The Pain Is Real

Even during parts of end of the 20th century, child testimony in sexual abuse cases wasn't
admissible in New York courts. When I read about it, I could hardly believe it. 'Children can't
get away from something as heinous as sexual abuse, even in America', I remember thinking.
I bought Cosmopolitan Magazine for a while during the 80s, mainly because a lady M.D. wrote
an advice column on women's medical issues for that magazine every month.
By and by she went to jail, rather than turn over her little girl to an incestuous pedophile of a father.
No matter what evidence she presented in numerous, costly court appearances, the Virginia judge
handling her case insisted the man have access to the little girl.
Years later, when that child had become a woman, I saw an appearance she made on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She remarked about being incredulous that her mom had had to make that sort of
sacrifice for her, and yet admitted she was eternally grateful to her for having done it.
At the time, I wondered that in the richest, most 'democratic' country in the world, a woman, her
little girl, and the woman's mother were forced into incarceration and exile, even though there was
no actual reason such a thing should happen to a professional physician/writer and her family in modern times. What grandma wants to be gramma under those circumstances?
What sort of judges do we actually have to tolerate in this country, even now?
 On a somewhat different subject...
Daryl Isa sits as judge and jury of Attorney General Eric Holder with really no excuse whatsoever.
What Mr. Isa could learn from Jefferson's 1783 address to the Virginia legislature, is that one reason
Jefferson wanted to preserve slavery was to stave off the immigration of further European persons,
even Western European persons Mr. Isa cannot claim among the principal parts of his ancestry. Thomas Jefferson would have been even less welcoming to his ancestors, and yet he and his cronies
wave copies of the constitution document around over all their goofy issues as though they had a
thing in this world to do with the "founding fathers".
Women in Virginia should not  separate themselves according to class. They should just be women, as they were when they elected Douglas Wilder Governor in their state.
Back to children...
Again, during the 80s, some colleagues and I attended a little reunion for those of us who had
worked at a city university, teaching an English class in writing. Many of us had gone on to
pretty important things. One of the instructors, I will call him 'Bob', had gotten married to one of the women who'd also taught with us.  But since he'd left university employ, he'd become a lawyer.
As we all chatted and ate, I either asked Bob, or heard him say, 'I won't work for Wayne county again.'
Wayne County is the county in Michigan which houses, Detroit, Dearborn and all five of the
Grosse Pointes. It should be a terribly schizophrenic county. But as far as that county's judicial system is concerned, it apparently has been both homogeneous and stable for quite some time.
 Feeling boisterous at the little reunion, I said to 'Bob', "Oh that must be because you don't want to
work with black people. Why can't you work with Wayne County!?"
 'Bob' was a thirty something white guy. He always seemed quietly unassuming guy to me. I was surprised he'd even chosen something so combative as the law for his profession.
"No," he calmly replied, " I don't object at all to working with black people. But Wayne County is a
really racist system to be working in, and I've gotten my fill of it."
"Racist how?"
"Virtually all the defendants are black in a mostly white county. Yet nearly all the lawyers, judges,
and referees are white, and it isn't at all true that other people in the county aren't committing crimes."
To Bob, the system seemed more a plantation than a courthouse.
"Oooh". Now I was obliged to be sheepish and apologetic. Then, knowing I'd been enlightened, I let
the activist in me wiggle. "And can't anything be done?" Actually, I was pretty much speaking in a wail at this point.
"I tried to see how to avoid or change some of the things. I finally couldn't be a part of it anymore."
"So what are you doing now?" More people began to listen to us talk.
"I'm in the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office now, but I am ready to quit there too."
Feeling both superior to and envious of anyone who could quit a job, I pressed him. "Well what's
wrong with Oakland County?!"
Of course I could have been big enough to ask simply, "Isn't that work interesting?" Later, I sure wish
I had been more polite. But he took no real offense...especially since he had much bigger fish to fry.
His wife, I'll call her R, turned fully around from our periphery to face him and said in front of everyone, "If you quit your job, I'm getting a divorce."
I was stunned, because I thought a divorce was something you got if you had to, not if you just wanted to do so. I supposed that since "R" was a nice woman, maybe she would have to move on with her life. But 'Bob' didn't seem fazed. Something even more weighty was on his mind. He and 'R'
must have already discussed divorce as related to career. He said, "I can't stand much more of it. I
have promised myself that if I get another child sex abuse incest case on my desk, I'm done with
Oakland County."
Again, I was floored. I thought 'Bob' was surely being overly dramatic.
"What do you mean," I felt obliged to ask, "you can't have that many can you?" I was terrified of getting this answer because he'd seemingly already thought through losing another job, and his wife to get out of the confines of these cases.
"I have enough of them," he assured me. " I try to convince these guys they have everything. They don't have to use their own children. I can't even figure them out. They are rich. They are powerful
in their communities. They are white. Isn't that enough? I can never seem to get through to them!"
"You just have to lock them up then, right? At least the children get that kind of relief."
"I can't do it. Even when I can get the kids to testify, even when I get the mother to testify, even when
I get expert psychiatric testimony that the child has been done serious harm, these guys call everybody
a liar, and pay for a more credentialed expert to say things may not have happened the way the victims are saying they did. I have just so much money to work with, and these guys have a lot more.
Even if I get a great expert at a discount, they go out and get three!"
"Oh my God," I had to exclaim. "So what Are you going to do?"
"I thought I'd try Macomb County. I can't see anything high profile that could be a recurring problem
there."
I haven't seen 'Bob' since. I saw R though. She got her divorce. He did go to work in Macomb County.
In a way, I wonder how that worked for him, because I subsequently met a lot of women from those
cities who were battered women. In those days, Senator Debbie Stabenow(in the Michgan legislature) had not yet worked all her magic for the protections against domestic abuse. And women who are pulling up stakes right now should think carefully before moving somewhere into the jaws
of a lion.
I currently know of a young twenty something woman who is horrified her husband is raping her in
Virginia, and the police think it's fine because she has no bruising. She actually doesn't have enough
musculature to resist this Navy MP. She locks her bedroom door, but has nowhere to live.
When she went to file for divorce she was told Virginia law says she has to be separated six months
first. Could that be a matter of money?
So she has been relegated to a women's shelter. At least there are shelters now. Soon, I hope she will
get back to Michigan.
Southern laws have been generated from a system of white males who raped at will because they owned everyone who worked, and every work product which resulted from the labor therein.
If they felt like raping, they raped someone. Though I am certain rape was prosecuted, it wasn't likely
to be unless the victim was considered the perpetrator's "equal". Perps were probably smart enough to
usually avoid those situations, especially if they believed the victim would come forward.
American males have tended to want to replicate the "all powerful" positions they have witnessed in
our society over the centuries, so being northern doesn't always help develop respect and power-sharing. I doubt it's a lot different in many societies. And yet a woman who stands up for herself and
her children reflexively, habitually, will effortlessly find a loud mob to call her "feminazi".
Sexualizing someone who is no match for you physically, and as far as maturation is concerned,
does involve physical pain for that person's induction. Pain generates ear. Normally, it will create
blood loss, infection risk, healing.What kind of person feels fine about inflicting pain, fear, bloody
wound, possible infection, and painful healing on a child? It defies understanding. I guess what we
can do is re-read Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. That won't do it, but it's a start.
I consider all these things here and now because the broad scope, magnitude, and temporal sweep of
the J. Sandusky trial is most probably just the tip of one of plentiful icebergs of child sexual abuse.
How much relief are we as a nation going to be able to offer so many damaged people?