March 12, 2025 • 52 mins
In this deeply moving episode of the Dead America Podcast, host Ed Watters sits down with Keeper Catran Whitney, author of Helplessness, for an eye-opening discussion about the hidden impacts of family trauma. Whitney bravely shares his personal story, uncovering the devastating reality of his sisters' sexual abuse by their stepfather and the untold struggles faced by brothers left in the shadows. This conversation sheds light on the often-overlooked collateral damage of such abuse and emphasizes the importance of giving a voice to the silent sufferers—brothers and men who bear the weight of family trauma in isolation. Whitney's mission to foster awareness and healing resonates with anyone seeking to understand the broader emotional, psychological, and societal effects of such experiences.
Whether you’ve been personally affected or are simply looking to learn more, this powerful interview offers valuable insights and compassion. Don’t miss this compelling exploration of resilience, healing, and the power of shared narratives.
Links:
Links
https://www.amazon.com/HELPLESSNESS-B...
http://www.keepercatranwhitney.com/
https://x.com/KCatranWhitney
https://www.facebook.com/KeeperCatran...
https://www.instagram.com/keepercw/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
To overcome, you must educate.
Educate not only yourself, buteducate anyone seeking to learn.
We are all Dead America,we can all learn something.
To learn, we must challengewhat we already understand.
(00:26):
The way we do that isthrough conversation.
Sometimes we have conversations withothers, however, some of the best
conversations happen with ourselves.
Reach out and challenge yourself; let'sdive in and learn something new right now.
(00:54):
Today, we are speakingwith Keeper Catran Whitney.
He is an author, his book, Helplessness.
This is a fascinating and riveting story.
And I want to tell people up front,this might trigger many people.
So grab your coffee, beverage, andlet's get into this gripping tale.
(01:19):
Keeper, could you please introduceyourself and let people know just
a little bit about you, please?
Well, I appreciate, uh, havingme here on Dead America.
Uh, as you said, you got the nameright, the pronunciation right.
So kudos to you.
Catran Whitney.
I am the author of the book, Helplessness,the Emotional Health Challenges Brothers
(01:40):
Experience once We Learn Our SistersHave Been Sexually Abused By Our Parents.
It is a brother's story in, from,in large perspective, but it's also
my family's story of what me andmy three brothers experienced once
we learned what happened and how wewere locked out of the conversation.
(02:01):
And the journey to go from helplessness
to what is Hopefulness, which is thebook I'm writing now, to Happiness, which
will be the third book in the series.
So you get a, you get a lookinside of, of what happens.
And so there's that exploration and you'llalso get answers to what happened and
(02:22):
part of the healing journey that it tookfor me to get through my sisters and find
who I am as a brother in the process.
You know, that's the very difficult partand I, up front, want to commend you
for the journey that you've taken andit's very inspirational for many of us.
I, I myself, I'm traversing thisstory per se in my own world.
(02:49):
Slightly different, but the waters arenavigable the same, and it's devastating.
If, if you live within sexual abuse in anyform, the story gets pretty deep quickly.
Let's start off at the verybeginning when, you know, before
(03:12):
things were uncovered for you.
You were right at the doorstepof fame and fortune with your
entire family and that must havebeen a great feeling at the time.
And then you get called into this familymeeting and it devastates everything.
(03:36):
Could you walk us throughthose early years?
Sure.
I come from a family of ten, four boys,four girls, my mother and my stepfather.
Uh, my biological father,uh, my mother left him.
Um, we lived in Portland, Oregon inmy early years, so an area I imagine
that you're pretty familiar with, Ed.
And so, uh, we leave Portland andmy mother, uh, meets this guy and
(04:02):
he ends up becoming our stepfather.
We were incredibly poor.
I lived in twenty-one different placesbefore I moved out, homeless three times.
I went to eleven grade schoolsbefore I graduated high school,
my life was a constant turmoil.
In 1971, uh, we could barely payan eighty dollar a month rent.
And so I was used to going intothe streets and getting bottles
(04:26):
and turning them in for a pound ofground beef, you know, you get the
money for those, or a bag of rice.
Also, during 1971, The Jackson5 were really, really big.
I mean, they were everywhere.
It was Who's Loving You,ABC, I want you back.
I mean, it was everywhere.
And every little kid in the world,not just in America, wanted to be
(04:46):
Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5.
My mother, absolutely, my mother,Um, who is also a great singer,
got together with her brother andsister and they started singing.
But as good as they were, they couldn'tmake enough money to make ends meet.
So one day, she hears her kids singingaround the house, singing The Jackson 5.
And she stopped and she said,Would you guys like to sing?
Because as a singing family,we could make more money.
(05:09):
We're like, Yeah, of course.
The next thing you know,The Whitney Family is born.
Me, my three brothers, my four sisters,my mother, my stepfather, we are singing
in after hour clubs all over Los Angeles.
My life was, at the two o'clock inthe morning, get up, go to school,
rehearse, do it all over again.
(05:30):
One day we are singing, uh,at rehearsal and the phone
rings and my mother says, Shh.
And she picks up thephone and she says, Hello?
Who?
And
she looks at us and says,Michael Jackson's on the phone.
Yeah, that Michael Jackson's callingour house, soon to be king of pop.
(05:52):
He wants to speak to the brother directlyunderneath me, child number four.
I am number two.
My brother gets on thephone and says, Hello?
All excited.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And hangs up the phone andthen screams and says, Michael
Jackson said he's heard of us.
Said he's heard I singand dance just like him.
Keep going, we'll get there someday.
That's 1971.
Jump cut to 1977, and we are everywhere.
(06:16):
We're doing concerts, we're inmagazines, we're doing TV shows.
We're with United Artists Records, wehave made the coveted Billboard's Top
100 not once, not twice, but three times.
Two singles and an album.
Everything Michael Jacksonsaid is coming to fruition,
we are hot.
(06:37):
It's also the same year Motown, whohad The Jackson 5 three years earlier
because they had lost them to EpicRecords, had just completed their
exhaustive three year search to findthe family group to replace them.
And guess who they landed on?
Us, we were the group.
Where they had one leadsinger, we had nine.
(06:58):
My mother and all eight ofus kids could lead sing.
We all sing background.
Me and my brothers, weall played instruments.
We were everywhere.
Motown had just picked us to replace them.
So as far as I was concerned, I wasabout sixteen or seventeen, the bus
was outside, the engine was warm, theseats were warm, all we had to do was
step onto the bus and we were gone.
No more abject poverty, no more havingto depend on the record company to pay
(07:23):
our rent, to feed us, to get us clothes.
All that was done.
We had, we made it out of SouthCentral L. A. at the time.
So on a Saturday morning we have afamily meeting because we know on
Thursday or Friday coming up, we'regoing to sign the largest new artist
(07:44):
contract Motown offered any new group.
Larger than The Jackson 5, larger thanThe Supremes, larger than The Four
Tops, larger than The Temptations,larger than everyone, ever.
TV show was already locked in.
I have the pilot scriptin my office right now.
So my sister screams upstairs, Boys,come downstairs, family meeting!
And we all come running downstairs.
(08:06):
We are so hyped.
This is it, we are finallyout of this hell hole.
No more going to the park togo get government cheese, to
go get powdered milk, to go getpowdered, it's, it's, it's over.
Everything, as I said, MichaelJackson said for us to do, and
the rewards behind it, it's today.
(08:27):
I go into the living room, and when Ienter, my oldest sister's pacing back
and forth in front of the entryway.
And she's mad, she's angry.
Okay, she's always mad, she's angry.
She and my mom were always at loggerheads.
I mean, they're battlingeach other all the time.
In fact, earlier that day, therewas a screaming match between my
mother and my three youngest sisters.
(08:48):
I'm just thinking, It's justthe girls being the girls.
Okay, cool.
Cause that's, that's, happened too.
But when I walk into the living room,I look at the couch and at the far
end are my three youngest sisters,the three youngest of us eight.
The two youngest are twins.
They're huddled in a corner ofthe couch and they're not saying
(09:12):
anything, which is really strangebecause all they did was talk.
They laugh, they talk, they tease,they play, that's all they did.
It, it, it, it, that was my family,that's all we did, as close as we were.
So I'm looking at them and I'm thinking,That's odd, they're not saying a word.
(09:33):
Why?
At the other end of the couchare my two youngest brothers.
They're also quiet, butthey're confused like I am.
Because our sistersaren't saying anything.
And my oldest sister is pacing backand forth across the archway like,
okay?
(09:53):
My oldest brother is standing at thefar end of the couch behind my three
youngest sisters, and I lock eyes on him.
And we just kind ofshrugged, what's the deal?
This is going to be the happiestday of our life, everything's
about to change for us.
So we just kind of shrugged, Oh, okay.
(10:14):
This is really strange.
But I take my seat on the couch betweenmy three youngest sisters and my two
youngest brothers, and I just wait.
