Lake of the Isles and Lake Calhoun are on the southwest edge of Minneapolis.
(Click to enlarge)
The Silence of Our Friends
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
The [ Todd] Hoffner saga went viral nationally in the wake of the sex scandal at Penn State involving a former assistant coach. Child pornography charges were filed against Hoffner, and then dismissed when a judge determined the pictures simply showed children at innocent play. But instead of reinstating him, school officials fired him, a decision reversed only when Hoffner won a sweeping arbitrator’s ruling last spring after he had accepted the coaching job at Minot State.
Hoffner found no such support among school officials, who just months before his problems had lavished him with praise — and a raise — after a 2011 season that ended with a bowl victory. Hoffner and his wife said they still cannot explain why key school officials were so quick to abandon them.
Hoffner was (and is now again) the head football coach at Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
At times of difficulty in our lives, we find out who our real friends are and, I believe, the realization is almost always painful.
Within a conformity-required university administration?
I’d imagine that Hoffner’s “friends” were friends only as long as the university president “liked” Hoffner. Who would be brave enough to go against the university president and his witch hunt of Hoffner? Who would dare be seen with Hoffner? Who would believe in him even as the injustices accumulated and became obvious?
Rare indeed would be such a courageous friend.
In Hoffner’s case, it was easier to remain silent in the face of injustice than to risk loss by speaking out. And in remaining silent, people lost a part of themselves.
Ray Rice and The Abuse of Women (3)
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.
Last Monday (Sept. 8, 2014) 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 third of several pieces I wrote over the past decade about abuse.
ABUSE: AN ISSUE FOR MEN
I would like abusers to imagine the pain and anguish they inflict and feel even one-tenth of that for themselves.
Abuse Victim
Melanie, my wife, and I recently completed 48 hours of training at the local rape and abuse crisis center. We will volunteer our time and speak to groups about emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.
The schedule was grueling: two evenings a week for a month and two Saturdays. Approximately 20 people made the big commitment and will volunteer as advocates who take crisis calls during off hours, court watchers who keep track of cases in the legal system, and public speakers.
The training sessions were emotionally difficult for me. Speakers taught us about incest; stalking; cyber-sex; date rape; pedophilia; emotional, physical, and sexual abuse; and the many difficulties victims face with themselves, within families, in the legal system, and in our society, which often prefers to deny such horrible things. As I listened to the monstrous things men do to women and children, I felt ashamed to be a man.
A woman described how her father sexually abused her from age 9-15. Then her 12-year-old daughter spoke about how a foster child had sexually assaulted her when she was three years old. I admired their courage and appreciated the gift of their experiences.
I felt sadness and sorrow for the women and children abused by men. I felt outraged at the men who do such things. What went wrong with so many men? My father treated my mother with great respect. I feel contempt for men who abuse women in any way.
I felt disgust as I watched a video simulation of a father who manipulated his young daughter to have sex with him and called it love. What went wrong inside of a father to be able to violate his child’s trust in such a depraved way?
I watched another video of a simulated rape. I felt revulsion as I watched the bestial man degrade and violate a young woman who will live the horror of him for a lifetime. I thought of the almost daily news stories of rape and murder of young women by soul-dead men.
I loathed the young minister as he described proudly how he manipulated and abused children and talked his way out of trouble over and over again. He not only robbed the young children of their innocence, he made them out to be liars and robbed them of their voices. I find it difficult to think of such men as anything but evil as they do such anti-human things to others.
I asked a counselor what one thing she would change in the make-up of the abusers of all types if she could. She answered, “Empathy.” None of the abusers can feel for themselves what they do to others.
Many abusive men have good jobs—even leadership positions. They look normal. Many work hard to create a public image of success, citizenship, and community involvement. They put forth a false image. They don’t live their crafted image of goodness. Abusive men use their creativity for negative purposes, to control and inflict pain–they hurt others. Abusers want power and control over others. Abusers of every stripe exude entitlement and selfishness. They see others as possessions they own.
