This is what is wrong with the left. Instead welcoming positive change with open arms, people expect you to die living a life they deem correct and then maybe you will earn their forgiveness/whatever it is you think you offer. Fuck this attitude. It's what fuels so many people to go right in the first place where they are welcome without being forever ridiculed for some dumb ass reason. Nobody has to burn at the stake and give up all worldy possessions to earn your good graces, it's unreasonable and illogical. No better than the thing you claim to hate.
The problem with the concept of forgiveness is the assumption that every transgression or pattern of behavior has to be total water under the bridge the moment someone makes a first step, else that person is being genuinely oppressed.
Bullshit. The lot of it.
The fact is personal change, provided it's sincere, takes time and effort. It's a long journey all on its own. But within that time of forging your way to personal betterment, you are not actually owed forgiveness or the benefit of the doubt, because the fact remains we live in a world where that benefit of the doubt is so often taken advantage of or repurposed as a bludgeon to force actually aggrieved parties and groups to "get over" what it was that happened to them.
Because that's what it's really about for the right and people who sympathize with them: to never be put in a position to actually have to meaningfully atone for their sins, to never actually ask what it would mean to make an equitable and safe world for all, because they know full well that you can't fix that with $50,000. They know they're incapable of doing it in their lifetime, so what we get instead are pathetic victim complexes, historical denialism, conspiracy theories, and heightened bigotry- anything to kick the can down the road to a generation that will eventually end up having to wage a fight against equality and safety (because let it be known this state of conservative privilege will not last forever; something will give) or towards the apocalyptic endpoint of runaway global warming whereby nothing like this matters, whichever comes first.
I mean, you can't even fix PDP's issues with that amount. The fact we must never forget is that numerous Muslim families were irreparably torn apart that day because a dipshit was inspired by an environment that welcomed and championed PDP's hateful and self-rhetoric to go into a safe space of worship and slaughter as many as he could. People are dead in part behind this idiot. What the fuck is $50k to them? Am I the only one asking that?
Yes. The donation is a good gesture. But it's not the end all, be all in PDP's path to redemption. It's not the end to this story. And for the vulnerable populations affected by his rhetoric they deserve the right to skepticism. The right, its grifters and gamers, and its sympathizers and apathetic family members have done literally fuck all to earn unbridled trust from their victims after years and years and years of bigoted stupidity. This is hard work that ideally should be done for its own sake. Honestly? We should strive to be better human beings just because. Not so we can get some good press in the "MSM."
If PDP can't manage that hard work, if he was expecting everyone to lavish praise upon him and then be done with the whole row, then honestly? He can fuck off. And his defenders can go with him.