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I’ve watched along with almost everyone else, the car crash television show that is the exposé and dismantling of a serial sexual predator.

The Harvey Weinstein story is almost hard to believe as women in their dozens now flock to tell their story after feeling empowered to do so. This is because of some brave few souls who have shouted and have been persecuted yet shouted louder again.

Side-by-side with this one of the USA’s biggest stories that is ‘Taking the Knee’ protests by American Football teams based on the individual actions of Colin Kaepernick. Colin was a former quarter back for the San Francisco 49er’s until March of this year when he decided that what he saw around him in the USA in terms of racial abuse and discrimination against a society was too much to take.

Why is it in ‘modern enlightened’ society we continue to be happy to settle and accept the horrible and terrible things that people do before we are brave enough to stand up and say that it’s wrong. These stories are of course not restricted in any way to the USA with Jimmy Savile being an example of what has happened in the UK; but sadly, and very sadly from my own sake it’s something that is clearly visible throughout my profession.

It’s hard to tell whether the people that exist in dentistry who think they’re above and beyond criticism and ‘too good to be true’ are either sociopaths or simply people who have no insight into how they’re and the way they look others.

The sadder thing is the cowardice of the rest of us to call these people out, because we feel we will be challenged in law or because we would rather accept the status quo of the ‘Lance Armstrong’s’ that wonder among us at conferences and lectures.

There is a list of them that all of us have (and by all us I mean who I would consider to be the ‘good guys’ while knowing that I nearly deluded myself). The list that we have though includes people who have acted wilfully and dishonestly in trying to cheat the profession out of financial rewards, position of authority or positions of status.

These people will dress themselves up, even with qualifications but certainly with material wealth and riches to ‘show us’ that they’re better than us and they’re successful.

I can only wonder how much of the downward spiral and the dismantling of the profession that has happened over the last decade is actually the responsibility of the rest of us. That we did not speak out and did not challenge these characters that let them parade around like caricatures of themselves seemingly indestructible and seemingly untouchable.

I salute the women who are standing up to Harvey Weinstein, I only wish we lived in a society where it was easier for them to do so.

Blog post number: 1432