Category Archives: Life

Ray Rice and the Abuse of Women

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Baltimore Ravens football star, Ray Rice, was recently suspended by the NFL for two games after a video showed him dragging his unconscious girl friend (now his wife) out of an Atlantic City hotel elevator.

Today the Ravens fired Ray Rice and the NFL placed him on indefinite suspension after a new video showed Rice punching and knocking out his girlfriend moments before he dragged her unconscious body out of the elevator.

I wondered how, in the first video, did the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens think she became unconscious and unresponsive?

This is the first of several pieces I wrote over the past decade about abuse.

 

PERSONAL ABUSE: INDIFFERENCE DENIES OUR HUMANITY

 Once you dehumanize somebody, everything else is possible.”

 Taina BienAime

 

 I drove on the near-north side of Chicago on a Friday night many years ago. I was a young agent in the United States Secret Service.

As I turned the corner, I saw a woman cling desperately to a chain-linked fence that surrounded a dark parking lot on a side-street. Her husband or boyfriend beat on her body.

I pulled off the road, got out of my car, and told him to stop. He came at me. The smell of alcohol permeated the cool fall air. He kicked me in the right knee and tore my pants. I stepped away and told him to back up. He came forward, kicked again and missed. I broke his nose.

The police came. The man cursed them. They administered some street-corner justice of their own. I would not smart-off to the Chicago police.

Welcome to the world of personal abuse.

Many years later…

My senses felt assaulted as I listened.

As I recall:

The popular radio personality, his sidekicks, and callers to his show denigrated the agency that helps victims of personal abuse, the agency’s employees, and their dedicated volunteers—most young women. The host was loud, ferocious, and righteous.

As I listened to the anger, the issue they felt so upset about was not important to me. I listened–fascinated by the host’s melt-down. I stopped my work–riveted on his tirade encouraged by his comrades and callers. I felt embarrassed for him. I wondered what personal history it was that generated such anger within him.

He bawled, “They don’t want to help women; they are out for money.” He asked, “Who are those people” as if they were demons; he offered to take a female employee of the agency to lunch at Hooter’s restaurant. He thought his belittlement funny. I thought he sounded like Howard Stern. My wife stopped listening—sick to her stomach. I began to sweat like I would if he talked to my daughters with such hatred and derisiveness.

His sycophants hooted with laughter and righteous self-pity. They said they felt sorry for the husbands of these women—they are man-haters, hate women too, and by God, they’re extreme feminists and zealots. I felt sorry for the wives of those throwbacks.

The host’s bluster and bellows woke the pigs in his audience—poor victims of women all to hear them talk. They cackled as they congratulated him for abusing people they knew nothing of, and they talked about the sexuality of high school girls at fund-raising car washes, of women in the lingerie departments of stores, and how women dressed at the grocery story—women bear responsibility for their own dehumanization according to the wisdom of these atavists. The foolish chatter mocked the wives, sisters, daughters, and mothers of the community.

The talking head seemed to revive the freaks in his audience and for a moment I imagined they felt better about themselves because of his celebrity status. Perhaps they felt he was one of them. A soft-spoken caller disagreed with this man of the people. The personality screamed at the man and hung up. “I bet he wears a toga at home” the courageous host mocked. Disagree and you will pay a price. I thought of what a fascinating sociological and psychological study the callers and their hosts would make.

This moment in talk radio reminded me that sexism in all its destructive forms is alive and well in mainstream America.

A few days later…

My wife and I stopped at the local grocery. A tall, muscular young man ran past us in the parking lot. Outraged and out of control, he screamed profanities at a young woman in a car. He kicked the car’s door, pulled it open, and dragged the terrified woman to the pavement.

Much older than when a Secret Service agent, I wondered what I could do if he hit the defenseless woman. I imagined I would try to distract him and stay away from him.

My wife called 911. The operator asked, “What do you want us to do about it?”

The man got into the car and accelerated, tires squealing, past us. The woman walked away. He circled around and caught up to her, got out of the car, and ordered her to get in and drive away.

Twenty minutes later a police car drove by.

Another story at about the same time…

The August 23, 2007 Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper reported that at least a half-dozen people witnessed a rape in St. Paul, Minnesota. One person tried to help. None of the others intervened or called the police. The lack of intervention in this case reminds of one in Minneapolis 10 years ago when a woman’s face was slashed down to the bone at a bus stop in the busy Uptown area. No one stopped to help or called the police.

