When Good People Do Nothing

A personal account about why we must report child abuse when we see it

What follows is a deeply personal story of abuse. It’s also a story of neglect, not just by the abusers, who obviously neglected the needs of the child they promised to love and care for, but by the people outside the family, teachers included, who knew, and did nothing.

This story, by John Sullivan, kicks off what will be a year-long effort on my part, assisted by readers and members of my YouTube and podcast audience, to raise awareness that American boys, and the men they’ve grown up to be, are suffering disproportionately relative to their female counterparts. They experience bullying, violence, neglect, crime, poor academic outcomes, incarceration, drug addiction, and suicide at a higher rate. They face judgment, criticism, unearned shame, and blame from a society increasingly intent on elevating the “feminine,” and erasing, or at least minimizing the “masculine” traits from our children.

It is my hope to make this the Year of the Boy, complete with hashtag #yearoftheboy, and plan to use my platform to give voice to those who’ve been increasingly put in the corner, cut off from opportunities, pre-judged as “toxic” or dangerous, and obligated to “fix” themselves, as if they are broken.

Boys are not broken, and it’s high time we told them so. That’s what I hope to make possible with the #yearoftheboy content. I invite you to join me.

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My Story

by John Sullivan

Straining to keep my weight supported by my legs, tears dripped down my chin as I trembled. For more than an hour I had been squatting with my face to the corner. Sweat burned my eyes as my muscles screamed in pain, still I couldn't just drop. 

If I fell to the floor a beating would come. Slaps, kicks, punches, and knees would rain down on my head, and torso. I had to stay in the "Position", but at the same time my legs wouldn't stop shaking. When I heard movement behind me, I immediately tensed up, knowing what my trembling would bring me. 

Sure enough a foot crashed into my testicles, and brought me crumbling to the floor. As I writhed on the carpet in agony, a large white man stood over me, his face red with anger. "God damn you fat nigga, it's just squatting, you can't even do that right!" He punctuated his words by kicking me in the back. 

A regular occurrence in my daily life. The infraction that had brought upon that day's punishment? I turned up the TV while my adoptive father was on the phone. I was fourteen years old, 5'5 and weighed 190 pounds. 

All over the country young boys and girls face physical abuse at the hands of their guardians. Unfortunately males have a higher likelihood of experiencing every form of physical abuse that qualifies as physical abuse, save for being choked/drowned. In this category girls are .8% more likely to have been choked/drowned than their male counterparts. 

This disparity in abuse goes largely unnoticed. Studies show that physical abuse has a drastically more detrimental effect on girls than it does on boys. In short, girls display signs of physical abuse that are more readily identifiable to others. This makes it more likely their abusers will be called out more often, making girls a less advantageous target for abusers. 

For eight years I lived with a family of white Americans that had adopted me following my great grandfather's death. Throughout those eight years I never understood what I had done wrong. I didn't understand why I was being treated this way. 

"You're too damn dirty when you eat nigga." My father yelled at me as I tried to join the family at the living room table. His loud outburst almost caused me to drop my plate. "No, I'm not cleaning up your mess later, you can take your ass into the dining room and eat by yourself." 

I looked over at his two white children sitting at the table next to him. One was a year and half old, and already had food in her hair. The other was three years old, and had BBQ chicken smeared all over his lips. I was twelve, and knew without a doubt that I ate with better manners than these children did. 

Still I spent night after night eating alone. As soon as I was done with my meal I was to clean their dishes for them before I would be allowed to sit on the floor in the living room while they watched TV. Most days I hid in another room, avoiding my father's presence out of fear. 

In 2019 1,840 children died in the United States from abuse or neglect. Roughly five children per day. Five children per day were pushed so far that their bodies surrendered. Each failed by the people surrounding them, let down by communities that should have spoken up, and helped these children. 

At ten years old I sat in the room I shared with my adopted brother. He was just a year and half old. As I sat there playing with a small action figure, my brother Jon brought me a chicken nugget. He thrusted it into my face and smiled insisting "Jahmichel" take his gift. 

To differentiate the three John's in the household, my adopted parents called me by both my first, and middle name. "John Michael" was a bit complex for a small child to say. Instead he affectionately referred to me as "Jahmichel." 

A few minutes later he returned with two chicken nuggets in hand. Pushing one of them against my face, I smiled at him and accepted the snack. Together we each munched on a chicken nugget, smiling like two children who didn't think anything wrong of the situation. 

He got up, and left the room. A few minutes later my adoptive mother filled our bedroom doorway, demanding to know if I had eaten any of the chicken nuggets. When I responded that he brought me two, she yelled at me for having eaten them, and then told me to wait for my father. 

She took the action figures I was playing with, turned off the light in the room, and shut the door. I sat there for five hours in silence, fearfully waiting to be punished. By this point I knew I was going to be beaten in some way, but I assumed it was going to be something benign like an overzealous spanking. 

When he came through the door, he was already red in the face. His hand was larger than my head, and easily closed around my throat. In the blink of an eye I was up off the ground, and pressed against the wall. 

I couldn't breathe, my wind pipe was so constricted, even attempting to pull in a breath forced me to swallow instead. That swallow sent pain shooting out from where his hand gripped. My feet were quite literally dangling off the floor. 

