Ross Cheit quotes: top famous quotes and sayings by Ross Cheit

Top Ross Cheit Quotes

Browse top 4 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by Ross Cheit.

Favorite Ross Cheit Quotes

1. "For all this talk about us being a nation at war with child abuse, and for all the media hype about witch-hunts and false allegations — and don't ever let anyone use the word witch-hunts about this; there were no witches — the fact remains that in 1994, it is extremely difficult to come forward with allegations of sexual abuse. And the external forces of denial are almost overwhelming. If a case as verified as mine meets with denial, I dread to think about the experience of people who don't have the kind of corroboration that I do. And I really worry that we're getting close to a point where it's going to be impossible to prosecute child molesters, because we don't believe children, and now we don't believe adults. (Cheit "Paper presented at the Mississippi Statewide Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect" Jackson, April 29 1994.)" ~ Ross Cheit

2. "The book argues that even though many cases have been held up as classic examples of modern American "witch hunts," none of them fits that description. McMartin certainly comes close. But a careful examination of the evidence presented at trial demonstrates why, in my view, a reasonable juror could vote for conviction, as many did in this case. Other cases that have been painted as witch-hunts turn out to involve significant, even overwhelming, evidence of guilt. There are a few cases to the contrary, but even those are more complicated than the witch-hunt narrative allows. In short, there was not, by any reasonable measure, an epidemic of "witch hunts" in the 1980s. There were big mistakes made in how some cases were handled, particularly in the earliest years. But even in those years there were cases such as those of Frank Fuster and Kelly Michaels that, I believe, were based on substantial evidence but later unfairly maligned as having no evidentiary support." ~ Ross Cheit

3. "The witch-hunt narrative is a really popular story that goes like this: Lots of people were falsely convicted of child sexual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s. And they were all victims of a witch-hunt. It just doesn't happen to line up with the facts when you actually look at the cases themselves in detail. But it's a really popular narrative — I think it's absolutely fair to say that's the conventional wisdom. It's what most people now think is the uncontested truth, and those cases had no basis in fact. And what 15 years of painstaking trial court research (says) is that that's not a very fair description of those cases, and in fact many of those cases had substantial evidence of abuse. The witch-hunt narrative is that these were all gross injustices to the defendant. In fact, what it looks like in retrospect is the injustices were much more often to children." ~ Ross Cheit

4. "An undergraduate researching the "witch hunt" cases asked for evidence that there had been more than one hundred cases, noting that the major lists of such cases added up to about fifty. There was no reply that provided documentation to support the claim.[34] The members of the list were generally strong proponents of the witch-hunt narrative. They knew the answer to the question "Is there a child sex abuse witch hunt?" These "witch hunters," as those on this list soon came to describe themselves, were increasingly activists who used the internet to exchange information and ideas. Jonathan Harris may have done more than anyone else to disseminate the witch-hunt narrative in the mid 1990s and beyond.[35]" ~ Ross Cheit

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MeridianFirst daylight on the bittersweet-hungsleeping porch at high summer; dewall over the lawn, sowing diamond-point-highlighted shadows;the hired man's shadow revolvingalong the walk, a flash of milkpailspassing; no threat in sight, no hintanywhere in the universe, of thatapathy at the meridian, the noonof absolute boredom; fliescrooning black lullabies in the kitchen,milk-soured crocks, cream separatorstill unwashed; what is there to lifebut chores and more chores, dishwater,fatigue, unwanted children; nothingto stir the longueur of afternoonexcept possibly thunderheads;climbing, livid, turreted alabasterlit up from within by splendor and terror-- forded lightening'ssplit-second disaster."
Author: Amy Clampitt