The Difference of One

I do wish it was easier. In the wake of two major institutions experiencing great damage by failure to deal openly and honestly with child abuse, maybe others will act more appropriately. It should not be a hard decision. It should be a "no brainer". You see evidence of child abuse, animal abuse, sexual abuse, bullying; you report it. It should be automatic, but as we have seen, it is not an easy thing to do. There are just too many temptations to avoid facing all of the ramifications that will come. There is usually the defense that there were only rumors or "I did not know the whole story"; It was "He said - she said" Who do you believe, I did not want to make such a serious charge with so little information.

But once again as with the Roman Catholic Church, we have seen again at Penn State what damage and chaos ignoring it can bring. The lesson has to be learned, "You think reporting it can cause problems?, just look at what not reporting it can do. " Just the pragmatic evaluation of the two options, regardless of the moral and ethical questions, the reporting the abuse immediately costs you less in the long run.

Another obvious lesson to all of us is the tremendous difference one person can make. One person with the courage to report what he had heard could have made all the difference in the world in this case. One person did have the courage to speak about it a little bit, but not enough to report it to the officials. But one phone call from Coach Paterno to the Child Service Agency, one phone from the AD, one phone call to the authorities and this whole matter would have ended differently.

If you are ever tempted to think that one person does not matter, just remember this whole sordid affair and that one person created it and just one person could have put an end to it quickly. The difference in this whole thing is one person. You see it. You report it to your boss, but if the boss does not do anything about it, you report to the authorities. We are our brother's and sister's keepers.