And within seconds, my motherand my stepfather enter.
We have a recliner in the living room,this brown recliner that clashes against
this violently green, ugly carpet.
(10:35):
My stepfather, who's 6'6/250 poundsand wears a huge Afro wig, puts his
head over seven feet tall, walksand sits down in the recliner.
But he does something really strange, hebends over and puts his hands in his face.
(10:57):
And I think, Is he sick?
Huh?
My mother, who's usually bubbly like hereight kids, has, she's just stone faced.
She walks in and doesn't say a word.
Walks to the far end of the living room,stands next to this large plate glass
(11:18):
window that overlooked the outside.
And she spins around,
and she just looks, scanning theroom, looking at her eight children.
But she pauses at my oldest sister,and if looks could kill, they
would have killed each other.
(11:38):
I'm a brother, I have noidea what's happening.
I don't have a clue, but my sisters do.
Because earlier that day, I would findout later, what they were arguing about
is what me and my three brothers areabout to learn for the very first time.
(12:03):
I live in California now and wehave earthquakes all the time.
In fact, we had another one thismorning, we had two last week, and we
had two or three a week before that.
Okay, earthquakes, they uproot trees,they crack bridges, they crack freeways.
Get you some concrete, get yousome nails, get you some rebar,
top, top, top, top, top spit,gum, hammer, put it back together.
(12:26):
You're on your way.
Those are material.
Emotional earthquakes are adifferent matter altogether.
You do not come back from thosequickly and you rarely ever
come back from those completely.
Because they become a part ofyou, they are now who you are.
(12:48):
My three brothers and I are about to behit with three emotional earthquakes, Ed.
We are about to be hit with words nobrother ever expects to hear, the words
no brother could ever prepare for.
My mother drops earthquake numberone when she finally speaks.
She says,
your stepfather has beenmolesting your sisters for years.
(13:17):
Wait, what did you say?
He's been doing what?
This is obviously not themeeting I'm expecting.
I am knocked backward emotionally.
I don't know what to do withthis, I am becoming paralyzed.
(13:42):
And so because it was the last thing Iexpected to hear and I couldn't prepare
for it, I'm pretty slow on the uptake.
But what I hear is apartment, Ihear park, and I hear liquor store.
But I'm dropping emotionally.
What just happened?
No!
(14:04):
And then she hits us withearthquake number three.
She says, I have known all along.
Wait, you've known what all along?
I imagine my three brothers arejust like me, PTSD is engulfing us.
(14:31):
I had no idea what PTSD was at the time.
But the shock and disbelief andthe betrayal of what we just heard,
my mother has known all along.
You mean to tell me you have known hehas been molesting your daughters for
years and you've done nothing about it?
It
(14:51):
turns out what my mother andsisters were arguing about earlier
that day was they were forcingmy mother to tell the boys today.
This is the day we let the boys knowwhat has been going on with us, what
has been going on in this house, whathas been impacting the entire family.
(15:14):
The deep, dark family secret.
It went a long way to explainingmy younger sisters being quiet
because they knew what was coming.
And of course they did, because they'vealready been experiencing it since 1971,
the year Michael Jackson called our house.
(15:35):
When they were five and six years old iswhen my stepdad went after them and my
oldest sister was about ten or eleven.
So they already knew.
The only people who didnot know were the brothers.
We did not know how tohandle what was happening.
(15:55):
But as traumatic as that was,those first two earthquakes did not
compare to what the third one was.
Because the third one is whatputs a brother in a box, it is
what prevents him from being aparticipant in the conversation.
(16:17):
My oldest sister who was stillangry, spins around and points a
finger at her four innocent brothersand says, You can't talk about it.
It didn't happen to you.
It only happened to us girls,you can't talk about it ever.
And like that, relationships betweenbrothers and sisters that were so tight,
(16:40):
were so much fun, were so important to us,lay on the living room floor in shambles.
My family was broken, we were lost.
I had just lost the nine mostimportant people in my life.
I'm a brother, I don't know whatto do, I am in total free fall.
(17:05):
The void is getting darker anddarker and there's no way to arrest
the descent, I'm dropping so fast.
And I know for sure my threeother brothers as well.
Guilt is starting to settle in, self blameis starting to settle in, shame, fear,
anxiety, all of it is settling on me.
(17:26):
And I don't know what to do.
My book, Helplessness, recounts thestory, and it is very, very deep.
It gets to be very, very dark.
In many ways, this is the light partof the story about what happened to us.
But I write Helplessness because I havecome to learn over the years, it took
(17:50):
me ten years to write it, that thereare so many brothers out there who
are not allowed to participate in theconversation once we learn what happened.
Because once we learn what happens, everyother group, the predator, those people
who empower them, and the victims areallowed to be a part of the conversation.
(18:14):
But when my oldest sister said,We can't talk about it, we
were just told we don't matter.
Our voices don't matter.
You brothers, you boys, we're goingto put you in a box and you have
to deal with your trauma withoutany questions being answered.
There was no help coming our way.
(18:36):
And so I write Helplessness tobring voice to the brothers.
And there are so many of us wholearn about our sisters, but aren't
allowed to, as I say, I mean, Ipretty much say it like this, we
are told we can't participate in theconversation, but we are expected
to answer for our non participation.
(18:58):
So what do you do?
How do you give a voice to a group in thefamily who is not allowed to participate?
Who is put on a shelf in a closet andtucked away and the key is locked and
you're locked in a box and you're tossed.
And so, this is what I do.
(19:19):
I elevate the voices of brothers so we canparticipate in a conversation where there
are no tools, there are no systems for us.
For girls and for women, they can goto any library, you can go to many
bookstores, and you will find books, youwill find articles, unfortunately, you
will find hundreds of thousands of them.
It is unfortunate.
(19:40):
And you'll get a documentary, you'llget a miniseries, you'll get a
movie about it, you may even geta movie, or book, or miniseries
about the Predators who do this.
But no one ever asked the brothers,no one ever asked, Are you okay?
Do you need to talk?
Is there anything you need?
(20:01):
We have absolutely nothing.
And if we're going to close theloop around child sexual abuse, it
just can't be those of us who havebeen sexually abused, we also have
to look at the collateral damage.
Oftentimes when I speak, and I knowyou, I know you have a bunch of
(20:21):
questions, but I need to say this upfront because oftentimes when I speak,
there invariably is a woman who willsay your sister's right, you can't talk
about it, it didn't happen to you boys.
And I share these two things,
I understand what my sister wasdoing, but we are victims of this.
(20:48):
One in the family has beensexually abused, the entire
family is sexually abused.
Just because we don't know aboutit doesn't mean we're not impacted.
And they'll say, Well itwas just your sisters.
And I'll say, Okay.
I will tell you this, my sisters were,their sexual abuse started in 1971.
In 1965, six years before my sisterswere sexually abused, my babysitter
(21:12):
sexually abused me and my olderbrother almost daily for six months.
So I know both sides ofthe sexual abuse coin.
I understand the damage sideand the collateral damage side.
And at that point, that's when thewoman will say, Oh, I didn't know.
(21:33):
I said, Well, no, you didn't know.
But if we're going to get into aconversation of whose trauma is worse,
we're not gonna get anywhere, ultimately,when it comes to solving this problem.
We need to understand that everyone in thefamily has been traumatized, everyone is
being abused, whether they know it or not.
(21:54):
So, uh, this is what I do, Ibring voice to brothers who are
left out of the conversation.
That's strong.
You know, if, if we really thinkabout what was just said, when
we throw a rock in a pond, thoseripples, they keep going out.
(22:17):
I live with a wife that wassexually abused by her father,
and it devastated her life.
Still to this day, we're workingcontinually on those ripples.
Because it's important togive voice to the victim.
(22:38):
And I want to highlight, there's a lotof denial in this type of behavior.
I know from personal family experience,when my sisters brought claims, It was,
No, you're lying, all of this denial.
(23:00):
Did you face that within your family?
No, we did not face denial.
In fact, when we told aunts and uncleswhat was going on, there was no denial.
What we got was, We can'tdo anything about it.
(23:20):
Why are you doing this to your mother?
Why are you doing this?
Because they were hoping that we weregoing to be wealthy and rich and famous.
And so this was going to be their chanceto grab on to our shirt, our coattails.
(23:41):
We didn't get that kind of denial.
The denial of any sort was thedenial of our sisters that me
and my brothers don't matter.
You guys are not in pain, you guys arenot in trauma, you guys are not worthy of
attention, you are not, uh, uh, uh, uh,you, you are not victimized in any way.
And it took me a long time to, tounderstand why my oldest sister,
(24:07):
the number three of us, did that.
She's protecting herself andultimately she's protecting her
three, our three youngest sisters.
But in the process, pushingme and my brothers to the side
and no one addressing, or evengiving us any consideration meant
that we were left on our own.
