Just a brief comment on the Penn State scandal/riots.

A riot broke out on Penn State campus when it was revealed that long-time coach and school institution Joe Paterno was fired in the fall-out of a horrendous pedophilia case. The crime that was ineffectually reported and, in the long run, virtually covered up, was a terrible breach of the responsibility that adults owe to children. It became known to several people on the staff of Penn State University, including football coach Joe Paterno and the university's president Graham Spanier, that Jerry Sandusky, a defensive coach for Penn State, had molested young boys. He was urged to "retire".

And that was that.  He was able to go on from there to go his merry way. His merry, probably child-raping way.

I'm not really a follower of college football, but I am a Pennsylvanian, so I definitely recognize the influence of Penn State football and the organization's legendary coach.  But I can't get beyond the horror of the claims against the former Penn State coach, Jerry Sandusky. The story of eight victims is just the stories of kids who we know about. The reality with serial abusers like this is there could be so many more. It just seems to me that if someone had any inkling of what this guy was doing, they would want it stopped then and there because of what he was capable of. But that didn't happen.

They passed the buck, is what it is. They got him out of the Penn State system so that when his abuse was ultimately exposed, he was well away from their business, and they could disavow it--except for the access he still had. Except, except, except--he would still be abusing boys.


I think the sexual predation of children is a crime of sufficient horror to stun sensible, feeling people. There's a tremendous ill-will towards that crime, and yet, it persists.  It persists because it's so terrible it impels denial because people can't wrap their heads around how fucked-up it is. They prefer not to believe that someone they know did something so horrible, or they want to believe if the offender was removed, they'd "get over it" and stop.

And so they just want their own little corner of the world unsullied by that wretched horror. They want to get things clean, without getting things honest or open. And they tolerate the harming of children just so they can get their little corner of the world "clean" again. But it doesn't wash. There is no time to address that kind of predatory wickedness like when it's found out. Silence is evil's best friend.

For those finding out second or third-hand, the shock doesn't even seem to be about what happened to the children--but what happens to the institution and its pillars. Joe Paterno is a pillar of Penn State. His being fired after being given the option to choose the date of his retirement seems like a sudden, craven, reactionary thing--and also, it's like an accusation of complicity with a crime so horrible our impulse is to look away--when its existence means we need to pay attention.

What I think is disturbed by this event and led to the riots is the identification and tribal sympathy Penn Staters have for their beloved coach.  He's a totem in their eyes.  Sacred. Inviolable. But in reality, he is a person who can make mistakes.  His mistake doesn't have to reflect on the university as a whole--but the symbol that he became makes many students who strongly identify with what they feel he represents want to defend him, even if his failure to do the right thing permitted the truly indefensible.

It's very sad. I think the rioters only mean to react to what they feel is an insult to the otherwise honorable career of someone they respect and revere--but it conveys a disrespect for the seriousness of what was allowed. And the denial of that serious, dark, horrible crime is where all of this began.

I wish we did not live in a world where rape was this odd, rejected, denied thing in conversation--and yet still so prevalent in practice. I wish people understood the power of abuse, the taboo of abuse, the reason why it shouldn't still be so unspeakable. I wish people understood why it has to be dragged into the light--so more people understood the right and wrong of it--the importance of mutuality and consent--the utter crime of taking that freedom away from anyone, but especially someone so powerless as a child.  I wish it mattered enough to those who mattered enough to be able to stop it!!!

But that isn't the world we're living in. We live in a world were it was tacitly decided it might be so much better if Jerry Sandusky just didn't fuck kids at Penn State anymore, because.....he could be fucking them elsewhere. 

And that decision makes me want to riot. But I don't see the point in turning over cars. So I write this blog post.  Maybe it will turn over minds.