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"'Bruce’s way of finding that out [if we were underage] was by asking us, ‘What college do you go to?’ only to be told that we were still in high school,' a woman who worked at Jethro’s BBQ ‘n Jambalaya when she was 16 said." http://iowainformer.com/society-culture/2020/10/jethros-bbq-splash-bruce-gerleman-sexual-harassment/
This piece is a chilling, deeply disturbing litany of toxicity, harassment, and abuse. Extraordinary reporting from @aaronpcalvin for the @IowaInformer
Was talking to a j-school class recently about how (alas) the press is one of the only tools we have as a society for auditing the powerful & holding them to account. The erosion of local news means there are fewer & fewer avenues for that.
The concentration of newsrooms in major cities affects whose power gets scrutinized. Cruel, reckless, dehumanizing, powerful people exist in every city. This story is important BECAUSE it’s in Iowa — because these men are everywhere, they prey and abuse everywhere.
The specifics of these stories vary but in broad strokes they are always the same. The prurient, awful details electrify our lizard brains and make us care. But the sameness is the real story: not one of these brutal accounts of abuse has been truly unique. Not a single one.
Every time a story like this comes out — especially one like this one, a story about decades of monstrosity, dozens and dozens of people affected — we say “someone should have done something!” These stories ARE the something. In too many ways, they’re the only something we have.
I don’t have a solution, but if you care about empowering people to fight back against abuse by the powerful some good first steps are to support local news, enshrine robust protections for journalists, and for fucks sake vote Biden/Harris
