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opinion Race and Penn State’s Child Sex Scandal E nough of the ghoulish, sor- did facts are known about the Penn State University child sex scandal to say this. The alleged child rapes were known by some athletic department mem- bers, up to and including the foot- ball program boss, JoePa, Joe Paterno. The rumors -- or worse, knowledge -- of the rapes may have been carried by others still unnamed in what could become a winding tangle through university staff, faculty, administrators, trustees, corporate donors, and politicians. The two prime offenders charged with the crimes were not some casual locker room jocks and hangers on, but long term, respected, and highly positioned athletic department mainstays. The Second Mile Foundation that served as a cover for the alleged rapes by its founder, the disgraced and accused child rapist Jerry Sandusky was not some fly-by-night, drive by, fast buck operation, but a well-established foun- dation that had been in business for more than three decades. Sandusky was with the Foundation from the start in 1977 until just last year. Even as the scandal unfolds, it is still in busi- ness. It has a big, impressive, full bodied website that boasts of its accomplishments, has three offices, and is actively soliciting donations. The reporters that have tried to get a comment from foun- dation officials have been sum- marily hung up on. There will be more sordid facts and cases to emerge in the coming t He l aSt W ord Earl Ofari Hutchinson days and almost certainly more alleged victims will come forth. The question that’s bantered about, and agonized over, is why those who knew didn’t blow the whistle on and ensure that the cuffs were slapped on the offend- Foundation’s founder and accused Jerry Sandusky openly bragged that it was in the business of help- ing “underprivileged” youth, always the polite code word for poor, at risk, young blacks and Hispanics, it’s hardly a stretch to connect the dots to race. Put bluntly, if Penn State offi- cials kept their yaps shut for years in the face of open knowledge of and strong suspicions of the child rapes and the victims were young black males, then the last dot con- nected is the charge that black lives are routinely devalued when leged” in the parlance of Sandusky’s The Second Mile Foundation. A study in the March issue of the Journal Pediatrics, “Racial Bias in Child Protection? A Comparison of Competing Explanations Using National Data,” found that poverty was a huge determinant not only of levels of abuse. The study pre- dictably found that a dispropor- tionate number of the reported child abuse cases in 2009 which spanned the gamut from neglect to child rape were African-American children. The study directly linked the abuse to poverty. Parents and caregivers that are des- perate to provide their chil- dren with a pathway out of harm’s way from any and every type of abuse that comes with poverty latch on to organizations that promise to provide resources, mentor- ing, nurturing, and a protec- tive environment for at risk black children. The Second Mile Foundation that so persuasively and pas- sionately marketed itself under its accused founder Jerry Sandusky, and with the resources, clout and national name recogni- tion of Penn State University’s premier football majordomo Joe Paterno to boot, as just such an organization would be hungrily The study found that a disproportionate number of the reported child abuse cases in 2009 which spanned the gamut from neglect to child rape were African-American children ers years ago? The stock answer is that it was a case of fear, protec- tiveness, ego (Paterno’s), football deification and prestige, decades of institutional sports cronyism and the bushels of money that Penn State and other big time Division 1 schools haul in every year from their flagship football programs. This is all true. But with the strong hints came the public finger point by a parent of one of the victims that they were in her words, “Blacks about 10-12 and had a tall slim muscular build.” The Second Mile it comes to officials taking action to protect them. This charge has repeatedly been leveled in serial murders, inner city gang carnage, and against child service agencies that ignore or downplay repeated reports of abuse when the victims and the abused are black. That’s only part of the problem. Race can’t be sepa- rated from poverty or “underprivi- grabbed at as the ticket out of the ghetto for the kids. Given the name and the prestige of those behind this Foundation, why would anyone in their wildest nightmares ever think or suspect that colossal evil lurked under- neath the façade of its alleged unadulterated philanthropic and do good aims? In the days to come as more details unfold about how the Foundation under Sandusky used its good name to commit alleged serial heinous crimes, all with the tacit blessing of Paterno and uni- versity officials, the hard suspi- cions and hints that the target of the crimes were young black males may well be confirmed. If that’s the case, then the deep soul search that university and others everywhere who turn a blind eye to child abuse must undergo will be rudely forced to confront one more horrifying possibility. And that’s that race was one more rea- son for that blind eye. earl ofari hutchinson is an author and political analyst. he is a weekly co-host of the al Sharpton Show on american urban radio network. he is the author of how obama governed: the Year of Crisis and Challenge. he is an associate editor of new america Media. Week on the Web Meet Adrian Adel: A Hip Hop Mama With a Camera … in NW News Homeless Coalition Lays Out Winter Plans … in NW News ‘Occupiers’ Showing Anger, So Why Aren’t Blacks?...in Opinion Electric Car Battery Catches Fire After Crash Test … in US News Council to Consider Changes to Oversight System and Bureau Policies … in NW News www. The Skanner.com has automatic updates for weather and sports, the latest news from Portland and beyond ... it’s your go-to place for news you won’t see in mainstream publications. It’s your community. It’s The Skanner. N ew Fe at u r e Online Now you can post your announce- ments directly, using The Skanner.com ‘YOUR BEAT, Eyes on the Street’. November 16, 2011 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 5
