Someone from the media DEFENDS Joe?  Unpossible!

This is America. You have a right to voice a dumb opinion. I have the right to mock your dumb opinion.

I think people are mainly uncomfortable with acknowledging certain of these victims because they regard them as being guilty of allowing Sandusky to continue his crimes (Schultz, Curley, McQueary, Spanier, Joe) and because the individual impact is relatively minor or the victim has no face (e.g., alumni, students, PSU, The Second Mile and the good employees there, Second Mile donors, etc.).

We can debate the guilt/innocence of the PSU administration all day, so we can also debate how much they are victims, but the fact remains that they were negatively impacted by the actions of JS. I’m not that willing to fight this fight, though…

However, the parties in this that are innocent of any wrongdoing are unquestionably victims (primarily students, alumni, and the good Second Mile people). And the scope of the damage done to any one of those victims makes it hard to argue that their suffering matters in comparison to the suffering of those who were directly abused, but the sheer number of those victims is what makes them significant.

My life and my identity were forever changed by JS actions. When I go into a job interview or get announced for a talk I’m giving, my PSU education will come up and for a very long time the only thing that will pop into people’s heads is what happened… not that PSU is a great school that I’m lucky to have graduated from. And, although it seems weird to say it now, I had bought into everything that Penn State was known for, particularly conducting myself with honor as a member of a community, and always striving to do my best to honor that community. Penn State is a major part of my identity and being a Penn Stater was always a major point of pride for me. This scandal destroyed a part of that pride and my inability to simply move on from that, or ignore it, just illustrates how powerfully entrenched PSU is as a part of my identity. That may sound like lunacy to someone who just went to school for a few years somewhere. I didn’t go to Penn State for a few years… I became a member of a community… a community whose individuals I run into on a regular basis and a community I regularly re-engage in through THON, my fraternity, PSU sports, and donations for worthy causes within that community. For the “friends” and relatives of mine who didn’t demonize me in the wake of the scandal as being somehow complicit for simply having a degree from there, the treatment I received from the remainder of my friends and family was very much as a victim (“I’m sorry that happened. I know you really love Penn State. This is probably killing you.” “I probably shouldn’t bring it up, but how are you doing with all of this Penn State stuff?”).

I’m fine with calling myself and other innocent people harmed by this ‘collateral damage’ if that’s what it takes not to incite people who think that it is necessary to judge the relativity of different victims, but I did not cause this, I could not have prevented it, and I have been negatively impacted. I am a victim. And I am not going to wallow in that or insist that people somehow acknowledge it, but I will insist that they not treat me or people I perceive as other victims like we somehow deserved what was coming to us. Blaming other victims does nothing to help the kids that were abused.