(24:29):
And I did try to find some sort ofbook or an article that addressed
the needs of brothers, which, ofcourse, there wasn't at the time.
This is 1977.
It hasn't been until recently thatmen have begun to come out, thanks
to celebrities, be them actors orsports figures, and begin to talk
(24:49):
about their direct victimhood,
uh, when it comes to beingsexually abused as a child.
We're finally starting to have thosetrickles of conversations, but we
need more of them if we're reallygoing to address the entire situation.
So, we didn't have that.
My brothers and I, we were in severeconfusion and crisis and we started to go
(25:15):
into this state of depression and anxiety.
I am really, really sad to hearthat your wife experienced this and
that you know what it's like to workwith someone who, who, who is, not
(25:35):
just close to you, but a loved one.
Your, your, your partner.
And try to help them navigate notonly their trauma, but there's
also a certain amount of traumathat comes your way, uh, as you're
trying to help them sift through,
you also got to siftthrough yourself as well.
Which was part of whatme and my brothers did.
(25:56):
We, we, for me, part of the challengewas my protective instincts start to
kick in and you want to do something.
And yet we're told, Put that on pause.
Don't do anything.
And I, I understood it later, I mean yearslater, what that was about because it took
(26:23):
me nine years to actually do something.
Because my mother and my sister's,first of all, my sister said,
Don't, don't do anything.
You boys, we don't wantyou talking to anyone.
We don't want you doing anything.
In fact, my brothers and I, we didn'teven talk to ourselves about it.
We were just so locked downemotionally about, about it.
(26:45):
And my mother saying, I will handle it.
I will handle this.
Well, she didn't.
And so my protective instincts, nineyears later, later in 1986, three months
before I was to get married, they kickedin big time because I could not imagine
not handling the situation for my sisters.
(27:06):
Because one of the things that Ibelieve, Ed, is that what it means
to be a brother with sisters is,your job is to protect their honor.
And I hadn't done that.
And I know they had stopped it,but that did not mean I wasn't
suffering self esteem blows andmy self worth wasn't taking a hit.
(27:30):
You know, and granted, my mothersaying that she's gonna handle this,
and all this is in the book, I, Iabsolutely leave nothing behind.
It is really a story of,about me and what I could have
done, what I should have done.
It is, my mother sayingshe's gonna handle it.
Okay, it was a warm blanket.
(27:50):
It meant it was something that Icould, okay, the girls said don't
do anything, okay, it's on them now.
But as each day went by,
I'm, I'm, and I'm seeing their faces,and it's like, Okay, you're hearing
the whispers, how come you didn'tsee my tears, how come you didn't
(28:11):
hear my weeping, how come, how come?
Well, you said don't do anything,and the reason I didn't hear is
because you were under threat.
If you said something, he was goingto hurt you so you didn't tell us.
If you said something, he toldyou he was going to hurt your
brothers so you didn't say anything.
It is part of the web.
(28:33):
And, you know, what ends uphappening is when you had mentioned,
you know, different peopleand denial from other people,
when you've got a predator and you'vegotten the power, like my mother,
I, I, my description of it, they'rein the center of this spider web and
they're just feeding on everybody.
(28:54):
And as each person who knows who coulddo something does nothing, the web gets
wider and wider and wider and wider.
And all those people who didknow anything, whether they know
it or not, they are part of theprotective detail of the predator
because you choose to step aside.
And they don't look at it like that.
(29:15):
They just look at it, Well, Idon't want to get in your business,
but you're in the business.
As soon as you learned about it, you werein the business and you let your nieces
and nephews be devoured by this predator.
Yes, I agree 100%.
You know, it's very interesting, mywife, because I, I was like your sister.
(29:44):
I listened to an interview thatyou did, episode fifteen, your talk
after forty-five, and your sistersaid this, I didn't want to hear it.
That is so important for peopleto understand, when we shut it
off like that, so many assumptionsare made, so many opinions are
(30:10):
formed, and it's so dangerous.
So stepping up when you are a victim,letting people know it's not okay,
and I'm not okay with how you arehandling this, is very important.
For instance, my wife, she was veryupset at me because I had that just shut
(30:34):
up and let's not stir the pot attitudeboth with her family and my family.
And it takes a strong individual tostep up and say, Can't we do something?
And that's really what we're doing heretoday, is we're doing something about it.
My wife, I've helped empower her soshe's writing letters to her siblings
(31:00):
explaining what happened so thattheir children are now protected
because the awareness is there.
I think that is very important.
Could you talk to us about peoplebeing aware of what is happening?
The awareness is whereour power comes from.
(31:25):
It is our singular power base, it'sstepping in and owning our trauma.
And before you can makeeveryone else aware, you must
be self aware of what happened.
I'll give you an example.
I'm in the middle ofwriting Helplessness, okay?
(31:47):
Like I said, it took me ten years.
And at around year seven or eight,I'm in the bed and I'm talking
to my wife about what happenedin the section that I'm writing.
And I'm telling her, Well,this happened to this.
I'm in the section here and it'sreally just giving me a problem.
And she looks at me and shesays, You know, you're a victim.
(32:11):
And I looked at her andI said, No, I'm not.
Of course you're a victim,how can you not be a victim?
I said, well, no, I'm just tellingyou what this section is about and
what it's, Look at you, you're a mess.
You're sweating, you're shaking,you could hardly even talk about it.
But, but, You're a victim.
(32:35):
That is when it hit me.
I'm fifty-seven years old and I, I didn'teven recognize when my babysitter molested
me almost daily, as me being a victim.
So it wasn't until I wasfifty-seven that I became aware
of my trauma, of my victimhood.
(32:56):
I, I can't even get to the place of beingcalled a survivor unless I could first
recognize that I'm a victim, period.
And once you recognize you'rea victim, now you can be put on
the path to some sort of healing.
Once you do that, the next step isyou must talk to someone about it.
(33:18):
Ed, that's the hardest part.
But once you talk about it, you arenow aware, and you own your space, and
you step into that space, and you justplant your feet and you do not move, and
you tell someone, you become empowered.
It's liberating the awareness.
(33:40):
But the problem when we are not selfaware first, I look at it as part
of DNA, DNA replicates throughoutour bodies all day, every day.
And in most ways, they replicatein ways we don't even understand.
We don't even see it.
And most of the time it's good, butthere are times when it's really bad.
(34:02):
And you're not even aware of it.
Emotional trauma is thesame way, it's like DNA.
It is a part of you, itis not going anywhere.
It is part of your marrow,I like to describe, it is
all over you, in every cell.
And it replicates oftentimes inways we do not understand, but
oftentimes in ways that are dark.
(34:24):
They begin to impact our relationshipswith our loved ones, with our
wives, with our children, withour co workers, with our friends.
They impact us and impacthow we communicate, how we
work, how we view the world.
It impacts,
and we're not always aware ofthat being the reason behind it.
I had no idea that thatwas happening to me.
(34:47):
And like I said, it wasn'tuntil my wife mentioned that.
But when my, when my son was born,he's, we've had multiple last names.
My father's last name was Leary, andwhen my mother left town, she decided to
give us the last name of our stepfather.
(35:09):
And so my wife and I, we took herlast name and we became Catran-Perrin.
And so one day, my son comes homefrom school with a report card.
And this is the awareness, becauseyou're absolutely correct with the
ripple effect, it becomes generational.
It does not slow down, itjust gets wider, wider.
(35:32):
And people look at a ripple and thinkit just goes wide, it goes deep.
You know, though that pressureof the rock hitting the lake,
it goes deep and it spreads.
It's not just on the surface.
People don't look at it as a generationalthing, but that's exactly what happens.
So my son brings home a report cardand I'm looking at the last name on the
report card and I start getting mad,because I see the last name Perrin on it.
(35:58):
Or my favorite, for years, my favoritesteak sauce was Lee and Perrin's.
But every time I bought the steak sauce,I hated to see the name Perrin on there.
So I would reach to the shelfand I would turn it around.
In fact, it'd be in our pantry.
The label would be spun around,so I didn't have to see the name
Perrin and I didn't understand it.
(36:19):
But it's, it's eating meaway, it's eating away at me.
So when I saw my son's name on the reportcard this one particular day, I started
to get angry and then I stopped myself.
Oh my goodness, I am passingthis trauma down to my son.
(36:41):
He has no idea.
Even if it's minuscule,he doesn't deserve it.
I had no idea just how this works.
And that's part of what happenswhen you're talking about the impact
and awareness of other people.
(37:02):
So it's not just us, it impactsso many other people in our lives.
You know, that's, that'ssuch knowledge there.
I, I really want to highlightone more important thing here,
there's a misconception thatpoverty brings this behavior on.
(37:25):
I don't necessarily agree with thatat all, because it happens everywhere.
What is your opinion on that?
I have an opinion, and I havea story that illustrates that.
