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.
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November 16, 2011 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 5