DWQA QuestionsCategory: Limiting BeliefsThe guilty are always in an exceedingly poor bargaining position vis-à-vis the aggrieved. To err is human, and to forgive is divine. But what of those in need of forgiveness where no such forgiveness is forthcoming, especially when their perceived wrongdoing is being born in a particular race? How are the accused supposed to respond to accusers calling for justice for crimes they didn’t commit, but whose ancestors may have?
Nicola Staff asked 3 years ago
In a sense, that is the point of the exercise, to make the people of another racial group suffer as one’s forebears have suffered and as descendants of them continue suffering in sympathy with all that has happened through history and feeling discriminated against in the current life. We have said before that "Two wrongs do not make a right." The perpetuation of suffering in this way multiplies the damage and all but guarantees it will persist through the current generation and likely beyond it as well. People ask: "When will racism ever go away?" It is clear from the conduct of individuals fanning the flames that the answer might well be "never." It is not because the racists will not give up their faulty thinking, it is because new generations of racists are born and their victims responding with attacks to punish them in a similar way. This is a prescription for perpetual conflict—not reaching a state of enlightenment to move beyond the pettiness of prior errors based on miscommunication and an intentional manipulation to create prejudiced thinking. That is why the only hope here is to heal the perpetrators who create succeeding generations of haters to keep the old hatreds alive, and this is quite easy for them to do. When haters are in short supply, one can ramp up the sensitivity of the former victims or those identifying with the historical victims and make them impassioned and seeking retribution because of their growing anguish about all that has happened to their forebears, and feeling threatened in the current generation as well. Even if haters did not exist, being accused of racial prejudice is guaranteed to create hatred in many treated in this way. After all, racial prejudice is the assignment of characteristics, often of a demeaning nature, to the members of another race, and that will have happened because of discomfort, in assigning an explanation that may well be wildly inaccurate about what those people are like and their potential with respect to intelligence, morality, and other human attributes. When seen through a distorted lens, as when accused of wrongdoing unjustly, this is likely to create beliefs that members of a race cannot be trusted and thus is born a new generation of prejudicial haters. That is why there needs to be a divine intervention to break this cycle. It can only happen if the perpetrators stand down so they do not keep the game going.