Honor the Movement not the Man
One fallible man's feet of clay should not distract us from the reality of speaking the truth about power out loud to power
As a teaching artist who has designed and led upper-grade-level units on the legacy that César Chávez bestowed on immigrant and naturalized farm workers, and one who has witnessed the dawn-to-dusk (and beyond) work ethic that puts strawberries on our tables and in our ice cream, I am devastated by the revelation that yet another of my heroes has yielded to baser impulses while transforming society for the better in many ways.
My brother and I listened to LP recordings of Bill Cosby’s comedy as we fell asleep many a night. Now each of our inside jokes comes with an asterisk to acknowledge just how many lives Cosby ruined on his way to fame and kinda fortune.
Now we learn that not even the co-founder of the Chicano farm workers’ movement, César Chávez, was able to keep it in his pants when being around young women and girls who just wanted to advance the cause of human rights. Taking advantage of starry-eyed adolescents and even forcing himself on adults like Dolores Huerta (see the NY Times article on its findings, use this gift link), betrays every principle the movement purports to espouse. Such behavior only gives the entrenched power brokers more fodder to belittle righteous causes and advance their own twisted agendas.
Huerta was born in a dying mining (and now ghost) town, Dawson, New Mexico. She has often been associated with Las Vegas (New Mexico, look it up!) as a hometown / touchpoint. It wasn’t until right now, in 2026, when the New York Times interviewed her, that she revealed her own history of abuse at the hands of the revered workers’ rights leader.
Other credible voices were there first, and chimed in after. The flood of testimony, and even some hints at reluctant acknowledgement from the Chávez family, are strong signs that a man with influence and public acclaim yet again took advantage of his own status and the reluctance of people around him to speak up. With tragic consequences for the survivors.
We keep encountering this challenge: How do we honor the achievements of men (and the occasional woman) who acted as though the ends justified the means? How do we document the benefits and the costs of their overall impact on human society? Was Bill Cosby’s astounding talent at comedic monologue in any way worth the corrosive effect that adulating him had on our national psyche?
I do not know.
I just know that these are the questions that gnaw at me after every revelation that yet another man in a position of power or influence has yielded to his little captain and ruined lives along their paths to apotheosis. And I know we need to teach our children to be better than those they follow. 🦉
And you are touching on but one of the many moral/ethical pitfalls that homo sapiens are subject to! In my current perusal of the NIV Bible, I was shocked to discover that there were upwards of two dozen more rules and regs from Yaweh ‘him’self regarding ‘clean/unclean.’ And then, there were the relentless divinely mandated animal sacrifices. Not Fido, no. You can’t do that burn and sprinkle thing with Fido! Ahem!
Yeah. Keep it zipped. Yet that didn’t work for Lot’s daughters who got him drunk to get themselves ku’d! But ethics and morality, after effects of consciousness, are very different for other species. We can’t know how much the myriad creatures are aware, nor of what. But my cat clearly does not play by my rules. I therefore find myself weighing the lapse against the benefit. Keeping the biblical refresher in mind, a labor organizer with a wayward willie gets more respect than a jokester rapist. This, Bill, is a cubit.
You and I, as people who worked many many years with youngsters, no the dangers of what someone smarter than I turned 20 minutes of fun for 20 years. Temptation is a pretty much ongoing fantasy. I recall my very first year at the high school. I received a note handwritten by a student whose fantasy was me having intercourse with that student it took me all of 2 minutes to gather my coat and papers and leave my room before the child made good on showing up after class “visit “me. I went to visit the counselor to have that child pulled from my class, which she did. It was very embarrassing event. What if the student had been a university age person many colleges and universities if not, all of them have certain regulations about relationships between faculty and students. At my ripe old age, I know that no high school kid will take a second glance at me except to criticize how I look or what I wear or what I say or how I say something. Yes, one mistake could lead to a lifetime of regret. Multiple mistakes by pedophiles, no way can that be condoned. Although nowadays, teaching is not a career choice for many, somehow I think that teachers and non-teachers need to have multiple ethics and morality courses built in to their upbringing. I’m glad you brought this up. Have a good evening.