The lack of intervention in the St. Paul case calls to mind the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese, who was stabbed to death outside an apartment building in New York City. Although as many as a dozen people saw parts of the attack, no one stepped in or immediately called for help. Who bears responsibility?

As I write this essay, professional football player Michael Vick has pled guilty to committing violence against dogs. People feel understandably outraged—as am I, the owner of two dogs.

But what about the lack of outrage about 40 instances of alleged violence against women by professional football players since 2000, asked sports columnist Mike McFeely in The Forum of Fargo, North Dakota (animal abuse and child, spousal, or elder abuse often go together).

McFeely reported that experts believe violent incidents against women remain vastly underreported: for every assault where police get called, at least three or four go unreported. Estimates range from 960,000 to three million women annually who suffer physical abuse from an intimate partner. Emotional abuse magnifies these numbers beyond imagination.

The shadows of verbal and physical abuse of women and children by men hide a dark and dirty underbelly of every community. St. Paul, Minnesota Police Chief John Harrington said: “What affects one single woman out there…affects families, affects neighborhoods, affects the city, affects all of us.”

 Many of us live in denial. Others shrink–afraid to speak up.

Many lawyers enable abusive men in exchange for money. Reputable companies profit from the dehumanization of women. Some judges choose to be ignorant of the dynamics of abuse. Some celebrities objectify women. All bear a share of responsibility for personal abuse.

Deep down many in all communities still blame the victims of personal abuse—maybe because many men see a little of themselves in the abusers and some women defend their abusers to deny or excuse the abuse they suffer.

Many see the results of abuse to the wives, mothers, daughters, coworkers, and neighbors in the community when others dehumanize them: the clergy, community leaders, the police administration, the doctors and nurses, the school administrators, the mayor and city council, the psychologists and social workers, and the judges and lawyers. Why do so many of them look on silently? Why do you and I?

We compromise our humanity when we look on indifferent to the abuse of those who suffer.

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel wrote, “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.”

How do we avoid indifference? We get involved and serve our communities. We serve the less fortunate. We will find it hard to be indifferent in the presence of people (and/or animals) in need.

To refuse to look this dark behavior in the face—to not confront evil–enables it, and we give up our freedom.

No man has the right to harm the body or spirit of women and children—never, ever.

Women and children are not responsible for men’s violence—never, ever.

We need to say “NO” to men who abuse women and children.

 

 

The Short and Violent Life of the Child Eric Dean

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I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.

Elie Wiesel,  Holocaust Survivor

 

Three-year-old Eric Dean was a quiet kid who craved attention and loved to be held and hugged. A special-education teacher described Eric as a kid who was loving, laughed easily, and wanted to please his teacher.

Eric’s stepmother was slowly killing him.

Eric routinely came to day care with bruises and bite marks on his face. At three, he was already a year behind in speech development. His stepmother grabbed him and yelled at him in front of child-care workers. She demanded that the teachers not show him affection because, she said, he didn’t deserve it. A teacher gave Eric new shoes to replace those so ragged they fell off his feet. Outraged, his stepmother said he couldn’t have them until he was a good boy. A special-education teacher began to work with Eric. When he began to speak, his teacher asked him how the injuries on his body happened and he responded, “Mommy bite.”

Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Brandon Stahl reported in his stellar special report that by the time Eric died at age four, 15 reports of abuse had been filed on his behalf. Only one report was investigated and that one–of a broken arm–found, wrongly I believe, that no abuse had happened.  Minnesota law requires that abuse reports are given to the police; only one of 15 was.

On February 26, 2013, Eric’s stepmother, Amanda Peltier, “…slapped Eric across the face, bit him and threw him across a room.” Eric screamed and cried, then started to complain that his stomach hurt. He vomited throughout the day. The next day Peltier spanked Eric. His condition continued to deteriorate. He went into shock and became delirious. When he choked on his own vomit, his father finally called 911. He died the next day. A perforation in his small intestine leaked fluid into the space around his organs. Enzymes that digest food digested his body.

Robert Greenleaf, author of the seminal work, Servant Leadership, wrote that the evil, the insane, the irresponsible, and the immature have been with us forever. The real problem is the good people who go to sleep and do not stand up and bear witness for human suffering of every kind.

