Forgiveness of Historical and Current Racial Offenses: A Study of Intergroup Forgiveness Among African Americans

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the conditions needed for historically oppressed groups to forgive historical offenses and current experiences of racial/ethnic offenses. This study includes a sample of 147 African Americans. Results indicate that the condition needed for forgiving historical racial/ethnic offenses is different than that required for forgiveness of current racial/ethnic offenses. Remorse, reparations, seeking forgiveness and religion were found to be significant contributors to forgiving historical racial offenses. On the other hand forgiving current experiences of racism was only determined by personality characteristic of tendency to forgive. No age or gender v i differences were observed; however males were significantly more willing to forgive current experiences of racism even though they reported more incidences of racism and more racism related stress. Implications for these findings are discussed along with recommendations for the counseling profession; counselor education and counselor educators.