....IF WE DON'T MAKE A CHANGE
It's taken me a long time to figure out why my anger at what happened to Olympic hopefuls in gymnastic programs run by USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University goes so far beyond Larry Nassar.
I'm so glad that Nassar will be in jail for life I was actually worried that the judge did let her anger show so obviously that she may have given his lawyers a basis for appeal. But may that's even not possible if someone pleads guilty.
I've realized that I'm probably worried about nothing. He's never going to see the light of day again.
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| fork in the road |
However, I agree with what Nassar victim's have essentially said. This group now calling themselves SISTER SURVIVORS have stated that Nassar is just the tip of the iceberg.
This group of women, who were children as young as 8 years old at the time of the sexual assault*, have successfully attacked USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University, Nassar's employers, for protecting Nassar and not calling the police.
Some of the people involved have "retired." But so far nobody looks like they are in danger of going to jail. And that needs to change.
When this story first broke, a lot women --even feminists-- tried to tell me that Nassar got away with it because children don't tell when they are being sexually abused.
I won't bother to look up the research again. But I think the rate of children not reporting sexual abuse is somewhere between 75 to 95 percent depending what study you read.
Women I spoke to real time and chatted with online seemed to confirm these figures. Almost all of them told me about incidents where they were sexually assaulted* but didn't tell. And I told my own stories because I didn't tell either.
But the research is all so much baloney when you're talking about a grown man preying on little girls over 20 years.
If only 5% of us report our own sexual assaults out of guilt and shame when we're children, that's one in twenty girls that report sexual abuse. The SISTER SURVIVORS of Larry Nassar, 156 of which gave victim statements at his trial over 7 days, believe that Nassar may have sexually assaulted thousands of girls over a period longer than 20 years.
That's a lot of girls who may have tried to report Nassar. And some of them likely reported Nassar to their parents.
And if we find out none of the girls reported Nassar to their parents in enough detail to be understood -- a simple describing of what he physically did -- then its time to figure out what's wrong with American parenting and/or what's wrong with what Americans are communicating to children about secrecy and sex because something is wrong with the adults, not the children.
In Larry Nassar's case, same as the Jerry Sandusky case, at first everybody stood around talking about, "Oh my gawd! Nobody knew!"
Just like with Jerry Sandusky, most of public was probably waiting for the other shoe to drop. When Sandusky was first exposed as a sexual predator, most of the public was waiting to find out how many OMG-ers were lying because once one, two, or ten, or twenty years passes somebody notices a sexual predator.
In Sandusky's case, at least a dozen different people were identified as having known what Sandusky was doing to the young boys he brought to Penn State.
One man actually walked in on Sandusky a naked little boy. That man reported what he saw to his superiors at the college and let it drop instead of going to the police when Sandusky continued to work and continued prey on little boys. Some of these adult witnesses were shamed in the press but that's as far as their punishment went.
All Penn State cared about was keeping their reputation so they could keep on winning at college football.
And the same thing is happening here in regards to the girls involved in Olympic gymnastics. All the adults cared about was the ability to keep on winning at the Olympics.
The press, in cowardly fashion, have avoided talking in a very direct fashion to the girls' first line of defense, the people who could have stopped Larry Nassar 20 years back, before he sexually assaulted hundreds if not thousands of girls, their parents
The judge who handed down Larry Nassar's sentence said that Nassar groomed the parents at the same time that he groomed the children, but that's not enough of an explanation.
And some of the parents appear to know this, if I'm reading between the lines correctly.
This isn't just about accurate blame for me. This is about prevention in the futre.
So we need to explain to ourselves how it is a young girl who was sexually assaulted as a child had to wait until she was an adult so she could go to the police herself.
The press, in weak-willed fashion, is allowing the Larry Nassar story to be turned into a feel good survivor story within the #MeToo movement when we're talking about the sexual abuse of girl children.
There is no victory in young girls having to become adults to stop sexual assault* themselves.
The other thing that is making my stomach churn about how this story is unfolding, is how everyone seems to be okay these girl CHILDREN were voiceless but not examining the most obvious part of their voicelessness -- their parents.
Journalists interviewing these young women keep implying that getting justice and putting Larry Nassar in jail for life was the outcome of a decades long battle between little girls and Nassar where Nassar lost.
These girls were children when they were assaulted by an adult and a series of adults failed to protect them. And while the girls cannot accept that their parents were part of the line of defense that failed them, we have to accept this.
When I was a child going to a school where white adults did not want me around their children because I was black, all the battles were fought by my parents. I understand that most parents didn't know details.
But lets talk about the ones that did know at least some details.
Parents are the first line of defense, not USA Gymnastics and not Michigan State University and not the owners of Karyoli Ranch, where girls trained and practice. All of these businesses have some responsibility.
But after watching a couple of television specials, I now realize that some of the parents knew their children were being digitally penetrated by Nassar. They reported what was happening to their girls to these businesses and asked questions.
But the parents never called the police.
During the interview I saw last night, one of the girls now a young woman, complained that a woman coach, Kathy Klages at Michigan State University "didn't even tell my parents." The journalist didn't bother to ask the girl if she told her parents herself and what her parents did about the sexual assault.*
Before this section of the interview, the gymnasts --the youngest assaulted at 8 years of age - said that parents aren't allowed in the gym at all. The girls talked about a number of ways in which they were isolated from the parents.
To me, it sounds like abdicating your responsibility as a parent is central part of the olympic gymnastic program.
To me the decision to allow these rules to cut you off from your child is ground zero of expecting these girls to take care of themselves like adults.
This must be why journalists are allowing this story to be cast as little girls versus big bad adults of USA Gymnastics and Michigan State and Karyloi Ranch. These girls have been treated like little adults since they were tiny. This must be why none of the "journalists" seem to be asking the question that makes me the angriest:
Why did a little girl gymnast have to wait to become an adult then contact the police herself?
LINK TO PART 2:
THE PARENTS OF LARRY NASSAR SURVIVORS ARE NOT CO-VICTIMShttp://blackchickrocked.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-parents-of-larry-nassar-survivors.html