Men own the issue of abuse of women and children: men do the vast majority of abusive actions, men model for boys at home, at school, at work, and on the athletic fields. Other men watch silently.
Many police officers look the other way; many lawyers enable abusive men or abuse others themselves. Many judges remain ignorant of the dynamics of abuse and, as a result, make unjust decisions.
I see two challenges:
- Hold abusers accountable.
I call on policemen, lawyers, and judges to learn about abuse and the dynamics of abusive men. The ignorant bear some measure of responsibility for what happen to women and children. Some of you think you don’t need to learn. Trust me, you do need to learn. I was a Secret Service Agent, a senior business executive, and an organizational consultant. I needed to learn. So do you.
Judges and lawyers who work in family law should be required to be educated about abuse and the dynamics of abusers. Without that education, they can be manipulated easily and unwittingly collude with the abuser. The local rape and abuse crisis center will be happy to help them. Lundy Bancroft’s books: “Why Does He Do That” and “The Batterer as Parent” should be required reading for every attorney and judge who work in family law.
Judges, lawyers, and policemen need to model respectful behavior and root the legal system of abusers. Often, as in all systems, the unethical and abusive people in the justice system go unchallenged. Members of the legal system who do not bear witness bear responsibility.
Robert Greenleaf, author of the seminal work on leadership, “Servant Leadership,” wrote that the insane, the irresponsible, the immature (and, I might add, the abusers), have been with us forever. The problem is the good people who go to sleep and do not stand up and bear witness for human suffering of every kind. When we refuse to look abuse in the face, we make a big mistake—we cooperate with abuse when we do not confront it.
We need to stand up courageously, whatever our walk of life, and hold abusers accountable: in the home, at the school, on the athletic field, throughout the workplace, and in the courts.
- Raise boys differently.
We created the men of today. We need a new model for men. Head coach Biff Poggi and assistant Joe Ehrmann, a former NFL football star turned minister and volunteer coach, taught the players on the Gilman high school (Maryland) football team a new model of masculinity. They call their program of football and developing young men “Building Men for Others.” (See Ehrmann’s book, “Season of Life.”)
Joe Ehrmann:
I have spent almost the last twenty years as a minister. Most of my work is in the inner city of Baltimore, dealing with issues of poverty and systemic racism and family disintegration. I would say that in order to make America a more just and fair society, I would boil it down to the single greatest crisis. And that primary, critical issue is a concept of what it means to be a man. If we don’t fix our understanding, and get some proper definition of masculinity and manhood, I don’t think we can address other issues.
Joe Ehrmann again:
Masculinity, first and foremost, ought to be defined in terms of relationships. It ought to be taught in terms of the capacity to love and to be loved. If you look over your life at the end of it…life wouldn’t be measured in terms of success based on what you’ve acquired or achieved or what you own. The only think that’s really going to matter is the relationships that you had. It’s gonna come down to this: What kind of father were you? What kind of husband were you? What kind of coach or teammate were you? What kind of son were you? What kind of brother were you? What kind of friend were you? Success comes in terms of relationships.
And I think of the second criterion—the only other criterion for masculinity—is that all of us ought to have some kind of cause, some kind of purpose in our lives that’s bigger than our own individual hopes, dreams, wants, and desires. At the end of our life, we ought to be able to look back over it from our deathbed and know that somehow the world was a better place because we lived, we loved, we were other-centered, other-focused.
How did the Gilman High School football team perform under their guidance? They had back-to-back undefeated seasons in 1998 and 1999 that put them at the top of state rankings. Poggi and Ehrmann measured success in two ways: by wins and losses and by the amount of ministry they’ve done with their kids to prepare them for lives of meaning and value to others.
Women also need to help raise little boys differently: teach them to define success by their relationships, commitment to something greater than themselves, and by their courage to stand up to injustice in all its forms. Women can also teach young girls to speak up about men’s violence. Then abusers will have no where to hide.
