[Survivors are chastised for waiting to speak out against abusers.
But what about others who choose silence over truth? ]
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THE COMPLICITY THAT ENABLES SEXUAL PREDATORS  
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Renée Graham
September 30, 2023
The Boston Globe
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_ Survivors are chastised for waiting to speak out against abusers.
But what about others who choose silence over truth? _

Russell Brand leaving the Troubabour Wembley Park theater in London
after performing a comedy set on Sept. 16., JAMES MANNING/ASSOCIATED
PRESS

 

On a recent episode of “Pod Save The UK
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Nish Kumar dissected the sexual assault allegations made by four women
against comedian Russell Brand in a recent joint investigation
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by several British media outlets.

Before the story broke, Khan said there were rumors about a
“potentially career-ending exposé” and speculation that its
subject could be a comedian. When she asked Kumar, who is a comedian,
if he knew who it would be, he said, “Yes.”

“This is a well-known open secret from the comedy circuit,” Kumar
said about the accusations, which Brand has denied.
[[link removed]] “It’s
been something that’s been talked about, certainly to my knowledge,
for at least the last five years.”

There are no “open secrets.” There are only truths whispered and
concealed, and the complicity that enables abusers.

Whenever a man — and it’s usually a man — is accused of engaging
in sexual misconduct over a lengthy period of time, there are often
those who wonder aloud why survivors waited so long to speak out. In
her 2019 book, “What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal,”
writer E. Jean Carroll
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Donald Trump sexually assaulted her the mid-1990s. She also answered
why she concealed it for decades.

“Receiving death threats, being driven from my home, being
dismissed, being dragged through the mud, and joining the 15 women
who’ve come forward with credible stories about how [Trump] grabbed,
badgered, belittled, mauled, molested, and assaulted them, only to see
the man turn it around, deny, threaten, and attack them, never sounded
like much fun. Also, I am a coward,” Carroll wrote. In May, she was
awarded $5 million in damages after a civil jury in New York found
that Trump had sexually abused and defamed 
[[link removed]]Carroll.

But few seem to wonder why everyone else who knows — employees,
journalists, business associates, and others — choose silence and
then parade their inside knowledge _after_ the survivors can no
longer bear their terrible secrets and find someone willing to listen
without prejudice.

In a devastating essay after dozens of sexual assault accusations
against Bill Cosby finally became headline news in 2014 — thanks
to comedian Hannibal Buress
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Cosby “a rapist” — David Carr, the late New York Times media
critic, lacerated Cosby’s enablers — including Carr himself.

Rethinking a 2011 interview with Cosby, Carr admitted that he “never
found the space or the time to ask him why so many women had accused
him of drugging and then assaulting them. We all have our excuses, but
in ignoring these claims, we let down the women who were brave enough
to speak out publicly against a powerful entertainer.”

Between 2006 and 2013 — the period of the investigated allegations
— Brand was at his peak. Well-received feature turns in comedies
like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” led to starring roles in “Get
Him to the Greek” and “Arthur.” He usually played some variation
of the wild, loutish, but somewhat lovable lech.

But around 2018, Brand’s ascent suddenly started to stall. That’s
because, Kumar says, “increasingly people were just not willing to
work with him” because of mounting, but still not public,
accusations. In recent years, Brand has spent most of his time on solo
projects, including his now-demonetized 
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channel.

“The only power people had was to withdraw participation in shows
involving Russell Brand,” Kumar said.

But was that enough? In societies that have made “See something, say
something” a mantra, that needs to include sexual misconduct so
survivors feel protected. And it shouldn’t only apply in the
entertainment business. In every workplace there are men to avoid
riding with in an elevator and whose after-work invitations should
always be declined. But too often and without repercussions, that
doesn’t stop predators who move on to new targets. Think of all
those pedophile priests shuffled between parishes instead of having
their crimes reported to the authorities.

“Watching [the Brand investigation] as a cisgendered heterosexual
male comedian, you feel a certain sense of guilt and certain sense of
complicity because you’ve been working with production companies and
producers who are providing an infrastructure that allows predators to
thrive,” Kumar said on his podcast. He later added, “There has to
be accountability for Russell Brand; but there also has to be
accountability for the decision makers who facilitated Russell
Brand.”

Not just the decision makers at the top. Where’s the accountability
for all who know these so-called open secrets but don’t report them?
They are also facilitators who allow abusers to keep their careers
intact and their reputations unscathed, and permit their violence to
continue.

The question should never be why survivors don’t speak up sooner. It
should only be why others so often choose to grant abusers and rapists
their most powerful and necessary weapon — silence.

_Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached
at [email protected]. Follow her @reneeygraham
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* sexual assualt
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* Silence of Others
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