No, White People and Media The "Mom in Yellow" Isn't a Hero

In the ongoing unrest and rioting in Baltimore and the media coverage of it, several narratives have emerged. The one that is getting all kinds of play is the "Mom in Yellow", Toya Graham.  People from the Police Commissioner Anthony Batts to Lester Holt have praised Ms. Graham for grabbing and beating her son on camera to get him to disengage from potential rioting. This thinking is naive at best and dangerously reckless at worst.

There has long been a myth in America that says, essentially, 'Black parents need to beat their kids so the cops won't have to.'  This myth is not just perpetuated by African American people but is reinforced by White people who think if African American people are "respectable" they won't get harassed by law enforcement. 

This myth has led to an uncountable number of child abuse reports that I have investigated in the last 21 years. Nationally African American children make up 14% of the population yet 31% of the foster care children are African American.  In Illinois the numbers are shocking. Black children make up 18% of the population and 68% of the foster care population.

The fundamental problem with the "Mom in Yellow" narrative is the underlying racism that blames Black mothers for their sons being hassled by police. "If only they had raised their boys right" I hear it from a few African American people, but I really hear it all the time from White people. Unfortunately I hear it from far too many colleagues. Sadly, this myth has not prevented incarceration or death for African American people. It's only reinforced generation after generation of whites thinking that if 'they' just 'behave' they won't be unfairly targeted.

Now, specifically referencing the Ms. Graham, I fundamentally get that she was trying to save her son. I have no problem with that. My quarrel is that by physically hitting and punching him, she was not only lauded as a hero, her behavior reinforced so many stereotypes of Black mothers, it made me a little sick. 

Ms. Graham's physical assault reinforced the myth I've described above, but it also reinforced the myth and extremely racist trope of the "angry black woman".  It reinforced the racist trope that the only way to control a young black man is to be more violent. Commissioner Batts actually said he 'wished more parents would take control' of their children like the Mom in Yellow did.

All of this thinking is exactly why Baltimore happened. Beating African American children hasn't solved the problems of cops targeting African Americans. Black people being respectable hasn't stopped their oppression by Whites. Freddy Gray was probably disciplined by his parents and told to watch out for the police and he's still dead.

It's incredibly easy to offer simplistic solutions like "I wish more parents were like the Mom in Yellow".  The complex issues that affect the African American community aren't so easily answered. Those issues will continue to plague Baltimore and America forever. No amount of "beating them before the cops do" is going to change the color of black people's skin. 

Mary Kay Letourneau Fualaau is a Female Predator

On April 10th, ABC's 20/20 featured a new Barbara Walters interview.  The subjects were Mary Kay Letourneau Fualaau and her husband and victim Vili Fualaau.  The hook for the interview was that that Fualaau's are soon celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary. To call this entire thing creepy is an injustice to creepiness. 

During the interview, the audience was treated to some inner details of Letourneau's abuse of Fualaau How she was smitten with a 12 year old boy when she was 34, and how one kiss turned into "an affair" Letourneau detailed a night when a shared a kiss after spending the summer helping him develop a gift for drawing.

"The incident was a late night that it didn't stop with a kiss," Mary said. "And I thought that it would and it didn't."

The problem with this entire interview is that this wasn't an affair.  It was child sexual abuse. Period. Mary Kay Letourneau was the first female predator of the modern media era. Her abuse of Fualaau was just as heinous as Jerry Sandusky, and she employed many of the same techniques. 

Developing a bond with the child over some months before making a sexual move. Using her authority as a teacher to enhance that bond and no doubt fawning over his drawing skills are textbook predator moves. I've written extensively about how the really good predators take their time. She was a really good predator. 

People don't like to think of women as sexual predators, and I have only done a few cases in 21 years involving female perpetrators of child sexual abuse.  Female predators do exist, but they tend to be under reported. Even a Google search of "Female sex offenders" turns up little in hard data. There is however, a copious amount of anecdotal information. 

What many female predators have in common is that they usually seek out their victims in situations like schools and day cares. Like male predators they choose their victims from vulnerable populations, kids with dysfunction at home. Kids who are needy. Vili Fualaau "grew up impoverished without a father and a tumultuous relationship with his mother. In other words, a perfect victim. 

Tracking down and locking up female predators is often times difficult, especially if the victim is a teen, these women aren't seen as predators or abusers. The boys who are abused by attractive young teachers are hailed as conquerors and not given the societal permission to understand that they were abused. 

