Last week’s Congressional testimony by four American gymnasts shone a light on the cover-up of Larry Nassar’s crimes by the FBI, USA Gymnastics and Olympic officials. Simone Biles concluded: “I blame an entire system that enabled, perpetrated Nassar’s abuse”.
NBC News cultural historian Lynn Stuart Parramore elaborated: “If we’re honest, however, it encompasses the entire society — reflecting a longstanding willful blindness to harm inflicted upon children by adults.”
This blindness is reflected in numerous Minnesota parent-centered child welfare practices, including to deliberately not record the names of perpetrators in Family Assessment cases, which comprise 62% of child protection responses.
Every time, so far, that a child abuse scandal like this breaks – think Jerry Sandusky at Penn State and Eric Dean here in Minnesota – institutions revert to business as usual after a brief period of hand-wringing. Let’s disrupt that pattern together.
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