By now, it is probably no secret to our campus community the crimes Ryan Bracken, owner of Folklore Coffee & Company, has committed both against individual victims and against our community as a whole. As a former employee of Folklore, I felt it was appropriate for me to address this new development and to shed light on how we might appropriately respond as a campus population to an incident that may cause such widespread feelings of shock, disgust and betrayal.
For nearly two years, I worked for Ryan and Dawn Bracken as a barista at Folklore. I became part of the Folklore “family”: I went to company picnics and parties, hung out for marathons of television shows in the basement, and got to know my supervisors and my co-workers on a deeply personal level. I looked up to these two individuals, who on more than one occasion guided me through incredibly difficult personal obstacles. On paper, Bracken was an outstanding community member, loving husband, steadfast business owner and morally sound man of God. Unfortunately, the man I thought I knew ultimately betrayed not only my trust, but the trust of an entire community. When someone with such a high level of perceived credibility breaks that public trust with actions so severe, it can only be expected that their personal reputation, along with that of their friends, family, business and employees, will suffer a huge blow. And in this situation, they most certainly have, on all accounts. But what I’d like to encourage this community to do, in light of such circumstances, is to think very carefully about which of these parties deserve our judgment, and which of them deserve our support or, at the very least, our most diplomatic understanding.
It is public knowledge that last week, Bracken was arraigned on two counts of indecent assault of an unconscious person and two counts of indecent assault without a person’s consent. On Feb. 13, 2014, Ryan allegedly sexually assaulted one of his female employees in the basement of the coffee shop. Since these events have come to light, other witnesses and alleged victims have come forward on public forums, claiming that several other young women were also victimized by this man on separate occasions. It is important to note that these are only allegations. However, comments on the Folklore Facebook page addressing these additional allegations were deleted by the Brackens soon after they appeared and have not since been addressed.
“I will be pouring my heart into Folklore Coffee and Co. and standing beside a man who Christ has redeemed and rebuilt,” Dawn Bracken said in a public post on the shop’s Facebook on Sept. 24. “Please know that there is great healing at work, and we are prepared to stand through all of your opinions and feedback. Even the most negative of feedback cannot hold a candle to the oceans of grace we’ve experienced as we surrender this ‘impossible’ situation to a willing God.” She cited Romans 5:1-6 as inspiration for her final statement.
While I’ve come to know and love Dawn over these past few years, I cannot share in the optimism of this viewpoint of her husband or this situation as a whole. I do not think the victims of these kinds of incidents too often experience “oceans of grace” as they struggle through the aftermath of a crime as horrific as sexual assault, and I find this apparent dismissal of the victims’ suffering to be a particularly disturbing element of the management’s response to recent public outrage.
However, “I cannot say enough how my heart goes out to the sweet victim,” Dawn added later in a comment on this same Facebook post. “I am not able to speak to her,” she continued, “but I love her dearly and want the same freedom [and] healing … and even more … for her! We don’t for one minute blame her for any of this mess and don’t expect any of you to.”
Still, the viewpoints recently expressed in public comments on online news outlets has made it clear that our culture has still not reached a point in our humanity at which we have stopped blaming the victim for the crime. Several comments on these news outlets reflect an overwhelming tone of apathy toward the victim. One such commenter wrote of the incident on a LancasterOnline article, “If a woman is that ignorant to get so drunk she doesn’t know what she’s doing and passes out, well … I say she gets what’s coming to her!”
There is something very wrong here, something I feel we as a campus community must unite to eradicate. It is the idea that a woman — or anyone in our community, regardless of gender — is responsible for preventing, or responsible for not provoking, sexual assault. During times like these, I ask that we all seriously consider who the real victims are in deeply troubling incidents like these; they are those directly affected by the heinous actions of abusers and attackers. What our culture often still seems unable to comprehend despite ever-increasing education and awareness is that no one, under any circumstances, deserves assault. I am appalled by any public notion which might suggest that victims of these despicable acts are in any way at fault or are responsible for the prevention of the crimes against them, and I cannot emphasize enough the need for a clearer understanding of the concept of consent, which is just as urgent in the public sphere as it is on our College campus. Intoxication, unconsciousness, silence — these do not, and will never, constitute consent. And sexual assault, by definition, doesn’t just consist of rape — something many of our community members still fail to understand. One online commenter on this same news report stated, “He didn’t rape anyone, he touched a woman’s breast. It’s by no means right, but don’t be so righteous and judgmental.” This is a blatant misunderstanding of this type of crime; sexual assault is any violation of consent of the sexual nature, from inappropriate touching to violent rape. As a community and as a culture, we cannot afford to make unjust distinctions between the severities of incidents. They are all sexual assault. They are all equally wrong, equally unacceptable and should be equally detested.
Secondarily, I believe we must also consider where our efforts for social justice are being directed. In this specific case, Bracken’s actions are in no way a fault of his wife, this business, its employees or the customers, visiting performers or exhibitors of this business. Again, we can return to our concept of who the real victims are, and who truly deserves to carry the ultimate weight of responsibility. The only persons culpable for these despicable crimes are the ones who commit them; all others — Dawn Bracken, Folklore employees, Folklore customers — are simply unfortunate collateral damage.
Therefore, I do not support a proposed boycott against Folklore. It is a business that supports this community economically and socially and also supports hardworking employees who are paying their way through their college educations, paying their rent and struggling to feed their children. It is these individuals who will become secondary victims of Ryan’s transgression if we choose to persecute them for it. Instead, I believe our obligation as members of both the campus community and the surrounding Elizabethtown community is to encourage the due processes conducive to justice, to hold accountable those who have done wrong, to defend those who cannot defend themselves, and to offer our support to those who need it. Above all, what this situation truly requires is our collective compassion, patience and understanding as we deal with the immense long-term consequences of this terrible event. I hope as a community we can overcome it with dignity, and that we can work to ensure that those who have been adversely affected by incidents like these will find peace and see the justice they deserve.