Forgiveness Isn’t Justice: The Other Foot and the Illusion of Reconciliation

What’s the cost when forgiveness takes the place of accountability and real change?

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A Complex Story of Power and Forgiveness

“The Other Foot” presents a striking challenge for the modern reader. At its heart, the story attempts to reckon with the trauma of centuries of systemic oppression, offering a Black population—now safely relocated to Mars—the chance to confront, aid, or abandon their white oppressors. The narrative redistributes the balance of power, allowing this marginalized community the opportunity to serve as either saviors or destroyers of a decimated Earth. However, the resolution—where anger and righteous vengeance dissolve into forgiveness—left me unsettled.

As an aside, it’s worth noting that Ray Bradbury wrote this piece in 1949. In the introduction to the American publication in the 80s, Bradbury acknowledged that the terminology and framework were products of his time. No American magazine would print the story after its completion, and it only found a home in New Story, a Paris-based magazine. It wasn’t until The Illustrated Man was published in 1951 that it became widely accessible. While commendable for its courage, the solutions and routes to healing in the story feel toothless.

For a more in-depth analysis, I recommend reading author Phenderson Djèlí Clark’s piece, “Black People on Mars: Race and Ray Bradbury,” which addresses Bradbury’s handling of race in this story and Way in the Middle of the Air. Clark’s reflections inspired me to explore my own reaction to the story’s ending, and why the resolution of forgiveness leaves me deeply conflicted.

The Problem with Easy Forgiveness

In theory, this act of forgiveness might be seen as a powerful, even revolutionary, moral stance. Yet, as I sat with the story, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The forgiveness depicted here feels forced, as though it’s not truly about justice but sweeping past atrocities under the rug. The pain of centuries of oppression and violence is seemingly absolved by the humbling request for aid, without any real acknowledgment of the need for systemic change or reparations. The more I thought about it, the more this narrative of forgiveness echoed what we see too often in real life—a call to “move on” without reckoning with the profound harm that has been done.

Forgiveness is a complex concept, but it has been twisted into a tool to avoid accountability in this story- and much of our world. It's presented as a moral virtue when often it’s a way for the powerful to silence anger, mask injustice, and escape real consequences. When wielded this way, forgiveness can become a demand for acceptance—of an unjust world—without requiring those responsible to change.

Forgiveness without demanding justice or change is hollow. It’s a strategy to pacify, not to heal.

I don’t believe in radical forgiveness, at least not in the way it’s often framed. Forgiving without demanding justice or change is hollow. It’s a strategy to appease, not to heal. With all its good intentions, The Other Foot illustrates how easy it is to confuse true forgiveness with dangerous complacency.

Forgiveness and My Journey Toward Understanding

I grew up a ravenous reader, with a particular attraction to stories of the trod-upon and the lonely—those quiet children with destinies beyond anything anyone could conceive. I devoured tragic movies and TV shows, believing them to be moralistic fables about the ways things had once been. In my mind, these stories weren’t reflections of the present but cautionary tales of sexism, racism, and injustice that we’d already resolved. I thought they were relics of the past—things society had addressed and left behind.

This idea was reinforced in my weekly ritual of watching Touched by an Angel with my family. Every Sunday after dinner, we’d sit down to watch Monica, Tess, and Andrew—angels sent to Earth to help lost souls. Each episode confronted everyday struggles like poverty or racism, but these problems were framed as personal hurdles to overcome with humility, acceptance, and faith. I didn’t see the systemic harm behind these struggles as a kid. There was no mention of the more profound evils of a society built on slavery, and there certainly wasn’t a single LGBTQ+ character. Racism and poverty were portrayed as individual trials, not the results of unjust systems.

My Catholic upbringing further shaped my understanding of forgiveness. I was taught that we are born with sin and must atone to be worthy of heaven. Forgiveness was tied to the Church, the sole institution that could grant absolution. I sought acceptance and understanding, but when I first heard the word "gay" as a slur on the playground, my world shifted. I didn’t understand the word fully, but I could tell from my mother’s strained explanation that it was something loaded.

As I grew older and came to understand my identity, I found little compassion in the Church. The message was clear: I would be denied access to the Eucharist unless I repented for feelings I couldn’t change. As the Church framed it, forgiveness required repentance for who I was. I searched through catechism and scripture, trying to reconcile my faith with my identity, but found no answers until I attended a Jesuit high school. St. Francis Xavier wrote about defining your relationship with the divine through personal experience rather than through the Church. This liferaft saved me. I realized that forgiveness didn’t have to be mediated by institutions that demanded I repent for my existence.