Eric was allegedly abused by his mother’s boyfriend. He went to live with his father and abusive stepmother.  Day-care workers saw the injuries and reported them to Pope County. One who made several reports gave up after the county discouraged her from making more reports. Pope County failed to notify police as required by law. At one point, the county, instead of finding out what happened, passed the family on to a voluntary program called family assessment. The program–intended to help people become better parents in low risk situations–is now used as a dumping ground for children so that counties don’t have to investigate. In Minnesota that program is now used in more than 70% of the cases.

No one cared enough for this helpless child to save his life. No one in our fragmented world took responsibility. It is not that someone couldn’t save him; no one would save Eric.

The greatest blame lies with Pope County. They are supposed to care: to be educated, informed, and experienced.  I was a trained, experienced, and successful investigator as an agent in the U.S. Secret Service, in the business world, and as a management consultant. I believe that enough evidence was available to find cause to remove this child from his abuser. But they didn’t investigate well or thoroughly. They just didn’t do their job; they shuffled paper. The bottom line: Eric Dean was being murdered on their watch and they should have taken right action and saved his life and they didn’t.

I understand people being scared to act for fear of making a mistake,  fear of someone being mad at them, maybe retaliating against them. I have felt the fear of losing my job for doing something that was right.

But here’s the deal:

Sometimes we have to just listen to our own voice, to take action that we know is right, to go against the grain, the culture, or the demands for conformity. Sometimes we need to find our courage and take bold action until our voice is heard.  If a daycare provider cannot get child protection to act, then join with colleagues and go to the police, the clergy, and to local and state political leaders. Don’t stop until someone with authority helps. If you work in a child protection department that doesn’t do its job become a whistleblower or quit your job and take action. A job with the county isn’t worth more than a child’s life.

Eric’s story cries out for accountability not just for Amanda Peltier who was found guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced to prison for life but also accountability for the Pope County, Minnesota government that systemically failed in its fundamental duty to protect a child.

I suspect there are many abuse cases throughout Minnesota and the United States that are being given the same fast shuffle and that Eric’s circumstances are only the tip of the iceberg of potential tragedies.

I call on Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, a caring man, and our state legislators to get involved, take action, and put an end to malfeasance  by those who are supposed to protect children.

I hope you will too.

 

 

 

 

 

Bad Guys Win

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I recently finished season 1 of The Wire. 

What struck me the most was the human corruption:

Crooked politicians, office politics driven cops, layer upon layer of lawbreakers with each layer having less of a soul to lose.

The crooks with a chance to live a decent life got killed.

The crooks who did the least lawbreaking got the longest sentences.

The crooks who did the worst got off or got the lightest sentences.

The bad cops and politicians got promoted or elected.

The good cops had to fight to do good, honest work.

The good cops got badgered, threatened, demeaned, and intimidated–by their bosses.

The good cops got marginalized in the hinterlands of the police department.

In the end, mediocrity and disillusionment prevailed.

The shadow side of humanity cuts across all organizations and communities. The details are unique in each system but the deeper dark patterns are the same.

Yet brave souls continue to live authentic and value-driven lives always striving for excellence because they feel alive when they do so. They are the models who go first and show us the way.

Chris Kluwe

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Chris Kluwe used to be the punter for the Minnesota Viking.

Kluwe–intelligent, authentic, somewhat eccentric–openly and loudly advocated for gay marriage.

He was cut from the team. Was it because of his football performance or his outspokenness in the conformity driven NFL?

Kluwe accused an assistant coach of anti-gay slurs. The coach denied it. The team investigated. The coach admitted the slur when another player said he heard the words. The Vikings suspended the coach for three games.

Kluwe threatened to sue. The team agreed to contribute to gay rights groups over several years and all Vikings employees would get sensitivity training.

The lawsuit was dropped.

Kluwe had plenty of critics–in the media and in the masses.

It isn’t easy being a truth-teller who goes against the powerful organization and the entire NFL. Kluwe was verbally attacked. People questioned his motives. Critics used Kluwe’s own human mistakes against him to diminish his credibility. He won’t play again in the NFL.

Erase all the garbage and one fact remains: Chris Kluwe changed the world with his courage.

That’s more than his attackers can say.

