The allegations about Cesar Chavez from your March 18 story are deeply unsettling. But what is perhaps more disturbing is how familiar this pattern is.
The allegations about Cesar Chavez are deeply unsettling but not surprising.
Taking advantage of young people is made easier when someone is widely respected, admired, and seen as beyond reproach. What is perhaps most disturbing is how familiar this pattern is across clergy, coaches, teachers, gurus, spiritual leaders, activists, and community leaders of all kinds. The very work that earns trust can also serve as a shield for harmful behavior.
It is not rare for powerful, charismatic individuals to exploit the access and admiration they are given. This pattern spans sectors such as activism, religion, education, the arts, and of course, politics. Often, these are people doing meaningful, even extraordinary work in the world. They are people others want to be near, learn from, or be associated with. At the same time, they may be using that admiration to justify taking more than they should, causing harm in private, particularly to those who look up to them.
Someone can be a true visionary, skilled in what they do and deeply impactful to the individuals and communities around them. They can also be abusing their power for their own sexual gratification. If we want to prevent this kind of harm, we have to be able to hold both truths at once.
We tend to spend enormous energy reacting after the fact, with shock and outrage when harm comes to light. We ask ourselves: How could we have missed this? Who should have known it was happening? Who should have done more to stop it?
Michael Jackson. John of God. Bikram Choudhury. Anthony Weiner. Bill Cosby. Theodore McCarrick. Bill Clinton. Donald Trump. Ted Haggard. Matt Gaetz. R. Kelly. Larry Nassar. Keith Raniere. David Koresh. Jerry Sandusky. Harvey Weinstein. Jeffrey Epstein. And the latest shock, Cesar Chavez. Each revelation feels singular, but the pattern is clearly not.
What if we took that same energy and turned it toward the present?
Who do we admire right now? Who do we know who is holding influence, moral authority, or deep trust? Who has access to vulnerable people? Who operates in environments where privacy and isolation are normalized? Who is surrounded by communities that depend on them, and therefore tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, protect them, or hesitate to question them?
Let’s start a conversation about the responsibility that comes with that level of trust and power.
There is no need to accuse anyone of anything. Just an open conversation about what we all care about during Sexual Violence Awareness Month: safety for the vulnerable and appropriate boundaries. We can ask a curious question about how someone is managing that kind of access to admiration and respect from others. Can they speak about it without defensiveness? Can they lean into the topic and openly reflect on it?
Prevention begins there.