What would you do?

I randomly stumbled across this youtube channel which is indeed a series on the TV channel ABC in America and which is about morality and acting out moral in public.

There are some actors (they’re not bad) hired by the host of the TV show who act out a controversial scene and try to get reactions. Examples are “The 16y/o female runaway getting picked up by an old male in a diner at the highway” or “transgender teen shopping for prom” or what approached me the most “You can’t be a princess”, in which a mother forbids her son to dress up as a princess for Halloween (or her daughter to dress up as spiderman). People around watch them. And some get involved.

I just loved how this lady reacted.

What impressed me the most were those people who are just doing the right thing. They stand up for the (female/male) bartender who is being sexually harassed. They don’t let the 16-year-old desperate girl leave with this creepy truck driver. They tell little Joci in her spiderman-costume that her muscles look amazing. They give “Lisa” the transgender girl the advice to do “what she feels doing”.  And along the way, they put a smile on your face with their sense of humanity.

And during you watch all these situations you can’t avoid asking yourself the same question:

Man, it’s hard. One the one hand, it’s like those “Psycho tests” in girl magazines:  Which type of girl you are when it comes to flirting? There are 4 answers possible to every question but you figure out in one second which one to pick to be the “cool” or the “shy” one. - I think maybe that’s the point of those tests, encouraging your belief in yourself (or something you want to be like). But well, that’s another story. You can try it out here: http://www.glamour.de/psychotests.

I wanted to talk about the fact that those tests are (mostly) predictable. You know what the “right thing” to answer is. Same applies to all these situations I mentioned. You know you should really say something. Or do something. But will you?

Because, on the other hand, you may think: “It’s not my business” or “She should figure it out by herself”. Maybe, you think one has to make their own experiences and learn from them. But the other half of you knows, that sometimes a person from outside of the family is the best one to help and show e.g. the worried mom in the costume shop that there’s nothing wrong about a little boy wearing a princess dress. Or about the fact that he might be gay. Furthermore, this “finding out what is good or bad for you” might be too late for the runaway when she is raped and dead lying in a roadside ditch.

And maybe, you’re just like me when it comes to standing up for others. You are afraid. You are shy. You ask yourself: “Is this what I think it is? I don’t know anything about him/her, I don’t know the background, I can’t say anything.”  Or, even worse: you say to yourself: “Another one will go for it”.

Like last week in Paris, on my way home, there was this woman on the sidewalk, screaming. “Help me! Help me! He won’t let me go! Leave me alone!”  and a man grabbing her. I was not sure. Which relationship did they have? Was he about to hurt her? He was much younger than her so I concluded he wasn’t her boyfriend or husband. And there was another woman standing by trying to calm her down. And both, the man and the other woman seemed worried about her and caring. And the woman was really desperate, I swear. But she also looked kind of freaked-out to me. I didn’t know: “Is she just some kind of psychopath, is she crazy?” “Is she having a panic attack?” “Or is this man trying to harass her in any kind?” It was hard to decide. It was hard to know, because I have never seen those people before. And what do you do when everything is just too much for you? – Right, you do nothing. You just look, try to evaluate the situation and pass by. And then, it’s to late to turn around.

Is she "just" crazy or actually in danger? (goodtoknow.co.uk)

I guess I should’ve said something. Not that I think it was a serious thing… Just to make sure I wasn’t wrong with my assumption that she had a panic attack and that I couldn’t help (that was the conclusion of my 5-second-evaluation at this time). So what? “Is everything alright?” is never out of place. If she was crazy, they’d just explained it to me. If not, I could have gotten her some help by the police.

But I did nothing. And I’m ashamed of myself. It was: “Another one will go for it” again. And fortunately, “another one” did. A woman behind me stopped by asking the crazy-acting woman “Are you okay, what’s happening?” A question any pedestrian passing by should have asked her.

Looking back, I failed.

About 15 min later, I passed by again and saw that she was with two policemen now, seemingly calmed down and maybe a little more reasonable-looking. I still didn’t know what this was all about, but I felt eased that she was getting help now.

For the next time, something like this will happen to me, I resolve to stand up. I don’t want to have in mind that I can be blamed of doing nothing against a bad thing happening in front of my eyes. You would want to have someone around “doing something” if you were in one of these situations, wouldn’t you? And I hope, I will also success one day, doing something against the bad things people do to me. 

And by the way, now I remember who brought me across this show and this topic. My new youtube addiction (aand subscription) Anna Akana who made a really good video about how she is dealing with sexual harassment:

And oh man, I love her leggins. They made me reconsider all of my hatred against "leggins as a replacement for actual pants". She has such a big collection of "Lord of the Rings", all types of comics and even Doctor Who-leggins. But, I'm not sure if I'd go for them in real life. So...

What would you do?