You're absolutely correct, peoplethink it has to do with poverty.
And oftentimes people think ithas to do more, this abuse takes
(37:47):
place within the Black community.
There is no other community,there's no other race in the United
States where it happens more.
But this crosses every race,every religion, politics.
It crosses wealth, it crosseseducation, it crosses waters, it crosses
every aspect of life on the planet.
It crosses borders.
We have an epidemic of child sexual abuse.
(38:12):
The greatest example that Icould give anyone is my father
in law, who I absolutely love.
He passed away about fiveyears ago, he passed away.
He's ninety-five yearsold, ninety-six years old.
He's white, and he's Jewish.
(38:33):
We could not be more opposite.
He grew up on the East Coast,
I grew up on the West Coast, West Coast.
He grew up in a middle classfamily, I obviously did not.
He created a life for he andhis family I never, ever saw.
He did incredibly well.
And here I am, his black son in law.
(38:56):
He's got a white Jewish sonin law and he's got a white
Greek Catholic son in law.
So we're kind of all mixed up.
It's wonderful.
Shortly before he dies,he calls me to the house.
I said, Okay, dad, I'll beover, I'll be, I'm on the way.
I get to the house and I immediatelyrecognize that my mother in law's
(39:18):
not there, which is really oddbecause they're always together.
But for some reason,she's not there that day.
Dad is sitting at the diningroom table, and he signals to me,
come over, I want you to have aseat at the dining room table.
Okay, dad.
So I sit down.
Everything okay?
He says, Yeah.
And he looks at me, and he says,I want you to know, I understand.
(39:41):
You understand?
What, what are you talking about?
And then he pats the book infront of him and I look down and
there's my book, Helplessness.
I
want you to know I understand.
You understand what?
(40:02):
He says, I'm going to tell you a story.
You cannot tell anyone until I pass away.
I have only told one person this storyin my life and that's your mother
in law and she can't tell anybody.
After I pass away, youcan share this story.
(40:22):
So I sit back, where is this going?
He says, when I was a little boy,lived in New York, Brooklyn, we
lived in a two story apartment.
But there was a downstairs and anupstairs, we were downstairs and
our best friends lived upstairs.
We were so close as friends, wealways left our front door open.
(40:44):
Both families did.
Our kids, as little kids, you playedwith that family, they came downstairs,
they come into our apartment, wego into their apartment, everyone,
we were just one big family.
One day,
I went upstairs, I was sent to getsomething, I don't remember what it is.
But I go into the apartment, thedoor is open, I just open it, and
(41:06):
I walk in, and no one's there.
So I just look around, okay,and then I hear something
coming from one of the bedrooms.
I walk over, and, and I'm startingto get really nervous now.
I go, Okay.
(41:26):
All right.
And then I see a tear forming in his eye.
I'm like, What's happening here?
I open the door and I see thefather molesting my older sister,
and I stand in the doorway,
(41:47):
and I don't know what to do.
I turn around, and I walk backdownstairs, and I don't say a word.
I don't tell my mother,I don't tell my father.
When my older sister comes downstairs,we don't say a word about it.
I did nothing.
(42:08):
Two months later, it happened again.
The same thing and I did nothing.
I want you to know I understand.
I understand your guilt, yourblame, your shame, I understand
the depression, the isolation.
(42:30):
I didn't, I didn't tell anybody.
I point out this story because, asyou said, this happens everywhere.
Here is my ninety-five year old fatherin law telling me a story that happened
(42:50):
to him almost eighty years ago.
And what I learned immediately,he wants someone to hear him.
He wants someone at ninety-five to sayit's okay, he wants someone to understand.
He wants to unburden himself of thistrauma at ninety-five years old.
(43:16):
He is still in pain, he's agonizingthis and his sister had already
passed away almost fifteen yearsprior to him telling me this story.
She was so freaking funny, shewas hilarious, she was amazing.
But here he is, he's, he calls me,
his black son in law to tell the story.
(43:39):
He didn't call his Jewish son in law,he didn't call his Catholic son in law,
he called me because a relationship thatwas already great, became even deeper.
Became,
and it was more than just father inlaw and son in law at that point.
(44:04):
We were two men who arecarrying the same burden.
He didn't talk to his sister about it.
And he wanted to talk to hissister about it till the day he
died, but he wasn't allowed to.
Which was me, until around 2015,
(44:24):
when forty-five years later, Ifind a way to talk to my sisters.
So, this is my best example ofsaying that it happens everywhere.
East Coast, West Coast, Jewish, Igrew up Baptist, more on the spiritual
(44:45):
side of the world these days.
He's well, well off, I am poor.
Like I said, we had very little in common.
Other than me marrying hisdaughter, and now we're both
brothers carrying this trauma.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
You know, just to share a little, bothof my sisters don't talk to me at all.
(45:13):
And it's all because of thistype of stuff in our family.
And I want to let you know here today,before we wrap up that you inspired me
today to really work hard on reaching outto those individuals before I pass away.
(45:38):
Because I watched the interviewtoday, how powerful that was.
And, you know, I want that for my family.
To, to watch your sisters say todaywhen I was watching it earlier,
You know, I never knew that.
(46:01):
We just assumed.
And I'm telling you, Ifeel the same way today.
Yeah, my sisters are theones who made it okay for me.
I, I was going to an event on howto write a book and I knew what
(46:21):
the book was I wanted to write.
But I also knew if I'm going towrite a book, uh, because this
was a book that was targeting me.
I was going to have to tell my sisters,I want to write a book about what we went
through from a brother's perspective soother men out there will know they are
not alone, because that's what we think.
We are not alone.
My father in law thought he wasalone until he read my book.
(46:42):
And so, I hadn't spokento my sisters about it.
But my second sister, I decided,I'm going to tell her I'm going
to write this book because I don'twant them to be caught off guard.
So I go over to her house, we'restanding out in front of her garage,
and you've probably alreadyheard it because you, uh, uh,
(47:02):
watched that other podcast andheard me probably described this.
And I tell her, I want to write abook about our family's experience
because I don't want our familystory to be like every other family
story, which is on the dunghill ofjust child sexual, sexual abuse crap.
Our family story, as tragic as itwas, can be used to help people.
(47:24):
That's what I want our family story,that's what I want our legacy to be.
It's not singing, this is it.
We were brought togetherfor this, not to sing.
But I want to write a story aboutit and I'm telling her and from a
brother's perspective, I'm in tears.
I am an absolute mess.
And she did something I did not expect.
(47:46):
I'm waiting for anger, I'm waitingfor hell to be unleashed on me.
But time has a way
of kind of getting adifferent perspective.
Oftentimes it does.
Not always, but often.
She looked at me and she said, Ofcourse, you should write a book.
(48:07):
All you boys should write a book.
It's not my story, it's not usgirl's story, it's your boy's story.
But you should write a book.
All men need to know what it islike from a brother's perspective.
And I didn't know what to do with that.
Because I'm waiting for herto say, Hell no, how dare you?
But time gave her an evolutionabout all this and a different
(48:32):
perspective on her brothers.
And as you said, another sister whoread the book said, I had no idea this
is what you boys were dealing with.
I thought you guys just didn't care.
And I'm like, No, you said we can't talk.
But forty-five years later, I havegreat relationships with three of
my sisters after taking the mostdangerous steps in my life and calling
(48:54):
them and saying, I need to talk.
Knowing that the wrath wasgoing to be unleashed on me.
And it didn't, but it was thehardest thing for me to do.
So they are my heroes because they, they,I wasn't looking for permission, I was
(49:16):
going to write it anyway, but they gaveme the grace of understanding the trauma.
They, they understood.
Yep.
Uh, time.
You know, everything can change in time.
And if we really dig into ourself, wecan find those perspectives that fit.
(49:36):
And it's very important.
We have very limited time,you've got another appointment.
I could speak for hours about thiswith you because it's so powerful.
It is the most importantstory on the internet today.
And I want to say thank you for sharing ithere with us on the Dead America Podcast.
(49:59):
Could you please tell peoplewhere they can find the book and
how to connect with you, please?
Well, that's gracious of you.
Thanks for asking.
Uh, people can findHelplessness on Amazon.
Uh, It's, I'm being booked all over theplace for it, it's a huge thing now.
Uh, people can reach me, uh, you know, um,at my website, keepercatranwhitney.com.
(50:25):
There's plenty of stuff there, freestuff, book reads, chapter reads,
downloads, it's all sorts of stuff there.
And if people want to reachme directly, they can reach me
at keepercw.author@ gmail.com.
Um, this is what I do.
I bring a conversation for brothers andbring us into the world, uh, where we're
(50:47):
oftentimes not allowed to participate.
Keeper, thank you fordoing what you do, sir.
Thank you.
You, you, you stay strong.
Uh, I, I feel you and I feel your wife.
