The attempt to divide the world into tidy categories of oppressor and oppressed or victimizer and victim oversimplifies the more complex realities of histories and habits of sin and evil.

While it is undeniably true that many people have suffered–and continue to suffer–immensely through exploitation and violence, systemic and otherwise, none of us is free from the trap of being both victimizer and victim. In one and the same relationship, I may be both oppressor and victim (though obviously to different degrees).

…in the complex webs that constitute human relations, it is inevitable that we human beings find ourselves as both oppressors and victims–though obviously, once again, to different degrees.

from Embodying Forgiveness