Gadsden mall is located on interstate 759 and U.S. Route 411 in Gadsden, Alabama. Opening in 1974, the store had two department stores on each end of the mall, Belk and Sears, a Japanese steak house, Great American Cookies, Blacklight Mini-Golf, Knockerball Gadsden, an eyebrow-styling kiosk, and a Justice. Popular to many teenagers in the area, the mall was also a common stop for Roy Moore, who recently lost the Alabama Senate race to Doug Jones, to harass underage girls.

According to “The Washington Post,” Moore was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney in Etowah County when he brought Leigh Corfman, who was fourteen years old at the time, to his home and sexually molested her. Three additional women told “the Post” that Moore had pursued them when they were in their teens and he was in his early twenties. Another accuser, Beverly Young Nelson, said that Moore assaulted her when she was sixteen years old.

Two of the women said that they first met Moore at the Gadsden Mall, and the Post reported that several other women who used to work at the mall remember Moore’s frequent presence.  He was “usually alone” and “well-dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt.”

According to a “New Yorker” Article, five members of the local legal community, two cops who worked in the town, several people who hung out at the mall in the early eighties, and a number of former mall employees said that Moore allegedly badgered teen-age girls. Teresa Jones, a deputy district attorney for Etowah County in the early eighties, told CNN, “It was common knowledge that Roy dated high-school girls.”

An independent Alabama journalist Glynn Wilson wrote on his Web site, “Sources tell me Moore was actually banned from the Gadsden Mall and the YMCA for his inappropriate behavior of soliciting sex from young girls.” The ban was reported to have started around 1979.  “If you see Roy, let me know,” one police officer warned. “He’s banned from the mall.” A former manager and Gadsden’s current law-enforcement community did not confirm the existence of the alleged mall ban.

Whether or not the mall ban existed, the one fact that is undisputed in this case is that there was a lawyer in his thirties cruising the mall for high-school dates. This was general knowledge shared by several people, from teenagers to law enforcement officers.

My question is this: If all these individuals saw this adult in his thirties harassing teen-age girls, why didn’t anyone stop him?

Although we are not a mall in a small town in Alabama, this silence, or oblivion to rape culture, is present in our school community. During a soccer match at Parker against a team that was far superior to our own, one teammate looked at another and said, “We are going to get ***-raped by them.” Another time the term “raped” is thrown around is when two (usually male) students are playing a video game like NBA 2k18 or Call of Duty.

We are throwing around a term carelessly that people fall victim to everyday. I understand that all of these instances happened within conversations of, at most, a couple of people, and were not meant to be the public showing of ignorance that they were. But we all have ears, and we can overhear things. This may make someone feel paranoid, but they should be! Our words have weight to them, whether people realize it or not.

The side comments about getting “raped” during a videogame, or by a soccer team in the suburbs, matter because they create a casual attitude about rape. Of course that may not be the intent of the speaker, but it upholds rape culture nevertheless–the culture that women accusing men of sexual harassment should not be taken seriously, the culture that allows the Senate to sweep accusations under the rug through the “mediation” process, and the culture that many or all of us, sometimes unwillingly, are upholding.

Not everyone is making these comments, but everyone is in charge in some way of making sure that this culture ends here. And that means making an effort to stop those comments.  And if you are a bystander to those comments, break your role as a bystander and speak up. The culture won’t go away with one disputed comment, but the culture amplifies when the comment goes undisputed.