And, um, the best that we can do,like with me and my sisters, is
just hold on to each other andjust do the best we can every day.
(51:11):
Because that's what we all want,men, woman, child, boy, girl,
we all want the same thing.
We all want to be positive,we all want to be empowered.
And we want to live a life ofjust care and understanding.
That's awesome wisdom.
Thank you.
(51:33):
Thank you for joining us today.
If you found this podcast enlightening,entertaining, educational in any way,
please share, like, subscribe, and joinus right back here next week for another
great episode of the Dead America Podcast.
I'm Ed Watters, your host, enjoyyour afternoon wherever you might be.
To overcome, you must educate.
Educate not only yourself, buteducate anyone seeking to learn.
We are all Dead America,we can all learn something.
To learn, we must challengewhat we already understand.
(00:26):
The way we do that isthrough conversation.
Sometimes we have conversations withothers, however, some of the best
conversations happen with ourselves.
Reach out and challenge yourself; let'sdive in and learn something new right now.
(00:54):
Today, we are speakingwith Keeper Catran Whitney.
He is an author, his book, Helplessness.
This is a fascinating and riveting story.
And I want to tell people up front,this might trigger many people.
So grab your coffee, beverage, andlet's get into this gripping tale.
(01:19):
Keeper, could you please introduceyourself and let people know just
a little bit about you, please?
Well, I appreciate, uh, havingme here on Dead America.
Uh, as you said, you got the nameright, the pronunciation right.
So kudos to you.
Catran Whitney.
I am the author of the book, Helplessness,the Emotional Health Challenges Brothers
(01:40):
Experience once We Learn Our SistersHave Been Sexually Abused By Our Parents.
It is a brother's story in, from,in large perspective, but it's also
my family's story of what me andmy three brothers experienced once
we learned what happened and how wewere locked out of the conversation.
(02:01):
And the journey to go from helplessness
to what is Hopefulness, which is thebook I'm writing now, to Happiness, which
will be the third book in the series.
So you get a, you get a lookinside of, of what happens.
And so there's that exploration and you'llalso get answers to what happened and
(02:22):
part of the healing journey that it tookfor me to get through my sisters and find
who I am as a brother in the process.
You know, that's the very difficult partand I, up front, want to commend you
for the journey that you've taken andit's very inspirational for many of us.
I, I myself, I'm traversing thisstory per se in my own world.
(02:49):
Slightly different, but the waters arenavigable the same, and it's devastating.
If, if you live within sexual abuse in anyform, the story gets pretty deep quickly.
Let's start off at the verybeginning when, you know, before
(03:12):
things were uncovered for you.
You were right at the doorstepof fame and fortune with your
entire family and that must havebeen a great feeling at the time.
And then you get called into this familymeeting and it devastates everything.
(03:36):
Could you walk us throughthose early years?
Sure.
I come from a family of ten, four boys,four girls, my mother and my stepfather.
Uh, my biological father,uh, my mother left him.
Um, we lived in Portland, Oregon inmy early years, so an area I imagine
that you're pretty familiar with, Ed.
And so, uh, we leave Portland andmy mother, uh, meets this guy and
(04:02):
he ends up becoming our stepfather.
We were incredibly poor.
I lived in twenty-one different placesbefore I moved out, homeless three times.
I went to eleven grade schoolsbefore I graduated high school,
my life was a constant turmoil.
In 1971, uh, we could barely payan eighty dollar a month rent.
And so I was used to going intothe streets and getting bottles
(04:26):
and turning them in for a pound ofground beef, you know, you get the
money for those, or a bag of rice.
Also, during 1971, The Jackson5 were really, really big.
I mean, they were everywhere.
It was Who's Loving You,ABC, I want you back.
I mean, it was everywhere.
And every little kid in the world,not just in America, wanted to be
(04:46):
Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5.
My mother, absolutely, my mother,Um, who is also a great singer,
got together with her brother andsister and they started singing.
But as good as they were, they couldn'tmake enough money to make ends meet.
So one day, she hears her kids singingaround the house, singing The Jackson 5.
And she stopped and she said,Would you guys like to sing?
Because as a singing family,we could make more money.
(05:09):
We're like, Yeah, of course.
The next thing you know,The Whitney Family is born.
Me, my three brothers, my four sisters,my mother, my stepfather, we are singing
in after hour clubs all over Los Angeles.
My life was, at the two o'clock inthe morning, get up, go to school,
rehearse, do it all over again.
(05:30):
One day we are singing, uh,at rehearsal and the phone
rings and my mother says, Shh.
And she picks up thephone and she says, Hello?
Who?
And
she looks at us and says,Michael Jackson's on the phone.
Yeah, that Michael Jackson's callingour house, soon to be king of pop.
(05:52):
He wants to speak to the brother directlyunderneath me, child number four.
I am number two.
My brother gets on thephone and says, Hello?
All excited.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And hangs up the phone andthen screams and says, Michael
Jackson said he's heard of us.
Said he's heard I singand dance just like him.
Keep going, we'll get there someday.
That's 1971.
Jump cut to 1977, and we are everywhere.
(06:16):
We're doing concerts, we're inmagazines, we're doing TV shows.
We're with United Artists Records, wehave made the coveted Billboard's Top
100 not once, not twice, but three times.
Two singles and an album.
Everything Michael Jacksonsaid is coming to fruition,
we are hot.
(06:37):
It's also the same year Motown, whohad The Jackson 5 three years earlier
because they had lost them to EpicRecords, had just completed their
exhaustive three year search to findthe family group to replace them.
And guess who they landed on?
Us, we were the group.
Where they had one leadsinger, we had nine.
(06:58):
My mother and all eight ofus kids could lead sing.
We all sing background.
Me and my brothers, weall played instruments.
We were everywhere.
Motown had just picked us to replace them.
So as far as I was concerned, I wasabout sixteen or seventeen, the bus
was outside, the engine was warm, theseats were warm, all we had to do was
step onto the bus and we were gone.
No more abject poverty, no more havingto depend on the record company to pay
(07:23):
our rent, to feed us, to get us clothes.
All that was done.
We had, we made it out of SouthCentral L. A. at the time.
So on a Saturday morning we have afamily meeting because we know on
Thursday or Friday coming up, we'regoing to sign the largest new artist
(07:44):
contract Motown offered any new group.
Larger than The Jackson 5, larger thanThe Supremes, larger than The Four
Tops, larger than The Temptations,larger than everyone, ever.
TV show was already locked in.
I have the pilot scriptin my office right now.
So my sister screams upstairs, Boys,come downstairs, family meeting!
And we all come running downstairs.
(08:06):
We are so hyped.
This is it, we are finallyout of this hell hole.
No more going to the park togo get government cheese, to
go get powdered milk, to go getpowdered, it's, it's, it's over.
Everything, as I said, MichaelJackson said for us to do, and
the rewards behind it, it's today.
(08:27):
I go into the living room, and when Ienter, my oldest sister's pacing back
and forth in front of the entryway.
And she's mad, she's angry.
Okay, she's always mad, she's angry.
She and my mom were always at loggerheads.
I mean, they're battlingeach other all the time.
In fact, earlier that day, therewas a screaming match between my
mother and my three youngest sisters.
(08:48):
I'm just thinking, It's justthe girls being the girls.
Okay, cool.
Cause that's, that's, happened too.
But when I walk into the living room,I look at the couch and at the far
end are my three youngest sisters,the three youngest of us eight.
The two youngest are twins.
They're huddled in a corner ofthe couch and they're not saying
(09:12):
anything, which is really strangebecause all they did was talk.
They laugh, they talk, they tease,they play, that's all they did.
It, it, it, it, that was my family,that's all we did, as close as we were.
So I'm looking at them and I'm thinking,That's odd, they're not saying a word.
(09:33):
Why?
At the other end of the couchare my two youngest brothers.
They're also quiet, butthey're confused like I am.
Because our sistersaren't saying anything.
And my oldest sister is pacing backand forth across the archway like,
okay?
(09:53):
My oldest brother is standing at thefar end of the couch behind my three
youngest sisters, and I lock eyes on him.
And we just kind ofshrugged, what's the deal?
This is going to be the happiestday of our life, everything's
about to change for us.
So we just kind of shrugged, Oh, okay.
(10:14):
This is really strange.
But I take my seat on the couch betweenmy three youngest sisters and my two
youngest brothers, and I just wait.
And within seconds, my motherand my stepfather enter.
We have a recliner in the living room,this brown recliner that clashes against
this violently green, ugly carpet.
(10:35):
My stepfather, who's 6'6/250 poundsand wears a huge Afro wig, puts his
head over seven feet tall, walksand sits down in the recliner.
But he does something really strange, hebends over and puts his hands in his face.
(10:57):
And I think, Is he sick?
Huh?
My mother, who's usually bubbly like hereight kids, has, she's just stone faced.
She walks in and doesn't say a word.
