anybody.

I’ve never taken YouTube very seriously as a publishing platform — not enough to do anything more than post the occasional random video — but I’ve started laying a foundation for doing more with it in the future. I created and uploaded some simple branding to my longstanding YouTube channel this weekend and I’ll be doing more in the future. The channel has only about 300 subscribers, so if you feel so inclined, I would appreciate it if you’d subscribe. As with all things on social media, subscriber counts and views help me to get future content seen more easily by others. Click here to visit the channel.

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