One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty. Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Thirty-three. Thirty-four. Thirty-five. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three. Forty-four. Forty-five. Forty-six. Forty-seven. Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty. Fifty-one. Fifty-two. Fifty-three. Fifty-four. Fifty-five. Fifty-six.
Fifty-seven men who watched the sickening actions of one another and let it slide. Fifty-seven mouths that remained shut, lips sealed. Fifty-seven men who saw no wrong in the advantage taken of another human.
Staring at the headlines, it grows increasingly harder to find the good in humanity. Perhaps though, the most disturbing part of the fifty-seven is not the men behind the number, but the silence that connects them. Fifty-seven opportunities to speak. Fifty-seven opportunities to question what was going on. Fifty-seven opportunities to recognize the humanity in another person and intervene. Instead, there was silence.
The harrowing part of the number fifty-seven is the silence that allowed each opportunity to disappear. Silence is often seen as a passive action, one where someone avoids accountability by remaining tight lipped. It is in instances such as this that silence becomes an act of complicity. Silence is an act of acceptance. Each of these fifty-seven men had the ability to break the silence. Just one voice could have ruptured their sense of safety. Silence is a weapon. The number fifty-seven becomes more than a statistic. It becomes a representation of the ways in which harmful behavior can exist when given a space of complicity.
Fifty-seven. A number that should have meant nothing more than a count. Instead, it represents fifty-seven chances to speak, fifty-seven opportunities to intervene, fifty-seven times to say no. And yet, in the moment it mattered there was not one voice to speak up. Fifty-seven to zero, what a horrific odd.