There is a scene in Boardwalk Empire in which a priest is standing in a river performing a baptism.
He is wearing white robes. He is smiling. He occupies a position of moral authority. He presents as a good man offering salvation.
The priest is holding the man beneath the water, while keeping a calmly arranged placid smile on his face, his confidence in plausible deniability.
Here is a man cloaked in goodness, purity, and authority, protected by the very role that allows him to publicly and confidently carry out something profoundly sinister.
People see the robes, the smile, the holy father offering salvation.
His authority goes unchecked because the story has already been written. The role itself pre-decides what is possible to notice. In that way, the people witnessing from the shore become part of the story as well.
The disturbance is not confined to the harm itself. It is also the protection, restoration, accommodation, and assumption of goodness that surround it.
It is the way the narratives that shape our understanding pre-decide what is possible to notice.
