Last week’s firestorm of news surrounding allegations a former Penn State assistant football coach sexually abused several children over the course of many years, certainly seemed to have everybody talking.
By now, you’ve heard all of the allegations and opinions of every TV news person, blogger and co-worker.
Lost in all of these sometimes heated discussions over the alleged sexual abuse are discussions about noticing the signs of abuse and actually doing something about it.
How many times have you thought a co-worker, friend, classmate or family member was the victim of abuse — sexual or otherwise? Or how many times have you witnessed a parent slap a child in public? Have you ever seen a fight on the street?
In any of these situations, what did you do to intervene?
My guess is that you did nothing.
You never asked that co-worker if she needed help from being abused by her boyfriend. You probably moved your shopping cart to the next aisle after watching a parent violently slap their child. And for fear of retaliation, you probably never called police to report the fight you witnessed.
Is that what we’ve become? A group of spectators?
So many people over the past several days have questioned why Penn State’s legendary and now former head coach, Joe Paterno, didn’t do more. People have questioned why assistant coach, Mike McQuery, did not intervene. They questioned why police and the local district attorney didn’t act after being informed or why school officials did not do more.
None of us can go back in time and change any of the alleged incidents in this situation.
But what we can do is learn from this. We can learn to not take a back seat and find excuses from doing something to intervene in a situation we think is wrong.
If you are a teacher or coach children and you suspect abuse of a child, take action. Call authorities to have it investigated. You’ll be doing that child a huge favor by making a difference in his or her young life.
I’d sooner be wrong about assuming abuse then to let it continue and do nothing. And the important factor here is that if your gut is telling you something is wrong, chances are, you’re right.
Abuse runs deeper than a black and blue mark.
I read something recently about bullying that actually fits well for educating people on abuse:
“A teacher was teaching her class about bullying and gave them the following exercise to perform — She had the children take a piece of paper and told them to crumple it up, stomp on it and really mess it up, but do not rip it. Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out and look at how scarred and dirty it was. She then told them to tell the paper that they were sorry. Now even though they said they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, she pointed out all the scars they left behind. And that those scars will never go away no matter how hard they tried to fix it.”
That’s what the survivor of any type of abuse faces.
What are we going to do to make sure abuse stops?
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Bobby Cherry stands with the survivors. Find him on Gobobbo.
twoday magazine wants to know: How can we come together as a community and stand up against violence? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.
erikdolnack
I feel that anyone that defends or suppresses information to protect a known child-molester should have to be sent to state prison and be molested themselves.
When a school’s reputation is more important than preventing the sexual molestation of innocent children, then that school is [as is all idolatry] pure evil.