It was sickening to read accounts of
eight men who were abused as boys by the recently convicted Jerry Sandusky.
Even after the former Penn
State assistant football
coach was found guilty of sexually assaulting 10 boys, his legacy of
manipulation and violence against minors continues to unfold. After the trial
it was reported that the perpetrator’s own adopted son Matt Sandusky offered to
testify how he himself had been abused, this according to his lawyers Andrew
Shubin and Justine Andronici.
It also came to light that over the
years, as the molestation of the other boys was happening, there were eyewitnesses
to some of the assaults. I was deeply disturbed with what that handful of
people, who saw or knew of his actions, did about it: they remained silent. Sandusky’s
victims are not included on this point, because I can’t imagine the confusion,
shame and terror those young boys felt when they contemplated telling someone
about their ordeal.
Regarding adults who know things but
don’t tell, it’s ironic. I used to associate ‘snitching,’ or rather not
snitching, only within the context of today’s youth. Snitching, according to my
laptop’s dictionary, is ‘telling somebody in authority about another person's
wrongdoing.’ Many kids believe snitching is a grave, some say unforgivable,
offense. As a result, a whole lot of trouble – everything from street crimes to
school bullying – goes largely unreported.
When I first became aware of this
culture of silence, I was dumbfounded. The obvious source to blame for this
ridiculous mentality, which to my mind is akin to cutting off your nose to
spite your face, was street thugs and drug dealers. They were my prime suspects
for saddling this destructive mindset among our children. Then I thought a
little deeper and came up with other culprits, some that were a lot closer to
home.
‘Polite’ society explicitly trumpets
the values of truth, justice and doing the right thing. At the same time, we
embrace our own culture of secrets regarding a whole lot of misdeeds. Among
them: domestic violence, family member substance abuse and of course, child abuse.
There are other systematic transgressions to which we claim moral offense,
including sexism, racism, sexual orientation prejudice and more. We also look
with disfavor on various forms of white collar crime. (By the way, snitching in
the business world is more commonly referred to as whistle blowing.)
Deepening the irony is the fact that
as often as not, remaining silent ‘for the greater good’ eventually results in people
getting hurt – sometimes fatally. This begs the question: what’s worse, the one
who knows and tells, or the one who knows and tells not? The answer seems
obvious, yet in many cases what we end up doing (or rather not doing) suggests
otherwise. Why is it so hard to do what everyone agrees is the right thing? Might
it have something to do with what people think about themselves inside that
makes them act contrary to what they believe?
Some say folks who don’t do the right
thing are in denial. That’s the speculation around Sandusky’s wife who lived in
the same house where her son said her husband molested him for years, yet she emphatically
denies knowing anything. Really?
One thing is certain to my mind and
it’s summed up in a variation on a popular adage: all that is necessary for
injustice to prevail is for people of good conscience to do nothing. That said,
what are you doing?
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