Truth

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A quote in an obituary:

Through it all, our father regarded truth as something sacrosanct and eternal, as not to be wielded but to be wielded by, and to be served regardless of the professional and personal consequences.

Maturity

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Quoted from an anonymous author in Real Power by Janet Hagberg:

 Maturity consists in no longer being taken in by yourself.

Justice for Todd Hoffner; condemnation for Minnesota State University, Mankato

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UPDATE OF MY POST OF JULY 12, 2013: “A GRAVE INJUSTICE.”

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported today: The Minnesota State University, Mankato, was wrong to dismiss football coach Todd Hoffner after child pornography charges were dropped stemming from nude video images of his young kids on his cellphone, an arbitrator has ruled.

According to Hoffner’s attorney Christopher Madel, the 72-page decision from Gerald E. Wallin says Hoffner should be reinstated because his suspension and firing were not for just cause. The arbitrator ruled that:

• Hoffner should be reinstated to his four-year contract.

• The school should pay back his “improper” 20-day suspension from January 2013.

• If Hoffner accepts a job somewhere else, which he has at Minot State, MSU should pay the difference in pay.

Hoffner’s wife, Melodee, confirmed the ruling Thursday afternoon and said Hoffner’s return to Mankato “is under discussion right now.”

Neither school officials nor Hoffner were immediately available for comment.

Madel said he spoke Wednesday night with Hoffner, whose reaction “was a beautiful mix of shock and gratitude.” The lawyer now hopes Mankato school officials get what Hoffner got: fired.

“I’m hoping that after the powers that be carefully review the decision that they’re going to clean house at Minnesota State University,” Madel said. “Anybody that had any decision-making authority with respect to Todd Hoffner’s employment should resign or be fired.”

He said the arbitrator’s ruling even took issue with the office on the far side of campus the coach was relegated to after the initial charges were filed.

“These people tried to drum up practically anything they could,” he said, calling the ruling “pretty phenomenal.”

Said Hoffner’s wife: “Given the evidence that was put before him, you would hope that this would be the ruling, but you never know.”

I am thrilled for Hoffner and his family. Now those responsible for the horrible decisions made in this case must be held accountable.

My blog of July 12, 2013 is below:

Todd Hoffner was a good football coach. Only a month earlier, Minnesota State University, Mankato had awarded him a new 4-year contract with a raise of more than 15%.

But on August 17, 2012, his life changed: Hoffner had turned a malfunctioning cell phone in to the University for repair. On the phone were two short videos of his three young children as they laughed, danced, frolicked, and played in the nude after baths. In post Jerry Sandusky hysteria, university employees turned the phone over to the police. Hoffner was placed on investigative leave.

Did the University act precipitously or were they prudent to be cautious?

Then bad judgment: a few days later Hoffner was arrested on two felony counts of suspicion of producing and possessing child pornography. Has insanity become normalized, I wondered.

County human-services officials quickly determined that no sexual abuse or maltreatment of Hoffner’s children had occurred. Nothing suspicious was found on his laptop, in his home, or in extensive searches at his earlier places of employment. The County attorney refused to drop the charges.

Last November, Blue Earth County District Judge Krista Jass dismissed the charges against Hoffner for lack of probable cause. She rebuked County prosecutors and her strongly worded order made it clear that the videos were innocent hijinks, not porn.  Thank God for a brave and lucid judge. Will the community hold the county attorney accountable for the actions that did great harm to a decent family? Remember citizens of Mankato, if you don’t stand up for the victims of  power abused, who will stand up for you when you are the victim?

Did the University reinstatement Hoffner as expected? No, administrators gave Hoffner a 20 day suspension apparently for using his university cell phone for personal use. The length of suspension appears excessive to this veteran of 18 years of labor relations experience.

Administrators then removed Hoffner from his position as coach and reassigned him to a non-job administrative position and stuck him away in a closet. Then they fired him without explanation. What motivated the actions of University managers?

Did political enemies in the bureaucracy take advantage of the opportunity to get rid of Hoffner─the successful coach who had just signed a 4-year contract with a big raise? Or, did the culture of the institution drive decision-making?  Protecting the institution from whatever people or situations are perceived to be threats to the image of the institution often becomes paramount in crisis and doing what is right regardless of politics and institutional embarrassment get lost entirely. Did Hoffner have to go because he brought embarrassment to the University? It is never right to punish the victim of injustice for the embarrassment that injustice may cause a big institution.

