Confronting a myth....

For better or worse, humans organize and find security in and around myths.  To form and sustain large groups of people, some myth seems to be required, some story about that people, their organization, their collective nature or vision and, of course, that story is likely to be one that shows them in a good light. This is a very powerful fact of human socialization, this rallying around a more or less common or shared myth. 
Hence we have minor and major religions. Hence we have amateur and professional sports teams. Hence we are red or blue, we always drive Toyotas or Fords, we connect with the nation(s) our immigrant ancestors came from. And whatever myth  or myths we connect with give us a stability, a sort of purpose, and a sense of importance among other things. Quite often our myth includes that we are superior to other groups, similar as they may seem. We are the best in our myths, we are the fortunate, the happiest, even the chosen ones. 
As most people reading this know, Kirkwood has quite a myth running. For those born and raised in Kirkwood, if things went fairly well for them, they may have founded a lot of their identity on being a Kirkwoodian... or whatever they are called. For those, in particular, who did not move away, who do not have other long term experiences living in other places to compare Kirkwood to, this foundation of identity is very important and runs very deep. The "Kirkwood Way," is held somewhat fanatically, like a religion, like love for one sports team, like being  "a die-hard conservative," or a "die-hard liberal." 
I think the survivors ran into this fact immediately following their abuse. Many have said as much in various wording. Needing help, they ran into a wall of denial, of rejection, even of anger and accusation because what they were saying did not fit with the MYTH. Surely, there were not teachers and staff sexually abusing students in KIRKWOOD!!! This was not the Kirkwood Way! Kirkwood was and is all things good and wonderful, not a place in which children are preyed upon by teachers! 
How much more difficulty it is to crack this myth, this utopian fantasy, with the truth that 30 teachers or staff (at least) were/are sexual predators and that this abuse is systemic, was facilitated by many administrators that did nothing to stop it and, in some cases, participated directly in abuse themselves! KIRKWOOD FORBID! This could not be possible!!!
But it was possible and in no small part because so many people clung to the myth, looked the other way when suspicions were aroused of activities that didn't fit with the program, said nothing when they might have said something and chose to uphold that myth rather than to protect children. Thousands of children were sexually abused in many tens of thousands of instances!  
Recently the US Olympic Women's Gymnast team has been in the news as, for six years, many of our best athletes have been trying to bring down ONE sexual perpetrator, the longtime head doctor of that team. Six years and including that they were relatively famous people...our top athletes...and that they were talking directly to the FBI!!! And nothing was happening for them...the doctor kept abusing more women and girls. The FBI did nothing! Finally this bastard retired but not with denunciations from the Olympic Committee, not in shame! He just retired! God knows what the survivors have gone through to keep pressuring for truth to be made known broadly, to stop this monster, to be taken seriously let alone to get some justice! And when Olympic athletes are not even listened to....how may "little people" expect to be heard? 
The Olympic Myth allowed for this to happen. Athletes that effectively turned against Olympic authorities, even a team doctor but the Olympic Committee as well, were ground underfoot. 
I ask you, I urge each of you, not to let the Kirkwood Myth win at the expense of the survivors and current students in these schools! The Myth is very formidable and is connected to money, of course, and to political power. Those who are perceived to be speaking against the Myth are seen as subversives, as threats to the foundations that give many people there meaning and security. We have to understand what we are up against. 
People will hold on to their foundational myths at the expense of children...this is a fact. It is evidenced in countless ways, globally, from the revelations of systemic abuse in various churches or denominations, to the same in many children's organizations to the scale of human trafficking, to the acceptance of  enormous "collateral damage" in wars. Those who cling to the myth will not easily allow truth in, let alone accept the truth nor will they then act to see that justice is done relative to what the truth reveals. 
We need a lot of sustain. We need to be strong. We need to be perpetual in our dissent, our efforts to disseminate the truth, and in our activism on this extremely significant issue. We need to support one another as we maintain this effort. I fully believe we can eradicate sexual abuse in these schools, rid the schools of known perpetrators, hold many of the perpetrators accountable at least to the extent of removing their mythologic status and causing their honors to be weighed against their abuse. I fully believe we can protect the children but it will require confronting a very strong myth with "olympic resolve."