Honest Patriots : Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its Misdeeds: Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its MisdeedsIn Honest Patriots, renowned public theologian and ethicist Donald W. Shriver, Jr. argues that we must acknowledge and repent of the morally negative events in our nation's past. The failure to do so skews the relations of many Americans to one another, breeds ongoing hostility, and damages the health of our society. Yet our civic identity today largely rests on denials, forgetfulness, and inattention to the memories of neighbors whose ancestors suffered great injustices at the hands of some dominant majority. Shriver contends that repentance for these injustices must find a place in our political culture. Such repentance must be carefully and deliberately cultivated through the accurate teaching of history, by means of public symbols that embody both positive and negative memory, and through public leadership to this end. Religious people and religious organizations have an important role to play in this process. Historically, the Christian tradition has concentrated on the personal dimensions of forgiveness and repentance to the near-total neglect of their collective aspects. Recently, however, the idea of collective moral responsibility has gained new and public visibility. Official apologies for past collective injustice have multiplied, along with calls for reparations. Shriver looks in detail at the examples of Germany and South Africa, and their pioneering efforts to foster and express collective repentance. He then turns to the historic wrongs perpetrated against African Americans and Native Americans and to recent efforts by American citizens and governmental bodies to seek public justice by remembering public injustice. The call for collective repentance presents many challenges: What can it mean to morally master a past whose victims are dead and whose sufferings cannot be alleviated? What are the measures that lend substance to language and action expressing repentance? What symbolic and tangible acts produce credible turns away from past wrongs? What are the dynamics-psychological, social, and political-whereby we can safely consign an evil to the past? How can public life witness to corporate crimes of the past in such a way that descendents of victims can be confident that they will never be repeated? In his provocative answers to these questions Shriver creates a compelling new vision of the collective repentance and apology that must precede real progress in relations between the races in this country. |
From inside the book
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Page iv
... century . 5. Reparation — United States . 6. Restitution — United States . 7. Reconciliation . 8. Victims of crime - United States . 9. United States - Politics and government— History — 20th century . I. Title . Moral States BT800 ...
... century . 5. Reparation — United States . 6. Restitution — United States . 7. Reconciliation . 8. Victims of crime - United States . 9. United States - Politics and government— History — 20th century . I. Title . Moral States BT800 ...
Page 3
... century to be an Armenian, a Jew, or a Tutsi. On September 11, it was enough to be an American.”2 On that day, our fingers left the keyboards, the telephones, the other tools of our trades while our eyes stared at the televised image of ...
... century to be an Armenian, a Jew, or a Tutsi. On September 11, it was enough to be an American.”2 On that day, our fingers left the keyboards, the telephones, the other tools of our trades while our eyes stared at the televised image of ...
Page 6
... call myself a “German American,” particularly in light of the fact that I grew up in a pervasively anti–German American century. My uncle was wounded on the Western Front in 1918. With most of my cousins I 6 honest patriots.
... call myself a “German American,” particularly in light of the fact that I grew up in a pervasively anti–German American century. My uncle was wounded on the Western Front in 1918. With most of my cousins I 6 honest patriots.
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... century . That rebuke had great pertinence to my Asian journey . Here was my op- portunity to explore experientially the proposition : “ Loyalty to the community is ... morally tolerable only if it includes values wider than those of ...
... century . That rebuke had great pertinence to my Asian journey . Here was my op- portunity to explore experientially the proposition : “ Loyalty to the community is ... morally tolerable only if it includes values wider than those of ...
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... centuries- long humiliation at the hands of the powerful who used them to sustain their power , their wealth , and their belief in their white superiority . Having thus endured the worst crime in American history , the slaves and their ...
... centuries- long humiliation at the hands of the powerful who used them to sustain their power , their wealth , and their belief in their white superiority . Having thus endured the worst crime in American history , the slaves and their ...
Contents
3 | |
15 | |
In the Wake of Remembered Evil | 63 |
To African Americans | 127 |
Photo gallery | 206 |
Native Americans | 207 |
Agenda for the American Future | 263 |
Notes | 287 |
Bibliography | 333 |
Index | 339 |
Other editions - View all
Honest Patriots: Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its Misdeeds Donald W. Shriver Limited preview - 2005 |
Honest Patriots: Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its Misdeeds Donald W. Shriver Jr. Limited preview - 2005 |
Honest Patriots: Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its Misdeeds Donald W. Shriver Jr. Limited preview - 2008 |
Common terms and phrases
African Americans Afrikaner Alex Boraine American history apartheid Berlin Boraine camp Cape Town Cayugas celebration century church citizens civil rights claim Columbia County Commission contemporary culture death debate Desmond Tutu District Six English event evil F. W. De Klerk forget former future German groups high school history historians history books Holocaust hope human Ibid Indians injustice Jewish Jews justice Lakota land leaders lives Mandela memory million Mohicans monument moral murder museum Native Americans Nazi neighbors never Niebuhr official Oklahoma past political Powhatan prison question quoted racism recent Reconciliation remember reparations residents responsibility Richmond riot Robben Island Rosewood settlers side slavery slaves society South African southern Steglitz story suffering survivors teachers thousand tion Todd-Curti truth Tulsa Tulsa Race Riot United University victims Virginia visitors York young