The media reports abuse of boys by female teachers as "threesomes".  Other outlets report that the teacher "solicited" the student. In the case of Letourneau- Fualaau ABC chose to call it an affair. All of these cases are child sexual abuse. Attaching the words "child sexual abuser" to these cases gives them the stigma they deserve. 

In the 20/20 interview, Mary Kay Letourneau-Fualaau said she wanted to be taken off the sex offender registry. She said she wants to return to teaching. This should never happen. She may think she has atoned for her abuse but listening to her husband tells me that his pain lingers.

During the interview Vili Fualaau describes a dark journey since he was 13. Stating "I'm surprised I'm alive today" describing bouts of depression and substance abuse. Both common reactions of sexual abuse victims. 

In what may be the most surreal part of the interview, the Fualaau's were asked what their reaction would be if their daughters came home and told them they were 'sleeping with' AKA being abused by their teacher. Their response? They both said they'd be shocked and upset. Vili stated “I don't support younger kids being married or having a relationship with someone older,” Vili said. “I don't support it.” 

Vili sounds like a guy who totally wasn't abused doesn't he? 

Female predators are real. Sexual abuse of boys like Vili Fualaau is far more common than reported. Mary Kay Fualaau is the most famous case, but there are dozens and dozens every month. The victims are preyed upon just as surely as if  the perp were a man. Mary Kay Letourneau Fualaau doesn't deserve to be removed from the registry. She made her bed (literally) and now she has to continue to lie in it. 

Who Judges the Judges?

Trigger Warning Child Sexual Abuse 

This week in a ruling that shocked people across the country, A California judge reduced the sentence of a man who was found guilty of raping a 3 year old. Orange County Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly said that the rapist, Kevin Jonas Rojano-Nieto didn't intend to harm the girl. . In 21 years of investigating child abuse, I can tell you that thinking is not isolated, it's shockingly common.

The sexual abuse of children is something that most people don't like to think about.  Americans for the most part don't understand or want to understand how prevalent it really is. When a shocking story like the Sandusky Penn State case hits the media, people are aghast. Most people assume that convicted child rapists like Sandusky go to prison forever. Sadly that is not the case. Nationally the average sentence of child sex abusers is seven years.

In the Rojona-Nieto case, Rojona-Nieto cornered his 3 year old cousin in a garage and raped her. When her mother came looking for her, Rojona-Nieto covered the child's mouth to stifle her screams. It was only after the child complained of pain that her mother started asking questions that led  to the arrest and conviction.

Judges like Kelly are hardly rare. In the counties where I work, we've had similar issues with minimal sentences for child sex abusers, depending on the whim of the judge. Some judges do understand the seriousness of the conviction, other's adhere to the "the child must have done something" or in the case of teen victims the child was "as much in control of the situation" as the rapist.

A number of years ago I worked a case in which the perpetrator was convicted of sexual penetration of 4 children under the age of 4. In Illinois that is a class X felony punishable by a sentence of 6-30 years on each count. He was sentenced to a total of 40 years of a possible 120. Part of the rationale was that his offense was oral penetration, not vaginal or anal.

In another case, the judge convicted the man on fondling charges to 4 years in prison but found the man not guilty of sexual penetration because the girl said the man put his penis in her 'butt' but did not say that it hurt. This despite the legal definition being 'any contact however slight' so literally touching a child's anus or vagina with the penis is sexual penetration in Illinois.

In yet another case a judge found a man not guilty of raping a teen aged boy because the boy was chubby and the man's penis "couldn't possibly penetrated the boy in the way the boy described". These are just three cases that I'm personally aware of. There are dozens and dozens more and that's just in 3 relatively small counties.

Part of the problem is lack of understanding by judges.  As mentioned above people don't like to think about this subject.  There has been improvement in sentencing and in the understanding of victim's credibility in recent years due to a concerted effort to educate the judiciary, but there is still a long way to go.

Judges need to be educated not only about the suffering of victims, they need to understand that the intent of the perpetrator doesn't matter. Remorse doesn't matter. The involvement of alcohol and substances doesn't matter. All that matters is that they sexually assaulted a child.

Judges also need better understanding of recidivism of child sexual abusers. Studies vary but anywhere from 15-40 percent reoffend and are caught.   That number is conservative because child sex abusers who are released from prison are much savvier in their approach and often don't get caught.

Judges like Judge M. Marc Kelly are commonplace.  Judge Kelly stated that the perpetrator did not intend to harm the child and was remorseful.  I'd ask what part of forcible rape isn't harmful? As to remorse, every child rapist I've helped put in prison is remorseful. Remorseful that they got caught.