According to the indictment, you went home and told your dad, and then, the next morning, told JoePa — which, at Penn State, might just have been harder and riskier to do than telling the police....And now, the rage has turned on you. "Some want to string him up because he didn't do enough, and others want to string him up because he broke the code," said Richard Gartner, author of Betrayed as Boys, the definitive book on male survivors of childhood sexual abuse. "He at least tried to get the information to the authorities and pretty much right away, the next morning. It's sad, but not surprising that he is the focus of the rage. It's easier to demonize those we don't know much about, but harder to criticize those we idolize."Nobody's patting McQueary on the back or sitting around the campfire singing songs about his bravery, but let's pump the brakes a bit and realize that when it comes to being the actual monsters in this case, McQueary is much closer to you and I than he is to Sandusky/Paterno/school president. Of course you say you'd do something differently if you walked in on what he did. What do you think McQueary would've said if questioned about such a scenario up to the moment he walked into that locker room that day?
Thursday, November 17, 2011
McQueary
Like everyone else I've wrestled with the McQueary thing for the last two weeks; I've argued with several friends that while of course I'm horrified he didn't go after Sandusky with a 2x4 the moment he saw what he saw, I can try to put myself in his shoes and understand the world he was living in. As devil's advocate to all the tough guys who are trying to out-do each other re: how badly they would've beaten the shit out of Sandusky, it's nice to see a somewhat sympathetic article from Jane Leavy over at Grantland:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
15 comments:
I dunno, man. I've wrestled with it as well, and in the end, perhaps there is merit to all sides. But if it as described in the grand jury rport (and it may well not be - grand jury reports are not the be all and end all of a story), then McQueary did not walk into an equivocal situation, but one in which he knew that
a) Sandusky was in the showers at night
b) with a young boy
c) who he was cornholing up the keister
I don't need to pose that I'd have been the hero. I'm reasonably confident I would have interceded, but even if I acknowledge my own possible weakness, that does not ameliorate McQueary's, right?
It just means we both failed miserably and our failure may have resulted in the molestation of countless others.
The mistake the McQueary apologists are making (and I believe Dan Patrick and David Brooks are among that group as well) is one of illogical transfer. They are rightly offended at all the tough guys who say "I would have kicked his ass." They are also compassionate to McQueary given his role, his closeness to Sandusky and the shock of it all.
But you can believe those two things and still believe that McQueary failed and he failed utterly.
It happens, but just because we fell bad for moral cowards doesn't mean we need to re-degine moral cowardice.
"It happens, but just because we fell bad for moral cowards doesn't mean we need to re-degine moral cowardice."
Again, minus the drinking
"It happens, but just because we feel bad for moral cowards doesn't mean we need to re-define moral cowardice."
i think it's possible to try to understand the cultish community McQueary was in (college football in general, Happy Valley in particular) and the low rung of the totem pole his influence resided, all while agreeing that yes, he morally failed (IF he in fact didnt stop the rape, which is getting murkier now thanks to non-lawyers finding out grand juries arent the end-all of the truth http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/11/how-reliable-are-grand-jury-reports.html ) Im not defending McQueary as much as thinking/empathizing out loud. Everybody failed miserably, and McQueary as a non-icon seems to be just too easy of a target for people not looking to put more than a few seconds of thought into it.
i think it's possible to try to understand the cultish community McQueary was in (college football in general, Happy Valley in particular) and the low rung of the totem pole his influence resided, all while agreeing that yes, he morally failed (IF he in fact didnt stop the rape, which is getting murkier now thanks to non-lawyers finding out grand juries arent the end-all of the truth http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/11/how-reliable-are-grand-jury-reports.html ) Im not defending McQueary as much as thinking/empathizing out loud. Everybody failed miserably, and McQueary as a non-icon seems to be just too easy of a target for people not looking to put more than a few seconds of thought into it.
i would bet most of these mfs would also say Fucking A they would wrestle away a gun pointed at their wife. who fucking knows. our mudge comes from the fact its an act of omission rather than commission; + glass houses and all that. but dude Was 28, and no matter how insular, how tradition-steeped, how worried one may be about losing the only job he knows, you do more, and you sure as shit dont sit idly by for years as these camps continue in the hood without nary a fucking anonymous call or ten.
i tell you what else i dont get, the gj testimony that he heard skin-on-skin sex slapping sounds. unless youre sasha grey ope, you aint taking that shit stoically, especially when 10. dude is getting burned by that testimony, and what he probably witnessed was what jopa (whom i have no fucking sympathy for) testified as to hearing: horribly inappropriate touching.
