Monday, July 11, 2016

Out Of The Shadows

I'm having a day already. I opened the paper to read an article about incest and how there's not even a box to be checked for a police report for it although "national studies show that when a person is arrested for sexual assault on a minor, chances are 90 percent of the time that the person is known by the child. The odds are 4 in 10 that the perpetrator is a family member. In the Big Bend region, those rates may be even higher." That's a quote from the article in today's Tallahassee Democrat.

People here are trying to bring this "unspeakable shame" into the open and just the words "unspeakable" and "shame" say everything that needs to be said about why so many children are vulnerable to pedophiles.
They're putting up billboards in a neighboring county to address this problem and the economic development officials in that county are upset.


Well fuck the economic officials and I think that county is doing the right thing in getting the word out there with a phone number that victims and other family members can call for help. Until we grapple with issues on real terms and take them out of the shadows, whether they be incest or poverty or racial inequality, nothing is ever going to change. 

Ever. 

Let's not stop talking. 

Love...Ms. Moon

8 comments:

  1. The wrong sensibilities and the wrong people have been protected for far, far too long.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This country is ass backwards on so many issues. Sweeping things under the rug or blaming the victim have always been the go-to behaviors of a, mostly, male dominated society.

    Where will it end? Will it end in our lifetimes? Will it ever end?
    This billboard goes a long way in taking steps that can lead us to the door. Shame on those people squirming in their lofty chairs.

    Thanks for an encouraging bit of information this morning, Mary.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is seriously disturbing that there even have to be billboards to explain that it is wrong. What is the matter with people?!?! -Jenn

    ReplyDelete
  4. When I was growing up I had two friends. Both of them were molested by their mother's live-in boyfriends. Both mothers knew about it and stayed. They fucking stayed with these evil men. I see one of these mothers occasionally and I can't even look at her without feeling revulsion. They are just as sick and evil as the molesters.

    I did hear that one of these men put a gun in his mouth. Good riddance.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think the ones putting up the billboards are way ahead of the ones bothered by them. Way ahead.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Never changes, Someone in Cape Town told me the other day that the Afrikaans word for incest is bloedskaam, 'blood shame', because it brings shame on the family and I can just imagine how that makes an abused child feel.

    ReplyDelete

Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.