What affects one single woman out there…affects families, affects neighborhoods, affects the city, affects all of us. John Harrington, St. Paul, Minnesota Police Chief
What will you do to make a difference in the lives of women and children around you?
Ray Rice and The Abuse of Women (2)
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.
Yesterday 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 second of several pieces I wrote over the past decade about abuse.
EMOTIONAL ABUSE: I SEE MYSELF
We separated for one week but he kept calling and crying on the phone. He begged and pleaded and promised to change. I could not take the pressure and told him he could return. He did not change.
Victim of Emotional Abuse
My wife and I spoke about emotional abuse to approximately 85 college students recently.
Millions of women (and some men) live with repeated verbal assaults, humiliation, sexual coercion, and other forms of psychological abuse, often accompanied by economic exploitation. I’ve worked in organizations for 40 years as a leader and consultant, and I’ve never been in an organization that didn’t have abuse as part of its dark side.
Yet few of the students had heard the term “emotional abuse.” It remains one of society’s dirty, dark secrets. Our communities that dehumanize women and children in scores of ways daily need to illuminate their many dark shadows.
We defined emotional abuse as the chronic use of words and acts (including body language) that devalue and frighten another person for the purpose of control. Emotional abusers rule the lives of victims through the power of words and actions and the constant implicit threat of physical assault.
Emotional abuse always precedes physical abuse. Not all emotional abusers become physical.
- Scott Peck, M.D. defined evil as the use of power to harm the spirit of another to maintain one’s sick self. Emotional abuse is clearly evil behavior. Each of us can decide for ourselves if we think abusers are evil people.
Consummate name-callers, abusers criticize constantly—nothing is ever good enough. They yell, scream, and drive the victim’s friends away to isolate her. They eavesdrop on phone conversations, censor mail, and expect instant responses to pages, cell phone calls, and instant messages. They control with lies, confusion, and contradictions; they make a person feel crazy. They lurk and they stalk. One abuser said to a victim: “I had to keep you down. I was afraid you would outshine me.”
Emotional abusers belittle the feelings of their victims, denigrate women as a group calling them crazy, emotional, or stupid. They withhold approval, appreciation, and affection to punish their victims. They put down their victims in public, take them out socially and then ignore them, and they prevent victims from working, going to school, or leaving the house alone. They control the money, make all the decisions, and require their permission to do or have anything. They are little gods unworthy of the power they abuse.
If married they might destroy, sell, or give away things the victim (or both of them) own, prevent the victim from seeing her family, threaten to hurt family or friends, punish or keep things from the children when angry at the victim. They often treat the children more nicely than usual when angry at their victim, blame the victim for any problems, real or imagined, with the children, and may abuse pets to hurt their primary victim.
They may accuse their victim of having affairs. If a victim is physically or sexually abused, they say she asked for it, deserved it, or liked it. They may threaten to tell their victim’s employer or family that she is a lesbian to get her fired or to have her children taken away from them.
They then deny that their behavior is abusive or minimize it by calling their victim crazy or stupid or telling her that she made it up. One abuser told his wife often: “You just don’t know how bad you are.”
Victims of emotional abuse live in fear and repeatedly alter thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to avoid further abuse. They lose themselves. Emotional abuse, like brain washing, systematically wears away at the victim’s self-confidence, sense of self-worth, and trust in their own perceptions. Whether abused by constant berating and belittling, by intimidation, or under the guise of “guidance, teaching, or advice,” the results remain the same: the victim of the abuse loses all sense of self and lives in confusion. The scars of emotional abuse may be far deeper and more lasting than physical wounds.
The ongoing pattern of abuse follows a cycle:
- Tension building: tension increases, breakdown of communication, the victim feels a need to placate the abuser,
- Incident: verbal and emotional abuse, anger, blaming, arguing, threats, and intimidation,
- Reconciliation: the abuser apologizes, gives excuses, blames the victim, denies the abuse occurred, or says it wasn’t as bad as the victim claims (abusers tend to forget their abuse while victims remember it forever),
- Calm: the incident is “forgotten”, no abuse is taking place.
