A few years ago a young white girl at a prestigious college was beaten to death by her lacrosse captain boyfriend.  I remember reading the story about it because it captured the world’s attention and made it on every major news channel, even the cover of People magazine.   She was beautiful, talented, and had a bright future.  It was all cut short by domestic violence.   The world was outraged.

Last year we watched the riveting story of a white suburban party mom who was accused of killing her little girl.  The grandparents were involved and it was a big hot mess, ending with her acquittal in the end.  That little girl was innocent, precious, and had a bright future.  It was all cut short by violence.  The world was outraged.

A few months ago we heard the news that a prestigious university had a football coach who was sexually molesting young, vulnerable boys.  The boys he was violating weren’t from strong families with education and money.  They were from a program for troubled kids, the kinds on the margins, the often forgotten and neglected ones.  When this story broke loose, riots ensued, not riots about the injustice that had happened, but riots about ruining a football program. The world was not as outraged that boys were being ruined but that a football program could be threatened.

We live in a culture where power, money, and class matter.

Every day women are beaten to death by their partners.  Right now, while we’re reading blogs, women of every color, shape, and size are being horribly violated.  But because the majority of them aren’t white, powerful, or “important,” we don’t hear their stories on the front page of the news.

Every day children are taken, used, abused, and killed.   Heinous crimes committed against them, these children’s stories are rarely told because the majority of them don’t make for sensational news that sells newspapers and advertising time and all of the things that keep the media machine going.

I am not saying the lives of white suburban women or kids aren’t important.  They are precious, valuable, and worth fighting for.  But so are the lives of other colors and classes of people–the ones we rarely hear about.  The forgotten ones.  The neglected ones.  The marginalized ones.  The not-as-pretty ones.

But most systems are built upon power (I am not talking about the good kind).  Profits matter.  Donors matter.  Production matters.  Look at the top of almost any organization, church, or company and those at the top–on the whole–will not be the forgotten, neglected, or marginalized.   It’s just not how the world works.  And power always perpetuates power.

And those with power look through a different lens than ones without it.

Years ago when I was on a big church staff I can’t tell you the number of conversations that were centered on keeping the powerful happy so that the wheels could keep spinning.  And often, the powerful did not like hearing story upon story of the hurting, the marginalized, the sick.  They wanted cleaner stories, ones with neater and tidier bows, ones from “their people.”

Yeah, people with no voice, margin, or resource do not give big money. Or run organizations.

The next big thing we will hear about in the media related to Penn State won’t be about the boys.  It will be about the coaches and the football program and what’s next for their football program.  Meanwhile, scores of boys will be wrestling with the damages of being sexually abused for the rest of their lives.  They will slip into the crevices and have to find their way on their own.

The stories will be about the powerful.

Because those are the stories that sell.

Those are the stories that capture our attention.

Those are the stories that perpetuate a false reality.

Those are the stories that shape what we believe.

That’s why we must become advocates, voices for those who can’t use their own.

That’s why we must carefully consider what we hear on the mainstream media through the proper lens of power, influence, and money.

That’s why we must tell the stories of the weak, the vulnerable, the neglected, and the forgotten in any way we can. 

Because their stories matter, too.