(ThyBlackMan.com) Mario Hunt is a 35-year old teacher’s aide who may have done the unthinkable to a young man at his school. Mario Hunt is being accused criminal s-xual assault, aggravated criminal s-xual abuse, and transmission of HIV. According to court documents, the teacher committed the crimes against a 17-year old boy on the school’s track team between between January 1, 2011 and June 21, 2011.
The student affected has been identified as a senior at Cahokia Senior High School, which is where Hunt teaches and works with the track team.
In court documents, it is revealed that Mario Hunt is HIV positive and knew he had the virus when he slept with the minor. Officials don’t know if the student was infected or not. School officials found out what was going on after a mother complained to the superintendent. She says that the coach was sending inappropriate messages to her son on Facebook.
“I’m shocked by that,” said Cahokia, Illinois Superintendent Art Ryan. “I’m, you know, sad to hear that that’s a possibility. Again, I have no firsthand
knowledge of any of this stuff. Just what you have shared with me. I’ve not seen any reports about the charges being filed or anything of that nature. You know, again, with HIPA laws and so on, you know, people who are not compelled to share any situations they might have with their employers.”
Mario Hunt has been jailed on $300,000 bond and school officials say that police are conducting individual interviews with all the athletes on the track team.
I am not sure if Mr. Hunt is guilty of this crime or not, but this incident brings several things to mind. First, it is a reminder that the abuse of minors is rampant in our society and in the African American community. There are thousands of young women who’ve been impregnated by older men, and a slew of gay black males who had their first experience (and first infection) from an older man. This necessitates the importance of us taking this kind of abuse seriously and opening the doors of communication for our children to report these incidents before it’s too late.
The second thing that comes to mind with this incident is the increase in the number of single parent households in the black community as a result of the mass incarceration epidemic over the last 40 years. This has done two things: It has led to a mental health crisis in the black community, with a large number of black men who’ve been exposed to a physically and mentally unhealthy environment while incarcerated. It has also led to a spike in the number of single parent households. So, in many cases, single mothers are not always able to know when men have been abusing their children, leading to devastating consequences.
My father was once the commander of the Crimes Against Children unit in my home city. The stories he would tell shocked me to to the core of my soul. In many cases, the mother had no idea that her child was being assaulted while she was at work, and in many cases, the man she loved was the one responsible. Incidents like this one serve as very clear reminders that we must protect our kids and clear our community of various forms of abuse that occur, largely due to systemic racism trickling down to unchecked mental illness.
Staff Writer; Dr. Boyce Watkins
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition. For more information, please visit http://BoyceWatkins.com.