And the cycle begins again.
The long-term effects on victims: Isolation from others, low self-esteem, depression, emotional problems, illness, alcohol or drug use, and withdrawal.
After our presentation, a man talked to me. He said, “I see myself in the traits of abusers.” What did he see?
- Abusers tend to have explosive tempers triggered by minor frustrations and arguments when their egos are threatened,
- They are possessive and jealous: “I own you. Where were you? Who were you with? What did you do?”
- Abusers tend to think highly of themselves: arrogant, entitled, superior, and selfish—everything is always about them, and they always come first.
- Abusers have a great capacity for self-deception: they play the victim, always have an excuse and deniability for their acts. They blame others for what goes wrong in their lives. They deny and distort their behavior and cannot give an accurate picture of themselves or of their partner.
- They manipulate: they lie always, can be charming in public, and can convince others of their innocence–family, friends, judges, and lawyers get fooled by them everyday—you must look at their behavior over time to see their patterns.
A woman who says she is abused, almost always is.
Emotional abusers learn their behavior, and the man who could see himself in the traits of the abuser spoke for many men who have learned to abuse their power to control others in brutal ways—at home, at work, and in the community.
Abusers don’t change easily or willingly. Author Lundy Bancroft (“Why Does He Do That?) wrote:
There are no shortcuts to change, no magical overnight transformations, no easy ways out. Change is difficult, uncomfortable work. The project is not hopeless—if the man is willing to work hard—but it is complex and painstaking. The challenge for an abused woman is to learn how to tell whether her partner is serious about overcoming his abusiveness.
The initial impetus to change is always extrinsic rather than self-motivated. The majority of abusive men do not make deep and lasting changes even in a high-quality abuser program
My father taught me to respect all people. I’ve worked as a Secret Service agent, business executive in tough union environments, and a consultant in many anti-human organizations: real men don’t abuse anyone, especially women. Only cowards abuse and bully others.
Good citizens—too often indifferent—need to stand up for our mothers, daughters, sisters, neighbors, co-workers, and friends who are victims and hold abusers accountable for their behavior; they victimize each of us.
Indifference to disrespect is a community’s greatest sin.
RECOMMENDED READING:
“Men Who Hate Women & The women Who Love Them” by Susan Forward, Ph.D.
“Who Does He Do That?” by Lundy Bancroft
Ray Rice and the Abuse of Women
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.
Loring Park
Images from Loring Park in Downtown Minneapolis.
(Click to Enlarge)
The Berger Fountain (also known as the Dandelion Fountain) in Loring Park
A squirrel enjoying a pancake.
I’ve only seen a white squirrel one other time.
The Short and Violent Life of the Child Eric Dean
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.
R.I.P. Ruth Ross Ziolkowski
The spiritual and business leader of the Crazy Horse Memorial passed away on May 21, 2014.
Melanie and I felt honored to meet this humble woman on a visit to Crazy Horse:
From the left: Melanie Heuerman, Ruth Ziolkowski, Tom Heuerman, Warren Harming
Ruth has joined Korczak in eternity. When I think of them I am reminded of the quote from Arthur Schopenhauer:
The kings left their crowns and scepters behind here, and the heroes their weapons. Yet the great spirits among them all, whose splendor flowed out of themselves, who did not receive it from outward things, they take their greatness across with them.
The Crazy Horse Memorial
(Click to enlarge)
The Story:
A year after the Battle of Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse’s vanquished followers relocated to the reservation. He alone remained free. Crazy Horse met a white trader who mocked him.
“Where are your lands now, Crazy Horse? Your people are captured and put on reservations. Where are your lands you fought for?”
Crazy Horse sat on his pony and said nothing for a long time. He just stared at the white trader. He raised his arm slowly and pointed out over his horse’s head to the east and said proudly, “My lands are where my dead lie buried.”
