Analysis of a Bad Strategy
1). This kind of statement always comes from a spokesman of a powerful predator or perpetrator and denies the victim the opportunity to validate their suffering. This tactic re-victimizes and often re-energizes the victim’s pain and suffering and their desire to punish or to get even with their predator.
2). This statement also squanders an empathic opportunity for the predator or offender that would allow the victim to take credit for the results of their suffering, in this case significantly and publicly penalizing the predator, even 20 years later.
3). The media is always complicit in revictimization by failing to drill down and challenge the official statements, by refusing to print or to broadcast the falseness of these statements, or by demanding credible proof of the “amicable” claim. Amicable, says who? There is rarely a credible search for other victims. There are always other victims.
4). Sexual abuse is a bigger and more pervasive pandemic than Covid. It rarely kills yet causes lifelong, invisible, bloodless, corrosive pain and suffering. There is constant revictimization, it confers automatic doubt and the assumption that the victims probably “deserved it.”
5). Think of the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of people in the organization who have witnessed a principal’s predatory behavior, perhaps for years, but have remained silent. The more important the predator, the more people are watching and counting what they do, but still witnesses remain silent.
6). Once a predator or perpetrator, always a predator or perpetrator. It is an addiction. Always hunting, always perfecting their predatory skills. There are always serial victims. These predators are always amazed that they never get caught. Every day that they get away with this behavior, the more emboldened and entitled they become.
7). It takes a full and complete public admission, disclosure, and detailed public apology to begin the process of victim recovery. I consider a public apology to be the atomic energy of empathy.
8). Every time you hear a negative denial you know it is a lie.
“I had nothing to do with . . . “
“That’s not true. . . “
“You can’t believe them . . .”
“I would never do something like . . .”
“It wasn’t me . . . “
“I am not a crook . . . “
“I did not have sex with that women . . .”
“I am not a racist . . .”
We live in an amazing world of lies including falsehoods that we have learned to accept. I’ll be talking about some of these lies in upcoming newsletters. If you have a favorite lie that you’d like to share, please send it. Anonymity guaranteed. I’ll be happy to comment on it, even privately if you’d prefer.
