The dirty stain of sexual abuse plagues families of all shades but how the black community sweeps this issue under the rug affects me the most for personal reasons. At the start of the summer a black family in Pennsylvania placed their daughter in summer camp, a typical summer camp where the children attend between the hours of 8am to 4pm. This was supposed to be an excellent opportunity for the young girl to interact with her peers and prepare for grade school through academic and recreational activities. But instead this ordeal has become a nightmare for the little girl and her loved ones. She was molested.
The specifics are too graphic and disturbing to divulge but what is known is that her female camp counselor took two young girls into a bathroom, and then began to fondle their privates. No one wants to read this type of story and it actually hasn’t made the press (surprised?) but our discomfort with the topic should not cause us to turn a blind eye to the subject. In doing so we empower pedophiles to terrorize our children and increase the risk that someone close to us may be victimized.
What went wrong? The family taught the little sister to stay away from dirty men and nasty little boys. They taught the young girl to cross her legs and sit like a lady, to respect herself. They taught her to tell the teacher when other students were having inappropriate conversations. So how did this nightmare become their reality? More and more stories are being reported of women molesting young girls, yet we don’t warn our little girls to beware of women who could violate them just like a man could.
Young boys are just as much at risk. No one ever told me to stay away from older men. No one warned me that someone who looked like my father might want to touch me in an inappropriate way. So because we’re ignoring same sex molesters we’re leaving our children vulnerable to the types of pedophiles who know our children lack that awareness. Because the truth is We lack awareness, we can’t see a man touching our son or women touching or daughters, but why can’t we?