That same day Crazy Horse went to Fort Robinson in Nebraska under a flag of truce. He was stabbed in the back by a white soldier and died the next day, September 6, 1877. He was 35 years old.
Crazy Horse was indeed “crazy;” mad for the love of his people, whom he never let down. He defended them and their way of life in the only way he knew, and only after he witnessed grave injustices toward them.
1n 1939, Lakota Indian Chief Henry Standing Bear wrote to Boston-born sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and asked him to carve Crazy Horse in the Mountains of the Black Hills. Lakota elders wanted to show the white man that Indians had their great heroes also.
In 1947, at age 38, after he served in World War II, and turned down a government commission to create war memorials in Europe, the self-taught “storyteller in stone” arrived in the Black Hills to carve a 100-foot likeness of Crazy Horse.
During his early months in the Black Hills, Korczak sat and looked at the mountain for five days and five nights. We can only imagine what he thought. At the end of the five days he decided to carve the entire mountain not just the top 100 feet. The vision had grown. After all, he said, “I had nowhere to go.”
Crazy Horse would be a symbol: a tribute to all North American Indians. The vision now included a memorial in the round — the largest sculpture ever undertaken, a Native American medical center, a university, and museum. Korczak’s purpose was to give the Native Americans “a little bit of pride and to try to right a little bit of the wrong … [the white people] did to [them].”
Korczak spent the next 35 years carving his dream. Life was hard. When he began the project he had only $174 and many local residents mocked him. They were skeptical of his motives, and racism reared its ugly head. The first several months he lived in a tent as he built a studio-home. In 1948-9 he built a 741-step staircase to the top of the mountain. He had no roads, water, or electricity for two years. He began carving the mountain with a hammer and chisel.
Korczak’s early years prepared him to cope with difficulty. He was an orphan at age 1. Raised in several foster homes and treated poorly, he left home at 16 to fend for himself. He never had a single lesson in art, engineering, or sculpture.
Korczak’s vision gave him strength: “I chose to do it the hard way.” His purpose was to “right a wrong the little I can. I wanted to do something worthwhile with my life,” he said.
Ruth Ross met Korczak Ziolkowski in West Hartford, Connecticut, where she and some other teenaged friends asked for an autograph. At age 20 (in June 1947), Ruth and her friends traveled to South Dakota to volunteer on the Crazy Horse project. Her friends returned to Connecticut but Ruth stayed. She and Korczak were married on Thanksgiving Day, 1950.
“No one thought it would be easy,” said Ruth.
Ruth gave birth to 10 children — all born at home and one delivered by Korczak. The older five children received their early education in a one-room schoolhouse at Crazy Horse.
Korczak knew he would not live long enough to finish the massive project. So, he and Ruth spent three years detailing three books of plans for the Memorial.
Korczak died in 1982, at age 74. He had blasted 7.4 million tons of granite from the mountain. His last words were to “go slow so you do it right.” The Storyteller in Stone rests in a tomb near the mountain with a door-knocker on the outside and a rotary telephone on the inside. People eulogized him as a man of “legends, dreams, visions, and greatness.”
Ruth then led Crazy Horse until her death on May 21, 2014. Seven of her 10 children, each of whom left the Memorial to do other things and returned because it was “where they belonged,” keep the dream alive and progress continues. Ruth says it is “not important when it’s finished; the important thing is that work never stops.”
When finished, the Memorial will be 563 feet high and 641 feet long. It will be taller than the Washington Monument and larger than the biggest pyramid. The four heads of nearby Mount Rushmore will fit inside of Crazy Horse’s head.
Public donations and admissions fund this humanitarian project. Korczak, who left a life of assured fame and fortune, never took a salary. He twice turned down $10 million in government grants and asked: “Why should a memorial to the American Indian be financed by the very government that broke its treaties with the Indians and turned its back on all its promises?”
Melanie told me after our visit: “I knew you were a believer. After seeing this Memorial in person, I am now a believer too.”
Bad Guys Win
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.
Tom's Thoughts 