At the time, I didn’t know there were communities of queer people supporting and building their own families in the world. I didn’t know about Harvey Milk, Marsha P. Johnson, or ACT UP. I didn’t know that there was a social and cultural network of people who had grown up in shadows similar to my own. A group of people not bound together by ethnicity, geography, or religion, but by a collective desire for recognition, rights, and acceptance in society. Why should I forgive a system that hid such a lifesaving truth from me for so long?"

This realization—that entire communities were fighting for the visibility and acceptance I had been denied—was freeing, but it also deepened my frustration with the systems that had kept me in the dark for so long. I began to see how forgiveness, in this context, was being weaponized to make marginalized groups like mine accept their exclusion in silence.

Yet even with this new understanding of spirituality, I still struggled with how forgiveness was used—not just within the Church, but by society at large. Forgiveness had become a tool of compliance, not healing. It wasn’t an invitation to confront harm but a way to silence those who suffered and keep the status quo intact. This version of forgiveness asked for acceptance without addressing the underlying causes of pain.

When Forgiveness Becomes a Means of Control

This realization brought me back to The Other Foot. The story’s resolution—where the Black colonists forgive the white man who arrives on Mars, seemingly erasing centuries of pain and oppression—felt eerily familiar. The forgiveness in the story comes too easily. It’s a call for acceptance, not accountability. Just as I had once been taught to forgive without questioning the systems that excluded me, the characters in The Other Foot are expected to forgive without any real reckoning. It’s a radical forgiveness that feels less like liberation and more like resignation.

As I grew up, I confronted ideas about myself and what I had forgiven away. I forgave those who made me feel less than them, those who didn’t value me, and those who made me fear my own future. I forgave, and forgave, and forgave, and nothing ever changed. Forgiveness became a way to escape, not to heal. It was easy to forgive when forgiveness asked nothing in return.

Much like the Black colonists in The Other Foot, who are asked to forgive the destruction of Earth with no real acknowledgment of harm, I was expected to forgive those who didn’t even recognize the harm they caused. The destruction of the white oppressors' landmarks is offered as proof of change, but the systems that enabled the violence remain. It’s the same abuse of power, just flipped. The apology is surface-level, without true reflection, sacrifice, or change. In both my life and the story, forgiveness becomes a means of silencing, not liberation.

The False Apologies of Our World: A Systemic Issue

Forgiveness had become a tool to demand compliance, not healing or justice. It wasn’t an invitation to truly confront harm; it was a way to silence those who suffered and keep the status quo intact. This version of forgiveness asked for acceptance without ever addressing the underlying causes of pain. It allowed those in power to move on without change, without accountability. Corporations issue hollow statements of remorse after exploiting workers, or governments offer words without reparations to marginalized communities, hoping their words will be enough.

Take, for instance, corporate responses to racial justice movements—statements of solidarity issued without any change to hiring practices or wage inequality. Or governments that apologize for historical atrocities but leave the systems of oppression intact, never addressing the root causes. These apologies often serve as empty gestures, intended to pacify rather than to reform. True reparations or systemic change are rarely on the table, leaving the marginalized no closer to justice than before the apology was issued.

True Forgiveness Demands Accountability and Change

At its root, forgiveness should not be moralistic—it’s an ethical exchange of power. Asking for forgiveness should be an act of humility, backed by action. It’s an acknowledgment of harm and a commitment to making it right. But when forgiveness is used to avoid accountability, it becomes a tool of silence. In The Other Foot, the white man’s offer of service seems like humility, but without a real naming of the harm done, it feels hollow.

True forgiveness requires more than an apology or a symbolic reversal of roles. It requires dismantling the systems that created the harm in the first place. Without that, forgiveness becomes a dangerous illusion, one that allows the powerful to avoid consequences and the wronged to remain unhealed.

What Bradbury’s story ultimately shows is how easily forgiveness can be manipulated when it’s divorced from justice. Forgiveness without accountability doesn’t lead to empowerment or healing—it leads to resignation. In real life, just as in the story, forgiveness must be a two-way street, where both parties work toward real change. Anything less is not forgiveness—it’s acquiescence.

Join the Conversation: Navigating Forgiveness in the LGBTQ+ Community

For many in the LGBTQ+ community, forgiveness has been demanded in ways that erase pain, deny identity, and uphold harmful systems. As someone who grew up struggling with the idea that forgiveness meant denying who I was, this story struck a deep chord with me. How do we, as a community, navigate forgiveness while still demanding the recognition and rights we deserve? I’d love to hear your reflections, especially from fellow LGBTQ+ voices—join the conversation in the comments.

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