Reflections on Accountability and Forgiveness: Part 2

By Stefanie Krasnow and Rami Nijjar

In part 1 of this blog, we explored different perspectives on forgiveness and accountability, and how certain misgivings and biases about forgiveness/accountability can be limiting or harmful for folks, especially those with less access to power and privilege. This first blog was written from the perspective of being on the hurt side. 

In part 2 of this blog, we explore the role the accountability and forgiveness have in creating healing and repair when we are in the role of having done harm. What lies below is from the perspective of being on the offensive side.

Below we explore how accountability and forgiveness can work together to
1) help you create repair in your relationships
2) support you to be a better ally to folks with less access to power and privilege

1) Forgiveness and Accountability: When you’ve messed up

That accountability and forgiveness are inextricably linked is most powerfully illustrated through the process by which we create repair in our relationships with others, and ourselves. We have to forgive ourselves enough so that we can be accountable, go out there in the world and try to create repair. The reverse is also true: we have to be accountable (to others, to our values/ethics) so that we can feel ok in forgiving ourselves for our infractions (on others, on our own values/ ethics). In short: forgive yourself, so you can be accountable; be accountable, so you can forgive yourself.

Let’s zoom in a little bit. Let’s say we’ve hurt someone we care about: we broke an important commitment, lied about something, or let them down in some way. In this example, let’s say that the relationship we have with this person is strong and vulnerable enough such that the hurt party actually feels safe-enough in the relationship to confront us with our mistake(s) and, (this is where it gets hard!), shares their difficult feelings with us. As we start to see someone we care about in distress because of something we did or didn’t do, we often collapse into either shame or blame. Inside our heads, shame thoughts can sound like : ‘I’m a bad person’, ‘only an asshole would do that’,’ I’m broken and damaged and that’s why I did that bad thing’; ‘I’m worthless’; ‘I can’t believe this person puts up with me and is my partner/friend. Blame thoughts can sound like: ‘but I did X because you/they did Y!’; but you/they are (insert judgment here) so that’s why I did X’, ‘why am I getting attacked when you/they are the problem!’, or other forms of defensiveness.

Shame and blame are really two sides of the same coin: shame is when we internalize stress, and blame is when we externalize stress. Neither helps us make repair in our relationships. When someone we care about is hurt because of us, we (usually; hopefully) feel hurt about this in turn. Shame is that hurt turned inward, and blame is that hurt turned outward. Forgiveness, as a manifestation of self-compassion, can help us soothe our own pain enough so that we can curb any harmful tendencies toward shame/blame and get our own pain out of the spotlight so we can show up to validate the feelings of the hurt party and take actions to make repair (accountability).

As usual, this is easier said than done. This is because: difficult emotions are part of this equation, shame/blame tendencies are hard to interrupt, and lastly because repair is not guaranteed. Forgiveness is not won through instant gratification; it is earned. Forgiveness is a process, one that we must have enough patience, integrity, dedication and self-compassion to endure. In this vein, we must (continually) forgive ourselves and soothe our emotions with self-compassion so that we may have the chance of being forgiven by others. We have all been in a fight with someone who makes it about them, who collapses, goes into a shame spiral, and then we end up soothing them when we really would like them to validate us and be accountable! We have all also, probably been ‘that person’. For when you are ‘that person’, self-forgiveness can help you *not make it about you*. This will help your friend/partner/coworker/family member trust you, and see that you have integrity – or at least are doing your best—and are capable of being accountable (or trying darn hard to be).

2) Forgiveness and Accountability: When you’ve got privilege

The title for this sub-section really should read: when you’ve got privilege and you are trying hard to unlearn, mobilize, and provide solidarity to those who don’t! The work of forgiveness and accountability can’t really be possible when we are blind to privilege and blindly enacting harm due to that. The work of forgiveness/accountability can only really begin when we are trying to be aware to our privilege and are willing and wanting to unlearn it for the sake of others and a better world (however, the nature of privilege is that one is systematically unaware or blind to it, which means trying to be aware and unlearn is a full time job).

In activist circles, this endeavor is called allyship. However, there are lots of misunderstandings about what allyship is. Allyship is not a self-appointed, self-congratulatory identity. Moreover, being an ally is not something you are for once and for all simply because of your good intentions. As therapist and activist Vikki Reynolds explains in her article: Leaning in as imperfect allies:

 “Being an ally is not a badge of honor but a sign of privilege and it is risky to be romantic or sentimental about this.When we experience being the subject of power, abuses of power, oppression, or attacks on our dignity we accept allies because we need them, not because it is safe or because we have reasons for perfect trust. We invite good-enough allies, despite past acts that are not trustworthy as imperfect allies are required when the stakes are high and risk is near. The need for allies speaks to structures of social injustice. Our greater purpose is to deliver a just society, not to show up as allies, because our access to power makes that possible.

For folks with less access to power and privilege, who may live precarious lives, having an ally isn’t safe; allies aren’t necessarily wanted but, in an unjust world, they are required. What this means is that as trying-to-be-allies, we really have to get ourselves and our feelings out of the way. As trying-to-be allies, we are going to mess up. We are going to enact our privilege. We are going to be blind, we are going to say the wrong thing. Forgiving ourselves for this is crucial, as if we do not (and go into shame or dare I say blame, see section above) then we end up centering our own privileged feelings and not the real, lived oppression and abuses of power we were supposedly trying to stand up to, to use our own unearned power to stand against.

Forgiveness, as a form of self-compassion, is required for trying-to-be allies. Forgiveness is key for unlearning, as no one who is reading this came in to this world with the beliefs and systems that uphold white supremacy, cis-patriarchy, classism, ableism, etc. We didn’t invent these ideas; we learned them … and so we upheld and perpetuated them most often unwittingly (though sometimes wittingly, too). Forgiveness is part of our inner process as trying-to-be-allies so we can process the icky feelings that arise when we confront all of this, and get on with the show of actually trying to be accountable and of use to those who need (but don’t want) our allyship.

In these moments, forgiveness/self-compassion doesn’t let us off the hook (though it can be delivered this way, as a tool to assuage white guilt). Rather, forgiveness/self-compassion are required: these practices help us self-soothe the shame/guilt so that the situation doesn’t become centered around our feelings, so that those feelings can be processed-enough for us to do the important, messy, relational work of accountability, repair and ideally, of justice.