I was having a discussion online today with a friend from Belgium, discussing the situation in Puerto Rico. When I mentioned it was a protectorate of the U.S., he asked what that was, and I told him it was similar to what the Belgian Congo used to be. He admitted what the Belgians had done in the Congo was atrocious, with some people using it as an excuse for terrorism today.
The Belgian Congo rebelled and achieved their independence in 1960, 57 years ago. But this is just one example of a grudge held for such a long period. Many blacks today still hold whites accountable, not only for racist acts, but also for century old Jim Crow laws, as well as slavery itself. Many Christians today hold Jews accountable for the death of Jesus Christ two millennia ago. And Americans today hold Muslims accountable for multiple terrorist acts committed against us over the last two decades, even as Muslims hold Americans accountable for our support of Israel over the last 70 years.
All of this hatred could be wiped away with the simple act of forgiveness.
At what point should the sins of a group of people be forgiven?
To blame a group of people for a sin assumes complicity of the entire group with the sin itself. It is easy to blame the German people for the Holocaust, but most Germans did not vote for Hitler. In fact, Hitler never won an election in Germany. He was appointed chancellor by the winner, Paul von Hindenburg. Then Hitler succeeded Hindenburg after Hindenburg's death in 1934. Hitler eliminated the president's office and created the new office Führer und Reichskanzler, thereby making himself the supreme ruler of Germany. The Germans were only guilty of passively accepting Hitler's rule, during a time of desperate economic straits, brought on by French vindictiveness after World War I.
Knowing all that, even if you still blame the German people for allowing the Holocaust and World War II, at what point should they be forgiven? Certainly it makes sense to blame those who committed atrocities, but what of their children? And their children's children? Are the sins of the fathers to be the sins of the sons too? Even if you never forgive the perpetrators, shouldn't their children be forgiven?
If we don't draw a line somewhere, and say, "At this point, all sins are forgiven," then we are all to be damned as evil for all eternity. Because I can guaranty at some point in your ancestry, somebody related to you did somebody else wrong.
When does the lack of forgiveness become a sin in itself?
Hypothetical question: If your father was a serial killer, and you had nothing to do with his crimes, should you be hated for his actions? Of course not.
If the father of your neighbor down the street was a serial killer, should you be hated for his actions, by virtue of where you live? Of course not.
If a white-skinned person owned slaves, should all white-skinned people be held accountable for this for all time? How about Jim Crow laws? Lynching of blacks? Bull Connor?
If you need to understand why we have a revival of old-fashioned racism today, after decades of near dormancy, look no further than a lack of forgiveness.
We live in a time of a double standard, but this one applies to blacks. Black people can say nearly anything they like about whites, without fear of media retribution. On the other hand, if you keep the hurtful comment but change the color of the speaker, and it suddenly becomes not only wrong, but blasted across all media. People even lose their jobs over such things. Mind you, I am not calling it unjustified when hurtful racial comments result in bad consequences. I am calling it unjustified when blacks aren't held accountable for the same kind of hurtful comments against whites.
When racism, regardless of who is on the receiving end, is given a free pass, there will be consequences.
One of those consequences comes with young people, who had nothing to do with any of the past evils perpetrated by whites upon blacks, and yet they are accused of racism at every turn. What exactly is an economically poor young white person to think when they hear the term "white privilege"?
A lot of the modern racism argument against all whites comes down to police shootings, which ignores the fact that MORE WHITES ARE KILLED BY COPS. Certainly, more blacks are killed as a percentage, but the mere fact that whites are involved in more killings by cops proves this isn't racial. Add onto that fact that most of the police shootings of blacks are later judged to be justified, and what we have is a knee jerk, and wrong, assumption of racism.
It is easy to sit back and call this some kind of reverse racism by blacks. But it isn't that. Generally, blacks don't believe they are "superior" to whites. No, this is an expectation of racism from whites. Why would they expect it? Because they assume there is an intent in whites to commit acts of racism against them.
This assumption comes from a lack of forgiveness.
By not forgiving the person or people who have wronged you in the past, then you expect the evil to remain in their hearts.
The problem here comes with children. Children faced with certain expectations of them tend to live up to those expectations. If you expect children to be evil, don't be surprised if they grow up to be that way. If you expect them to be racists, don't be surprised when they become racists. We are seeing that now.
We cannot continue living with this "sins of the fathers are the sins of the sons" attitude, or we will bring the racism pendulum back upon ourselves again and again.
But racism is not the end of this discussion.
We also need to forgive Islam, and the Muslims need to forgive us.
Admittedly, we are in the midst of a bad period with Islam, where we are in wars in Muslim-dominated nations all over the world. It's been 16 years of endless war with Islam, and it needs to end. When that happens, we will need to forgive, and to seek forgiveness, or else we will return to this mess in the future.
There will always be times when some people in the world will have evil in their hearts, for a multitude of reasons. They will need to be dealt with appropriately. But once they are, we must remember to "forgive them their trespasses". If we do not, we will only remain in an endless cycle of hate, revisiting the same problems again and again.
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