Penn State Penitence

Everyone is asking how the grownups at Penn State could look the other way while children were molested in the team showers.  Because this horrific lapse of judgement/citizenship/humanity occurred in the context of a high stakes athletic program, many are concluding that it's all about the money.


Football rakes in $70 million per year at Penn State (according to Slate.com). In our hyper-capitalist society we tend to assume that money explains most behavior. Media commentators are saying that those who knew were afraid to rock a boat with that much ballast. Some are even saying that the money and culture of NCAA football are the problem.


That amount of money, together with the celebrity of the alleged molester, make this case notorious, but I think we're missing the point.  What we should be talking about is what this case has in common with every other case of child molestation: the not-so-innocent bystanders.

For every father that molests a daughter, there is a mother who doesn't believe it could happen.  For every uncle or grandfather, there is the family that doesn't believe it could happen.  For every town in which a prominent citizen molests a child there is a whole community that doesn't believe it could happen. As a result, it has to happen over and over until the unthinkable becomes...thinkable.


It should be thinkable because it appears to be all too common.  Maybe if we were talking about this type of thing more openly, victims and the adults around them would understand that they need to go to the police when there is even a suspicion of child molestation.

Julie Sullivan, a middle school teacher in Belfair, didn't think her students were too young to think about child sexual predators.  Her class at Hawkins Middle School, researched how our state justice system deals with sex offenders and then came up with ways to fix the system. This project opened up a community conversation about sex offenders.  Quoting from an article in the Kitsap Sun,


"After the showcase, 13-year-old Mikayla Mehelich said the students didn’t find talking about sex offenders difficult. It’s a reality kids today live with, she said...When she told her parents and grandparents her class was working on a sex offender project they were 'dumbfounded.' But as the weeks have gone by, Mehelich said her family has been asking a lot of questions about the project."


We all need to face the reality that sex offenders can look like, or even be, grandpas or coaches.  It must be hard to report grandpa or a coach to the police, but not reporting a suspected child sexual predator?  That's unthinkable.


Read more about Julie Sullivan's class at: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/feb/19/not-too-taboo-north-mason-students-examine-sex/?partner=RSS#ixzz1dvebocPP