Or, did the University investigation that came about because of false accusations and an unjust arrest lead to the discovery of new information that on its own justified an immediate termination? We don’t know the answers to these and many other questions because University officials acted in secret behind closed doors and have shared only cold and terse written announcements. No human face speaks for the University, only a lifeless and uncaring bureaucracy.

Hoffner will challenge his firing in arbitration later this summer. If the University comes up with a reason for his discharge aside from the false allegations of peddling porn, it better be a good one. Remember, this is the coach who had just signed a new 4-year contract with a big raise. Any known issues with Hoffner from before that contract was signed are moot after the new contract effectively endorsed Hoffner fully. Will any new issues be legitimate and rise to the level needed to justify his abrupt termination or will they be concocted efforts to justify earlier bad judgments, political assassination, or the dark side of corporate culture? The community should watch with discerning eyes.

(See ESPN interview with Todd Hoffner)

The Humanity of the Rebel

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The love of violence is, to me, the ancient and symbolic gesture of man against the constraints of society. Vicious men can exploit the impulse, but it is a disaster to treat the impulse as vicious. For no society is strong which does not acknowledge the protesting man; and no man is human who does not draw strength from the natural animal.

Jacob Bronowski from The Face of Violence.

I love the insights of Rollo May and I recommend his books to you. Below are some of his thoughts on the rebel in his book, Power and Innocence.

What is the central element that constitutes the human being?

It is the capacity to sense injustice and take a stand against it in the form of I-will-be-destroyed-rather-than-submit. It is a rudimentary anger, a capacity to muster all one’s power and assert it against what one experiences as unfair. However it may be confounded or covered up or counterfeited, this elemental capacity to fight against injustice remains the distinguishing characteristic of human beings. It is, in short, the capacity to rebel.

In the present day, when multitudes of people are caught in anxiety and helplessness, they tend psychologically to freeze up and to cast out of the city walls whoever would disturb their pretended peace. Ironically, it is during just those periods of transition when they most need the replenishing that the rebel can give them that people have the greatest block in listening to him.

The rebel is “one who opposes authority or restraint: one who breaks with established custom or tradition.” His distinguishing characteristic is his perpetual restlessness. He seeks above all an internal change, a change in the attitudes, emotions, and outlook of the people to whom he is devoted. He often seems to be temperamentally unable to accept success and the easy it brings; he kicks against the pricks, and when one frontier is conquered, he soon becomes ill-at-easy and pushes on to the new frontier. He is drawn to the unquiet minds and spirits, for he shares their everlasting inability to accept stultifying controls. No matter how much the rebel gives the appearance of being egocentric or of being on an “ego trip,” this is a delusion; inwardly the authentic rebel is anything but brash.

He rebels for the sake of a vision of life and society which he is convinced is critically important for himself and his fellows. Every act of rebellion tacitly presupposes some value. The rebel does not seek power as an end and has little facility for using it; he tends to share his power. The rebel fights not only for the relief of his fellow men but also for his personal integrity.

The humanity of the rebel lies in the fact that civilization rises from his deeds. The function of the rebel is to shake the fixated mores, and the rigid order of civilization; and this shaking, through painful, is necessary if the society is to be saved from boredom and apathy. Civilization gets its first flower from the rebel.

The rebel insists that his identity be respected; he fights to preserve his intellectual and spiritual integrity against the suppressive demands of his society. He must range himself against the group which represents to him conformism, adjustment, and the death of his own originality and voice.

The rebel rises from the society, criticizes it, and aligns himself with those who are trying to reform it; and all the while he is a member of the very culture he opposes.

The rebel is continually struggling to make the society into a community. In our particular day, the rebel fights the mechanizing bureaucratic trends not because these in themselves are evil, but because they are the paramount modern channels for the dehumanizing of man, the stultifying loss of integrity, and the indignity of man.

For the rebel does what the rest of us would like to do but don’t dare. Through his rebellion the rebel saves us. Civilization needs the rebel.

I salute the rebels in our organizations, institutions, and communities for they are the energy of renewal and growth.

Do What You Love and Do It-Now

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Debbie Millman:

If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve. Do what you love, and don’t stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities, don’t compromise, and don’t waste time. Start now. Not 20 years from now, not two weeks from now. Now.