Health + Youth

“What
white people are really asking for when they demand forgiveness from a
traumatized community is absolution. They want absolution from the
racism that infects us all even though forgiveness cannot reconcile
America’s racist sins. They want absolution from their silence in the
face of all manner of racism, great and small. They want to believe it
is possible to heal from such profound and malingering trauma because to
face the openness of the wounds racism has created in our society is
too much. I, for one, am done forgiving.”
—Roxane Gay