One interesting fact: the boy's mother called a lawyer - not a psychologist or minister - when she first heard that her son had been molested.
Another juror remarked that the boy "was brought up in an environment where he was taught to lie".
If anything good comes out of this ridiculous circus trial, perhaps it will be a re-examination of our attitudes toward child molestation. The world of molestation is more complex than a simple "innocent victim, horrible monster." There's always a third party involved: the parents.
In the Jackson case, it appears that the parents used their cancer-stricken child as bait for a celebrity with a history of settling molestation cases.
For most victims, simple neglect is the ingredient that the parents add to the mix.
In the rare circumstances when a child molester talks honestly about victim selection, they mention picking the child who seems most hungry for adult attention, as well as the child who is least likely to tell an adult about the molester's actions.
The simple fact is that a strong child, one who is showered by the love and attention of his or her parents, is less likely to be molested, and more likely to tell if he or she receives unwanted attention from a molester.
We live in a hysterical nation. One of the common elements of all of our "wars" - on terror, on drugs, and on child molestation - is a simple "victim/villain" oversimplification. For drugs, it is the pusherman and the hapless, innocent addict who somehow falls into his clutches. The war on terror has the evil terrorists who attack us with absolutely no provocation. For child sex crimes, all of the responsibility rests on the offender.
In each of these cases, the reality is more subtle, and the causes more complex. What's so hard is that child molesters are indeed evil, terrorists are rotten, and drug dealers are no saints either. So it is easy and convenient to rest all the blame on these bad actors and go on with life.
But, every so often, we get a public reminder that it just ain't that simple. MJ's acquittal was one of those reminders.