Of course you do more. But one of my more important points, one of many, natch, is that McQueary is closer to us in that as horrifying as it is, it is somewhat conceivable of failing as he did. We're only human. Meanwhile, is it conceivable to rape little boys? Hell no. Is it conceivable to cover up a buddy who's doing it? Hell no. McQueary had a moral failure in the heat of the moment, Paterno/PSU made a policy of it for almost a decade. That doesn't let McQeary off the hook, of course.
im agreeing to a pt -- parsing human nature and storytelling and cya and gj testimony, it might not have been rape; a boy screaming in pain would, perhaps (reaching for data, spilling coffee, becoming distracted by nicki minaj song), elicit a stronger, more immediate response from a former d1 athlete. seeing only the awkwardness of a familiar father figure and a kid in the shower, it Could be argued, is a tad grayer; considering all the ancillary stuff you mention. who knows how far any of us would go in that instance.
This is what I mean by thinking/empathizing out loud. Musing. This is what we do on Xmastime; if you wanna chat about fisting squirrels you've come to the wrong place.
[comment deleted by outraged author whos still waiting on FREE cameltoe roatry phone]
>the low rung of the totem pole ...
He was a home-town boy who grew up to be starting quarterback at one of the most media-centric programs in the country. If he doesn't have the reserves of self-esteem to overcome his indecision, then neither did say, Himmler, who after all wasn't the Fuhrer.
And you've doubled down with "in the heat of the moment." As the poster right above you wrote, McQueary had another decade for anonymous phone calls and blogposts, and doesn't seem to have done anything. (I say that as someone who has done such things as a whistleblower in a much different situation. I'm not triyng to take credit - I'm anonymous here anyway. Just saying I know it can be effective in putting public pressure on powerful people who are wavering about doing the right thing.)
Instead, McQueary stayed at Penn State, went to fundraisers for the guy's charity, sat on the bench with him, doesn't seem to have told friends about what happened. "Oh well, if JoePa is okay with it, I guess I'm okay with it too."
Fuck all you guys. If any one of you walked in on some dude ass raping a 10-year-old boy you would do a million times more than running home and telling your daddy and then JoePa. And if you wouldn't then you're a failure as a human being. If a kid is being hurt, it's fucking instinct, dude. And any theorizing otherwise is fucked up. Also... what about all the subsequent years in which the police weren't notified and MCQueary just sat on his information and did nothing except perhaps notice Sandusky utilizing the showers some more. No brake pumping, Xmastime. Maybe first post in two years I disagree with.
Sorry. All fired up on three glasses of wine. But still! Xmastime! Leavy's article is bullshit. McQueary is a big ass motherfucker who could've batted Sandusky with a pinky. But, all that aside, of course he's the focus of rage, next to Sandusky. He had it within his power to put an immediate stop to atrocity and he did virtually nothing but puss out. Even when the "heat of the moment" had passed and he had the next day (years even!) to "Monday morning quarterback", he allowed it to continue.
i dont disagree with anything anyone says about McQueary; he did every thing wrong at every turn (save actually telling JoePa, which he wiped out by never doing anything else.) My point is that he's already gonna be famous forever for being one of history's greatest monsters. If 99.99999% of anything ever said or written about him is well-deserved outraged hatred, I dont think it's a crime to take the 0.00001 and try to understand what its like to witness something like he did and then see it disappear under the cloak of a cult. Like I said, that doesnt let him off the hook. I'm not defending him, but there's more than enough outrage to go around already. One post from me isn't gonna make him any less guilty any more than me openly wondering "god, I hope I don't do what he did if presented with it" makes me more likely to fail as he did. And when did we let chicks post in the comments?
Oh SNAP. I see your point. I guess what pisses me off about McQueary is that I really do feel like any dude, any real man, hell, any real person who witnessed someone hurting a child in the worst way would do everything within his power to fight back, whether that involves physical brutality, going to the police, WHATEVER. How could you live with yourself if you didn't? In a way that's worse than what Sandusky did because he is a straight up motherfucker but all these dudes that kept silent...
And all this talk about the football cult culture is such a lame excuse. Hmmm... Let's see - football glory vs. little kid's life. Get the hell outta here. But look at you, inciting controversy and shit. I think you did it for the comments. What's next, Sandusky was just trying to teach the boys how to shower properly? KIDDING.
I just think it's possible to accept that which appears to be a given (he did a horrible thing, made it worse with continued silence, we'd all do things differently) while asking re: can we empathize with McCreary? Of course asking the question doesn't mean the answer isn't a resounding "hell no"; asking doesn't make you Team McQueary. But I'm glad there's a forum someone like me can ask it.
Also, your thesis re: Sandusky giving shower clinics is interesting to me, since I wonder if I could've used some instruction
http://xmastime.blogspot.com/2007/07/things-are-good.html
;)
side note: "get the fuck outta here" = still funny http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlwIyp1UmUU :)
Post a Comment