Walks to the far end of the living room,stands next to this large plate glass
(11:18):
window that overlooked the outside.
And she spins around,
and she just looks, scanning theroom, looking at her eight children.
But she pauses at my oldest sister,and if looks could kill, they
would have killed each other.
(11:38):
I'm a brother, I have noidea what's happening.
I don't have a clue, but my sisters do.
Because earlier that day, I would findout later, what they were arguing about
is what me and my three brothers areabout to learn for the very first time.
(12:03):
I live in California now and wehave earthquakes all the time.
In fact, we had another one thismorning, we had two last week, and we
had two or three a week before that.
Okay, earthquakes, they uproot trees,they crack bridges, they crack freeways.
Get you some concrete, get yousome nails, get you some rebar,
top, top, top, top, top spit,gum, hammer, put it back together.
(12:26):
You're on your way.
Those are material.
Emotional earthquakes are adifferent matter altogether.
You do not come back from thosequickly and you rarely ever
come back from those completely.
Because they become a part ofyou, they are now who you are.
(12:48):
My three brothers and I are about to behit with three emotional earthquakes, Ed.
We are about to be hit with words nobrother ever expects to hear, the words
no brother could ever prepare for.
My mother drops earthquake numberone when she finally speaks.
She says,
your stepfather has beenmolesting your sisters for years.
(13:17):
Wait, what did you say?
He's been doing what?
This is obviously not themeeting I'm expecting.
I am knocked backward emotionally.
I don't know what to do withthis, I am becoming paralyzed.
(13:42):
And so because it was the last thing Iexpected to hear and I couldn't prepare
for it, I'm pretty slow on the uptake.
But what I hear is apartment, Ihear park, and I hear liquor store.
But I'm dropping emotionally.
What just happened?
No!
(14:04):
And then she hits us withearthquake number three.
She says, I have known all along.
Wait, you've known what all along?
I imagine my three brothers arejust like me, PTSD is engulfing us.
(14:31):
I had no idea what PTSD was at the time.
But the shock and disbelief andthe betrayal of what we just heard,
my mother has known all along.
You mean to tell me you have known hehas been molesting your daughters for
years and you've done nothing about it?
It
(14:51):
turns out what my mother andsisters were arguing about earlier
that day was they were forcingmy mother to tell the boys today.
This is the day we let the boys knowwhat has been going on with us, what
has been going on in this house, whathas been impacting the entire family.
(15:14):
The deep, dark family secret.
It went a long way to explainingmy younger sisters being quiet
because they knew what was coming.
And of course they did, because they'vealready been experiencing it since 1971,
the year Michael Jackson called our house.
(15:35):
When they were five and six years old iswhen my stepdad went after them and my
oldest sister was about ten or eleven.
So they already knew.
The only people who didnot know were the brothers.
We did not know how tohandle what was happening.
(15:55):
But as traumatic as that was,those first two earthquakes did not
compare to what the third one was.
Because the third one is whatputs a brother in a box, it is
what prevents him from being aparticipant in the conversation.
(16:17):
My oldest sister who was stillangry, spins around and points a
finger at her four innocent brothersand says, You can't talk about it.
It didn't happen to you.
It only happened to us girls,you can't talk about it ever.
And like that, relationships betweenbrothers and sisters that were so tight,
(16:40):
were so much fun, were so important to us,lay on the living room floor in shambles.
My family was broken, we were lost.
I had just lost the nine mostimportant people in my life.
I'm a brother, I don't know whatto do, I am in total free fall.
(17:05):
The void is getting darker anddarker and there's no way to arrest
the descent, I'm dropping so fast.
And I know for sure my threeother brothers as well.
Guilt is starting to settle in, self blameis starting to settle in, shame, fear,
anxiety, all of it is settling on me.
(17:26):
And I don't know what to do.
My book, Helplessness, recounts thestory, and it is very, very deep.
It gets to be very, very dark.
In many ways, this is the light partof the story about what happened to us.
But I write Helplessness because I havecome to learn over the years, it took
(17:50):
me ten years to write it, that thereare so many brothers out there who
are not allowed to participate in theconversation once we learn what happened.
Because once we learn what happens, everyother group, the predator, those people
who empower them, and the victims areallowed to be a part of the conversation.
(18:14):
But when my oldest sister said,We can't talk about it, we
were just told we don't matter.
Our voices don't matter.
You brothers, you boys, we're goingto put you in a box and you have
to deal with your trauma withoutany questions being answered.
There was no help coming our way.
(18:36):
And so I write Helplessness tobring voice to the brothers.
And there are so many of us wholearn about our sisters, but aren't
allowed to, as I say, I mean, Ipretty much say it like this, we
are told we can't participate in theconversation, but we are expected
to answer for our non participation.
(18:58):
So what do you do?
How do you give a voice to a group in thefamily who is not allowed to participate?
Who is put on a shelf in a closet andtucked away and the key is locked and
you're locked in a box and you're tossed.
And so, this is what I do.
(19:19):
I elevate the voices of brothers so we canparticipate in a conversation where there
are no tools, there are no systems for us.
For girls and for women, they can goto any library, you can go to many
bookstores, and you will find books, youwill find articles, unfortunately, you
will find hundreds of thousands of them.
It is unfortunate.
(19:40):
And you'll get a documentary, you'llget a miniseries, you'll get a
movie about it, you may even geta movie, or book, or miniseries
about the Predators who do this.
But no one ever asked the brothers,no one ever asked, Are you okay?
Do you need to talk?
Is there anything you need?
(20:01):
We have absolutely nothing.
And if we're going to close theloop around child sexual abuse, it
just can't be those of us who havebeen sexually abused, we also have
to look at the collateral damage.
Oftentimes when I speak, and I knowyou, I know you have a bunch of
(20:21):
questions, but I need to say this upfront because oftentimes when I speak,
there invariably is a woman who willsay your sister's right, you can't talk
about it, it didn't happen to you boys.
And I share these two things,
I understand what my sister wasdoing, but we are victims of this.
(20:48):
One in the family has beensexually abused, the entire
family is sexually abused.
Just because we don't know aboutit doesn't mean we're not impacted.
And they'll say, Well itwas just your sisters.
And I'll say, Okay.
I will tell you this, my sisters were,their sexual abuse started in 1971.
In 1965, six years before my sisterswere sexually abused, my babysitter
(21:12):
sexually abused me and my olderbrother almost daily for six months.
So I know both sides ofthe sexual abuse coin.
I understand the damage sideand the collateral damage side.
And at that point, that's when thewoman will say, Oh, I didn't know.
(21:33):
I said, Well, no, you didn't know.
But if we're going to get into aconversation of whose trauma is worse,
we're not gonna get anywhere, ultimately,when it comes to solving this problem.
We need to understand that everyone in thefamily has been traumatized, everyone is
being abused, whether they know it or not.
(21:54):
So, uh, this is what I do, Ibring voice to brothers who are
left out of the conversation.
That's strong.
You know, if, if we really thinkabout what was just said, when
we throw a rock in a pond, thoseripples, they keep going out.
(22:17):
I live with a wife that wassexually abused by her father,
and it devastated her life.
Still to this day, we're workingcontinually on those ripples.
Because it's important togive voice to the victim.
(22:38):
And I want to highlight, there's a lotof denial in this type of behavior.
I know from personal family experience,when my sisters brought claims, It was,
No, you're lying, all of this denial.
(23:00):
Did you face that within your family?
No, we did not face denial.
In fact, when we told aunts and uncleswhat was going on, there was no denial.
What we got was, We can'tdo anything about it.
(23:20):
Why are you doing this to your mother?
Why are you doing this?
Because they were hoping that we weregoing to be wealthy and rich and famous.
And so this was going to be their chanceto grab on to our shirt, our coattails.
(23:41):
We didn't get that kind of denial.
The denial of any sort was thedenial of our sisters that me
and my brothers don't matter.
You guys are not in pain, you guys arenot in trauma, you guys are not worthy of
attention, you are not, uh, uh, uh, uh,you, you are not victimized in any way.
And it took me a long time to, tounderstand why my oldest sister,
(24:07):
the number three of us, did that.
She's protecting herself andultimately she's protecting her
three, our three youngest sisters.
But in the process, pushingme and my brothers to the side
and no one addressing, or evengiving us any consideration meant
that we were left on our own.
(24:29):
And I did try to find some sort ofbook or an article that addressed
the needs of brothers, which, ofcourse, there wasn't at the time.
This is 1977.
It hasn't been until recently thatmen have begun to come out, thanks
to celebrities, be them actors orsports figures, and begin to talk
(24:49):
about their direct victimhood,
uh, when it comes to beingsexually abused as a child.
We're finally starting to have thosetrickles of conversations, but we
need more of them if we're reallygoing to address the entire situation.
So, we didn't have that.
