I was pro-Palestine when being pro-Palestine was uncool.

 

When I first learned of the atrocities happening in Palestine and the Gaza Strip by Israel, I was horrified. I broke down in tears, which shook me up since I had spent years not crying.

That’s when I started questioning Christianity, because so many Christians were chanting murder and war against the Palestinian people, and I couldn’t understand it. It went against everything Jesus taught. Christians were embracing the Old Testament God—the angry, vengeful God of war—instead of what we are told to follow in the New Testament after Jesus. True religion is protecting the widows and orphans, yet these Christians were chanting to kill them.

I slowly backed away from Christianity and turned to the complete opposite: I became an atheist. But I still loved the Palestinian people and often wrote about them, highlighting the horrific torture and annihilation of the people in their country, all in the name of religion, all in the name of the Holy Bible.

One lady made a blog specifically just for me, pointing out that I was a “Jezebel whore” protecting Hamas, when all I was doing was exposing what Israel was doing and what my country was paying for with our tax dollars, the killing of children.

People on Facebook accused me of being antisemitic and antichrist, when all I was doing was following what’s written in their Bible, written by Jesus.

I eventually backed away from the whole Free Palestine movement and moved on to something else just as controversial, because I couldn’t stand seeing what was happening over there every day, the suffering and the denial.

Now, today, the tides have changed tremendously. Musicians are speaking out against what’s going on over there. Instagram is full of Free Palestine reels. Millions around the world are protesting, and it really makes my heart swell that people are finally waking up and that it’s no longer taboo to speak up for the Palestinians.

But I can’t forget the years I spent trying to use my small voice against a chorus of opposition, hate, and threats that I received. And I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

I guess having spent years living in denial to protect abusers and harmful people at the expense of myself—and possibly others I can no longer live in denial.

And I’m always rooting for the underdog, those society calls villains, when in reality, sometimes it’s quite the opposite.

 

Dorothy Sandusky Is Just as Much a Monster

Evil can come in many forms, even the gentle grey softness of a grandmother like Dottie Sandusky.That monsters like Jerry Sandusky exist is a sad reality. Sadder still is the women who protect these men. Is it possible that this woman had absolutely no idea of the atrocities being committed in her own home? Dorothy Sandusky owes the world an apology.

By Lydia Lovric, Contributor

Evil can come in many forms. It can come in the likes of Stalin or Hitler, or it can come in the gentle grey softness of a grandmother like Dottie Sandusky.

While the world's focus has been on former Pennsylvania State football coach Jerry Sandusky, who was very recently convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse, we have all-but-failed to notice the second Sandusky monster.

Dorothy Sandusky, who has been married to the now infamous pedophile for more than 40 years, was allegedly home during some of the attacks. Sandusky's accusers claim to have been raped in the basement of his Pennsylvania home while Dottie puttered away upstairs.

Is it possible that this woman had absolutely no idea of the atrocities being committed below? Did she truly never even suspect that something horrible might be happening or that it was peculiar that her husband chose to spend so much time alone with these young football players?

It is difficult to imagine that Dottie Sandusky had no suspicions, no inkling that something was amiss. 

Granted, pedophiles tend to be quite charming. They are often "family men" who are married with children of their own and are inclined to work with kids. From afar, Jerry Sandusky was a seemingly wonderful man who volunteered much of his time mentoring troubled youth. In reality, he was a cunning predator who preyed on vulnerable kids and exploited them in the worst way possible.

If we grant Dottie Sandusky the benefit of the doubt and concede that she was truly in the dark the entire time, that is still no excuse for her testifying on her husband's behalf. 

When there are so many victims, so many detailed accounts and even a witness to one of the incidents, it is unforgivable that Dottie Sandusky would agree to take the stand and try her best to make Jerry Sandusky appear innocent. 

The defence tried in vain to explain away the abuse allegations by suggesting that the victims were motivated by greed, hoping to cash in on a financial settlement. The fact that eight young men chose to come forward and recount the horrific abuse they suffered at the hands of Jerry Sandusky should be enough to silence Dottie Sandusky forever. 

The fact that her own adopted son, Matt, has made similar abuse allegations against his father should leave little doubt in anyone's mind -- even hers. 

Dorothy Sandusky owes the world an apology. She should apologize for being so aloof, so unaware of the goings-on in her own house. She should apologize for not immediately filing for divorce when the prosecution presented such an overwhelming case. 

Indeed, her very existence helped Jerry Sandusky to be the villain that he is and added to the number of victims. After all, most reasonable parents would be leery of sending their child off to a single man's home. But knowing that the man is married and that his wife will be present helps to ease any concerns a parent might fee

That monsters like Jerry Sandusky exist is a sad reality. Sadder still is the women who protect these men. Sometimes we see evil in the eyes of a pedophile. Sometimes we see evil in the closed eyes of a recklessly naive wife.

ESTRANGED PARENTS ARE SICK OF YOUR SHIT

I joined a Facebook group called “Estranged Parents Are Sick of Your Shit.”

I lasted about twenty minutes before I was banned.

Before that happened, I posted a letter.

It was a letter I wrote pretending to be my mother who, when I was thirteen years old, was told my stepfather exposed himself to me by walking into my bedroom, pulled out his penis, and shook it at me.

I wanted to know how people would respond if they heard the story from her perspective. So I wrote it the way I imagined she might have told it. I gave the excuses. The rationalizations. The denial. The version of events that she told everyone over the years, making her the victim rather than the parent who failed to protect her child.

The responses came pouring in.

And they were not what I expected.

Comment after comment defended the daughter. They understood why she would cut her mother out of her life. They understood why she would protect her own children. They saw things in that letter that the people in my own family had spent years refusing to see.

Eventually, some of them figured out that I wasn’t actually an estranged mother.

I was the daughter.

 I watched complete strangers read the story from my mother’s side and still say:

The daughter was right to leave.

I know, without a doubt, my memoir will help others like me.

I’m 85 years old now, and my daughter cut me out of her life in 2012. The reason goes back to something that happened when she was 13 years old. Her stepfather, who is still my husband, exposed himself to her. He apologized, promised it would never happen again, and as far as I know, it never did.

For many years, our family moved forward. Then when my daughter had children of her own, she brought the incident back up and said she did not want her children around my husband. While she still allowed me to have a relationship with her and my grandchildren, things changed after I took the children to lunch one day. They were young at the time, and I told them that their grandfather would never hurt them, that he was a good man who had made a mistake many years ago.

When they told their mother what I had said, she cut me out of all of their lives. My husband had been a provider throughout her childhood. He paid for private school, bought her a car when she graduated, and was involved in raising her. She remembers him very differently than I do.

The years have passed, and my grandchildren are now adults. None of them want a relationship with me. I believe my daughter influenced how they see both me and my husband, though I know she would see it differently.

I have come to accept that I cannot change any of it. Still, acceptance does not erase the grief. I miss my grandchildren. And even after all these years, the loss still hurts.

 

I also posted on Reddit.