The acrid scent of cigarette filled my nose as he yelled at me. "You fat ass piece of shit, what kind of fat fuck eats a child's food." Spit splashed over my face as he screamed. I tried to answer him, but only a gargle could escape my lips. For almost a full minute he had me pinned against that wall, choking me like I was a grown man that had intruded upon his home. 

When the grip finally loosened and I was able to pull in a breath of air through my lips, he slapped me in the face. The blow sent a ringing through my ears, and knocked me to my knees. Instinctively I tried to get up, and for doing so he grabbed hold of my head. His knee knocked the breath from my lungs, and sent me back to the floor. 

From the time I came to live with these people, the violence and humiliation only grew worse. What started as spankings turned to choking, and physical strikes. Later it turned to what could only be described as sexual abuse. I'm not sure what else you could describe striking a child’s exposed genitals as other than sexual abuse. 

As I grew older the humiliation only grew worse. Failed a class? My Father made me sleep under my bed, and then took unpeeled oranges and threw them at me like baseballs while calling me a retard. Got into a fight at school? I was forced to strip down to my underwear, and kneel in front of him for hours with my text books held up over my head. 

Much like the squatting position, my muscles would start to tremble from holding up weight over an extended period of time. When my arms would drop, he would explode out of his seat. Slapping me to the floor before kicking me repeatedly, and dragging me back up by my hair to resume the punishment. 

As I matured into a man, the recession started to affect our household more and more. My Father decided education wasn't important for me anymore. He started forcing me to miss school in order to work in the fields for him. Not his own fields mind you, but the pine straw fields of a stranger. At .70¢ a bale, he stood there yelling at me while I worked. "Come on Niggerace, you better get ten bales in the hour or I'm gonna whoop your ass." 

More than once he stepped over and slapped me across the face, driving me to my knees in the pine needles. At this point I was fifteen, but had yet to show an explicit interest in women. Niggerace was his clever way of call me gay while calling me a nigger. A combination of the racial slur, and Liberace the famous closeted singer. 

Once he was tired of standing in the heat, we would go over to the owner who was sitting at the baler. The entire day of being slapped, and called several variations of the word nigger had been observed by another adult. My father collected the money I had earned for him, and then proceeded to berate me in the car for not making enough. 

This theme would repeat for the next two years as the abuse became worse. Open handed slaps turned to closed fists. School attendance became sporadic as he needed me to nanny his white children. Teachers never noticed, and the few who asked about the bruises always brushed off my confession. 

I sat there dumbfounded as my driver's ED teacher said "You must have done something to deserve it." The right side of my upper lip was cut open, dried blood crusted my nostril above it. My eye had a dark purple bruise stretching across my swollen cheekbone. I didn't know what else to say at this point. 

At seventeen years old I had confessed to a teacher that the bruised face, and bloody lips I had been coming to school with for years were caused by my father. Instead of help, instead of contacting the authorities, I was dismissed. Told that I did something to deserve this beating. Something that for the life of me I couldn't understand. The only reason for this beating was that I had gone to school instead of staying home to nanny the kids. 

My father had beaten me to a bruised, bloody, swollen mess that elicited stares from my peers. Strangers who had never so much as spoken a word to me were telling me they were sorry for what I was going through. Still none of them stepped up, and did the thing I was too afraid to do for myself. 

The abuse I was facing had made me terrified of going to someone worse. These people were already my second attempt at having a family. They were my first time having a mother and father. If this was the result of trying a second time, my mind conjured up so many images where the next family was far far worse. 

Unfortunately my fears are not unwarranted. The state of Florida failed to monitor these abusers who were unrelated to me. They also failed to safely house foster children. In 2020 the state was found to be housing children in the foster care system with people who had criminal records. 

The man who adopted me had a domestic violence charge on his record from before my adoption. A charge from a violent altercation with his elderly father, in which the 50+ year old man was struck. His own parents called the authorities, and had him arrested for assaulting them in their home. 

I spent eight years being assaulted by that man. The entire time desperately trying to understand what I had done wrong. Why someone who insisted they loved me, and that I was there son, would simultaneously call me a nigger and spic while beating me. 

For years I thought it was my fault. I looked at my own skin colour disgusted with what I was. Angry that I was different from these people I just wanted desperately to love me. My own mind couldn't grasp that they were bad people, and instead I internalized my abuse. Instead of them being bad people for abusing me, I was a bad person for being abused by them. 

It didn't matter that I maintained a 3.2 GPA. It didn't matter that I was a gifted writer who was winning contests, nor did it matter that I was healthy, kind hearted, and devoted to the religion they practiced. The abuse still came, and no matter who I turned to no one was comfortable saying anything. 

Now as an adult who is free of those abusers, I have so many people recognize me as their child, and apologize for what I went through. It's the most infuriating thing I have ever dealt with in my life. These are people who knew what I was going through was abuse, and felt bad about it, but still refused to do anything to stop it. 

When you see a child being abused, alert the authorities. Reach out to the Department of Children and Families. Video record the abuse, and take a stand. Some children can't, and others won't stand up to their abuser. It is the responsibility of every adult in our society to be vigilant and call out child abuse every time they see it.

Born and raised in North Central Florida, John Sullivan found himself orphaned by the time he was eleven. Facing down poverty and abuse Mr. Sullivan made a decision at a young age to turn his life over to knowledge. Now as an adult he shares his unique perspective on poverty, race, and the political regimes of our time.