My brothers and I, we were in severeconfusion and crisis and we started to go
(25:15):
into this state of depression and anxiety.
I am really, really sad to hearthat your wife experienced this and
that you know what it's like to workwith someone who, who, who is, not
(25:35):
just close to you, but a loved one.
Your, your, your partner.
And try to help them navigate notonly their trauma, but there's
also a certain amount of traumathat comes your way, uh, as you're
trying to help them sift through,
you also got to siftthrough yourself as well.
Which was part of whatme and my brothers did.
(25:56):
We, we, for me, part of the challengewas my protective instincts start to
kick in and you want to do something.
And yet we're told, Put that on pause.
Don't do anything.
And I, I understood it later, I mean yearslater, what that was about because it took
(26:23):
me nine years to actually do something.
Because my mother and my sister's,first of all, my sister said,
Don't, don't do anything.
You boys, we don't wantyou talking to anyone.
We don't want you doing anything.
In fact, my brothers and I, we didn'teven talk to ourselves about it.
We were just so locked downemotionally about, about it.
(26:45):
And my mother saying, I will handle it.
I will handle this.
Well, she didn't.
And so my protective instincts, nineyears later, later in 1986, three months
before I was to get married, they kickedin big time because I could not imagine
not handling the situation for my sisters.
(27:06):
Because one of the things that Ibelieve, Ed, is that what it means
to be a brother with sisters is,your job is to protect their honor.
And I hadn't done that.
And I know they had stopped it,but that did not mean I wasn't
suffering self esteem blows andmy self worth wasn't taking a hit.
(27:30):
You know, and granted, my mothersaying that she's gonna handle this,
and all this is in the book, I, Iabsolutely leave nothing behind.
It is really a story of,about me and what I could have
done, what I should have done.
It is, my mother sayingshe's gonna handle it.
Okay, it was a warm blanket.
(27:50):
It meant it was something that Icould, okay, the girls said don't
do anything, okay, it's on them now.
But as each day went by,
I'm, I'm, and I'm seeing their faces,and it's like, Okay, you're hearing
the whispers, how come you didn'tsee my tears, how come you didn't
(28:11):
hear my weeping, how come, how come?
Well, you said don't do anything,and the reason I didn't hear is
because you were under threat.
If you said something, he was goingto hurt you so you didn't tell us.
If you said something, he toldyou he was going to hurt your
brothers so you didn't say anything.
It is part of the web.
(28:33):
And, you know, what ends uphappening is when you had mentioned,
you know, different peopleand denial from other people,
when you've got a predator and you'vegotten the power, like my mother,
I, I, my description of it, they'rein the center of this spider web and
they're just feeding on everybody.
(28:54):
And as each person who knows who coulddo something does nothing, the web gets
wider and wider and wider and wider.
And all those people who didknow anything, whether they know
it or not, they are part of theprotective detail of the predator
because you choose to step aside.
And they don't look at it like that.
(29:15):
They just look at it, Well, Idon't want to get in your business,
but you're in the business.
As soon as you learned about it, you werein the business and you let your nieces
and nephews be devoured by this predator.
Yes, I agree 100%.
You know, it's very interesting, mywife, because I, I was like your sister.
(29:44):
I listened to an interview thatyou did, episode fifteen, your talk
after forty-five, and your sistersaid this, I didn't want to hear it.
That is so important for peopleto understand, when we shut it
off like that, so many assumptionsare made, so many opinions are
(30:10):
formed, and it's so dangerous.
So stepping up when you are a victim,letting people know it's not okay,
and I'm not okay with how you arehandling this, is very important.
For instance, my wife, she was veryupset at me because I had that just shut
(30:34):
up and let's not stir the pot attitudeboth with her family and my family.
And it takes a strong individual tostep up and say, Can't we do something?
And that's really what we're doing heretoday, is we're doing something about it.
My wife, I've helped empower her soshe's writing letters to her siblings
(31:00):
explaining what happened so thattheir children are now protected
because the awareness is there.
I think that is very important.
Could you talk to us about peoplebeing aware of what is happening?
The awareness is whereour power comes from.
(31:25):
It is our singular power base, it'sstepping in and owning our trauma.
And before you can makeeveryone else aware, you must
be self aware of what happened.
I'll give you an example.
I'm in the middle ofwriting Helplessness, okay?
(31:47):
Like I said, it took me ten years.
And at around year seven or eight,I'm in the bed and I'm talking
to my wife about what happenedin the section that I'm writing.
And I'm telling her, Well,this happened to this.
I'm in the section here and it'sreally just giving me a problem.
And she looks at me and shesays, You know, you're a victim.
(32:11):
And I looked at her andI said, No, I'm not.
Of course you're a victim,how can you not be a victim?
I said, well, no, I'm just tellingyou what this section is about and
what it's, Look at you, you're a mess.
You're sweating, you're shaking,you could hardly even talk about it.
But, but, You're a victim.
(32:35):
That is when it hit me.
I'm fifty-seven years old and I, I didn'teven recognize when my babysitter molested
me almost daily, as me being a victim.
So it wasn't until I wasfifty-seven that I became aware
of my trauma, of my victimhood.
(32:56):
I, I can't even get to the place of beingcalled a survivor unless I could first
recognize that I'm a victim, period.
And once you recognize you'rea victim, now you can be put on
the path to some sort of healing.
Once you do that, the next step isyou must talk to someone about it.
(33:18):
Ed, that's the hardest part.
But once you talk about it, you arenow aware, and you own your space, and
you step into that space, and you justplant your feet and you do not move, and
you tell someone, you become empowered.
It's liberating the awareness.
(33:40):
But the problem when we are not selfaware first, I look at it as part
of DNA, DNA replicates throughoutour bodies all day, every day.
And in most ways, they replicatein ways we don't even understand.
We don't even see it.
And most of the time it's good, butthere are times when it's really bad.
(34:02):
And you're not even aware of it.
Emotional trauma is thesame way, it's like DNA.
It is a part of you, itis not going anywhere.
It is part of your marrow,I like to describe, it is
all over you, in every cell.
And it replicates oftentimes inways we do not understand, but
oftentimes in ways that are dark.
(34:24):
They begin to impact our relationshipswith our loved ones, with our
wives, with our children, withour co workers, with our friends.
They impact us and impacthow we communicate, how we
work, how we view the world.
It impacts,
and we're not always aware ofthat being the reason behind it.
I had no idea that thatwas happening to me.
(34:47):
And like I said, it wasn'tuntil my wife mentioned that.
But when my, when my son was born,he's, we've had multiple last names.
My father's last name was Leary, andwhen my mother left town, she decided to
give us the last name of our stepfather.
(35:09):
And so my wife and I, we took herlast name and we became Catran-Perrin.
And so one day, my son comes homefrom school with a report card.
And this is the awareness, becauseyou're absolutely correct with the
ripple effect, it becomes generational.
It does not slow down, itjust gets wider, wider.
(35:32):
And people look at a ripple and thinkit just goes wide, it goes deep.
You know, though that pressureof the rock hitting the lake,
it goes deep and it spreads.
It's not just on the surface.
People don't look at it as a generationalthing, but that's exactly what happens.
So my son brings home a report cardand I'm looking at the last name on the
report card and I start getting mad,because I see the last name Perrin on it.
(35:58):
Or my favorite, for years, my favoritesteak sauce was Lee and Perrin's.
But every time I bought the steak sauce,I hated to see the name Perrin on there.
So I would reach to the shelfand I would turn it around.
In fact, it'd be in our pantry.
The label would be spun around,so I didn't have to see the name
Perrin and I didn't understand it.
(36:19):
But it's, it's eating meaway, it's eating away at me.
So when I saw my son's name on the reportcard this one particular day, I started
to get angry and then I stopped myself.
Oh my goodness, I am passingthis trauma down to my son.
(36:41):
He has no idea.
Even if it's minuscule,he doesn't deserve it.
I had no idea just how this works.
And that's part of what happenswhen you're talking about the impact
and awareness of other people.
(37:02):
So it's not just us, it impactsso many other people in our lives.
You know, that's, that'ssuch knowledge there.
I, I really want to highlightone more important thing here,
there's a misconception thatpoverty brings this behavior on.
(37:25):
I don't necessarily agree with thatat all, because it happens everywhere.
What is your opinion on that?
I have an opinion, and I havea story that illustrates that.
You're absolutely correct, peoplethink it has to do with poverty.
And oftentimes people think ithas to do more, this abuse takes
(37:47):
place within the Black community.
There is no other community,there's no other race in the United
States where it happens more.
But this crosses every race,every religion, politics.
It crosses wealth, it crosseseducation, it crosses waters, it crosses
every aspect of life on the planet.
It crosses borders.
We have an epidemic of child sexual abuse.
(38:12):
The greatest example that Icould give anyone is my father
in law, who I absolutely love.
He passed away about fiveyears ago, he passed away.
