Chapter V - Too Close to Home? The Denial of Prejudice and Discrimination against Children

Summary

‘No amount of intellectual sophistication can ground us in reality when our emotional wounds are serious enough.’ (Grille 2013)

‘In the words of Dr. Robert Block, the former President of the American Academy of Pediatrics, “Adverse childhood experiences are the single greatest unaddressed public health threat facing our nation today.” And for a lot of people, that's a terrifying prospect. The scope and scale of the problem seems so large that it feels overwhelming to think about how we might approach it. … [A]t first I thought that we marginalized the issue because it doesn't apply to us. That's an issue for those kids in those neighborhoods. Which is weird, because the data doesn't bear that out. … But then, the more I talked to folks, I'm beginning to think that maybe I had it completely backwards. If I were to ask how many people in this room grew up with a family member who suffered from mental illness, I bet a few hands would go up. And then if I were to ask how many folks had a parent who maybe drank too much, or who really believed that if you spare the rod, you spoil the child, I bet a few more hands would go up. Even in this room, this is an issue that touches many of us, and I am beginning to believe that we marginalize the issue because it does apply to us. … The single most important thing that we need today is the courage to look this problem in the face and say, this is real and this is all of us.’ (Burke Harris 2014)

‘Given the epidemic of violence against children, the multiplicity of its forms, its cross-border nature, and the fact that children are not safe even in their own homes, the campaign to abolish it is still in its early stages. … The elimination of all violence against children and freedom from violence in all its forms will … remain the human rights imperative of the next decades to come, if not of the twenty-first century.’ (Lenzer 2015)

INTRODUCTION

Nazism was aggressive and utterly racist, to a degree unparalleled in human history.