He's ninety-five yearsold, ninety-six years old.
He's white, and he's Jewish.
(38:33):
We could not be more opposite.
He grew up on the East Coast,
I grew up on the West Coast, West Coast.
He grew up in a middle classfamily, I obviously did not.
He created a life for he andhis family I never, ever saw.
He did incredibly well.
And here I am, his black son in law.
(38:56):
He's got a white Jewish sonin law and he's got a white
Greek Catholic son in law.
So we're kind of all mixed up.
It's wonderful.
Shortly before he dies,he calls me to the house.
I said, Okay, dad, I'll beover, I'll be, I'm on the way.
I get to the house and I immediatelyrecognize that my mother in law's
(39:18):
not there, which is really oddbecause they're always together.
But for some reason,she's not there that day.
Dad is sitting at the diningroom table, and he signals to me,
come over, I want you to have aseat at the dining room table.
Okay, dad.
So I sit down.
Everything okay?
He says, Yeah.
And he looks at me, and he says,I want you to know, I understand.
(39:41):
You understand?
What, what are you talking about?
And then he pats the book infront of him and I look down and
there's my book, Helplessness.
I
want you to know I understand.
You understand what?
(40:02):
He says, I'm going to tell you a story.
You cannot tell anyone until I pass away.
I have only told one person this storyin my life and that's your mother
in law and she can't tell anybody.
After I pass away, youcan share this story.
(40:22):
So I sit back, where is this going?
He says, when I was a little boy,lived in New York, Brooklyn, we
lived in a two story apartment.
But there was a downstairs and anupstairs, we were downstairs and
our best friends lived upstairs.
We were so close as friends, wealways left our front door open.
(40:44):
Both families did.
Our kids, as little kids, you playedwith that family, they came downstairs,
they come into our apartment, wego into their apartment, everyone,
we were just one big family.
One day,
I went upstairs, I was sent to getsomething, I don't remember what it is.
But I go into the apartment, thedoor is open, I just open it, and
(41:06):
I walk in, and no one's there.
So I just look around, okay,and then I hear something
coming from one of the bedrooms.
I walk over, and, and I'm startingto get really nervous now.
I go, Okay.
(41:26):
All right.
And then I see a tear forming in his eye.
I'm like, What's happening here?
I open the door and I see thefather molesting my older sister,
and I stand in the doorway,
(41:47):
and I don't know what to do.
I turn around, and I walk backdownstairs, and I don't say a word.
I don't tell my mother,I don't tell my father.
When my older sister comes downstairs,we don't say a word about it.
I did nothing.
(42:08):
Two months later, it happened again.
The same thing and I did nothing.
I want you to know I understand.
I understand your guilt, yourblame, your shame, I understand
the depression, the isolation.
(42:30):
I didn't, I didn't tell anybody.
I point out this story because, asyou said, this happens everywhere.
Here is my ninety-five year old fatherin law telling me a story that happened
(42:50):
to him almost eighty years ago.
And what I learned immediately,he wants someone to hear him.
He wants someone at ninety-five to sayit's okay, he wants someone to understand.
He wants to unburden himself of thistrauma at ninety-five years old.
(43:16):
He is still in pain, he's agonizingthis and his sister had already
passed away almost fifteen yearsprior to him telling me this story.
She was so freaking funny, shewas hilarious, she was amazing.
But here he is, he's, he calls me,
his black son in law to tell the story.
(43:39):
He didn't call his Jewish son in law,he didn't call his Catholic son in law,
he called me because a relationship thatwas already great, became even deeper.
Became,
and it was more than just father inlaw and son in law at that point.
(44:04):
We were two men who arecarrying the same burden.
He didn't talk to his sister about it.
And he wanted to talk to hissister about it till the day he
died, but he wasn't allowed to.
Which was me, until around 2015,
(44:24):
when forty-five years later, Ifind a way to talk to my sisters.
So, this is my best example ofsaying that it happens everywhere.
East Coast, West Coast, Jewish, Igrew up Baptist, more on the spiritual
(44:45):
side of the world these days.
He's well, well off, I am poor.
Like I said, we had very little in common.
Other than me marrying hisdaughter, and now we're both
brothers carrying this trauma.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
You know, just to share a little, bothof my sisters don't talk to me at all.
(45:13):
And it's all because of thistype of stuff in our family.
And I want to let you know here today,before we wrap up that you inspired me
today to really work hard on reaching outto those individuals before I pass away.
(45:38):
Because I watched the interviewtoday, how powerful that was.
And, you know, I want that for my family.
To, to watch your sisters say todaywhen I was watching it earlier,
You know, I never knew that.
(46:01):
We just assumed.
And I'm telling you, Ifeel the same way today.
Yeah, my sisters are theones who made it okay for me.
I, I was going to an event on howto write a book and I knew what
(46:21):
the book was I wanted to write.
But I also knew if I'm going towrite a book, uh, because this
was a book that was targeting me.
I was going to have to tell my sisters,I want to write a book about what we went
through from a brother's perspective soother men out there will know they are
not alone, because that's what we think.
We are not alone.
My father in law thought he wasalone until he read my book.
(46:42):
And so, I hadn't spokento my sisters about it.
But my second sister, I decided,I'm going to tell her I'm going
to write this book because I don'twant them to be caught off guard.
So I go over to her house, we'restanding out in front of her garage,
and you've probably alreadyheard it because you, uh, uh,
(47:02):
watched that other podcast andheard me probably described this.
And I tell her, I want to write abook about our family's experience
because I don't want our familystory to be like every other family
story, which is on the dunghill ofjust child sexual, sexual abuse crap.
Our family story, as tragic as itwas, can be used to help people.
(47:24):
That's what I want our family story,that's what I want our legacy to be.
It's not singing, this is it.
We were brought togetherfor this, not to sing.
But I want to write a story aboutit and I'm telling her and from a
brother's perspective, I'm in tears.
I am an absolute mess.
And she did something I did not expect.
(47:46):
I'm waiting for anger, I'm waitingfor hell to be unleashed on me.
But time has a way
of kind of getting adifferent perspective.
Oftentimes it does.
Not always, but often.
She looked at me and she said, Ofcourse, you should write a book.
(48:07):
All you boys should write a book.
It's not my story, it's not usgirl's story, it's your boy's story.
But you should write a book.
All men need to know what it islike from a brother's perspective.
And I didn't know what to do with that.
Because I'm waiting for herto say, Hell no, how dare you?
But time gave her an evolutionabout all this and a different
(48:32):
perspective on her brothers.
And as you said, another sister whoread the book said, I had no idea this
is what you boys were dealing with.
I thought you guys just didn't care.
And I'm like, No, you said we can't talk.
But forty-five years later, I havegreat relationships with three of
my sisters after taking the mostdangerous steps in my life and calling
(48:54):
them and saying, I need to talk.
Knowing that the wrath wasgoing to be unleashed on me.
And it didn't, but it was thehardest thing for me to do.
So they are my heroes because they, they,I wasn't looking for permission, I was
(49:16):
going to write it anyway, but they gaveme the grace of understanding the trauma.
They, they understood.
Yep.
Uh, time.
You know, everything can change in time.
And if we really dig into ourself, wecan find those perspectives that fit.
(49:36):
And it's very important.
We have very limited time,you've got another appointment.
I could speak for hours about thiswith you because it's so powerful.
It is the most importantstory on the internet today.
And I want to say thank you for sharing ithere with us on the Dead America Podcast.
(49:59):
Could you please tell peoplewhere they can find the book and
how to connect with you, please?
Well, that's gracious of you.
Thanks for asking.
Uh, people can findHelplessness on Amazon.
Uh, It's, I'm being booked all over theplace for it, it's a huge thing now.
Uh, people can reach me, uh, you know, um,at my website, keepercatranwhitney.com.
(50:25):
There's plenty of stuff there, freestuff, book reads, chapter reads,
downloads, it's all sorts of stuff there.
And if people want to reachme directly, they can reach me
at keepercw.author@ gmail.com.
Um, this is what I do.
I bring a conversation for brothers andbring us into the world, uh, where we're
(50:47):
oftentimes not allowed to participate.
Keeper, thank you fordoing what you do, sir.
Thank you.
You, you, you stay strong.
Uh, I, I feel you and I feel your wife.
And, um, the best that we can do,like with me and my sisters, is
just hold on to each other andjust do the best we can every day.
(51:11):
Because that's what we all want,men, woman, child, boy, girl,
we all want the same thing.
We all want to be positive,we all want to be empowered.
And we want to live a life ofjust care and understanding.
That's awesome wisdom.
Thank you.
(51:33):
Thank you for joining us today.
If you found this podcast enlightening,entertaining, educational in any way,
please share, like, subscribe, and joinus right back here next week for another
great episode of the Dead America Podcast.
I'm Ed Watters, your host, enjoyyour afternoon wherever you might be.
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