What better way is there to kick start your feel-good holiday season other than to publicly threaten a brown family? If you’re a racist, obviously, that’s what’ll jingle for you all the way.
Two days ago, a friend of mine faced an ugly display of racism at a Phoenix, Arizona airport just as she waited in the lounge to board a flight, en route a much deserved vacation. A man, who’d been sitting a few seats away, stood up to leave but took his time to loudly threaten her while looking at her. ‘We should have blown them all up the first time!’ he said and walked off. And let me just stop you right there if you’re looking for a hijab or anything Middle Eastern in this story because one, she wore none, and two, her ancestors had once lived in India. She, on the other hand, is from Chicago. The only thing that sets her apart as the other is her dusky skin.
As for the people around her, nobody even noticed!
“Racism isn’t getting worse. It’s getting filmed,” said Will Smith once. And as technology is helping expose the racist, it is also exposing the silent bystander who could’ve made a positive difference in that moment but chose not to.
This past June, two professors of the University of Seattle were insulted, called the N-word and spat upon at a Starbucks teeming with customers in broad daylight and nobody did anything, said nothing. It was as though that one humiliating moment had come and gone and life had gone on without a pause for everyone else except for the victims.
November 2016 came with its own forage of racially charged incidents, three of which made instant headlines.
Early November, a NYC Muslim hijabi woman was threatened with a knife by a fellow visitor at a doctor’s office. While they both waited in the lounge, he took out his army knife and placed it on the vacant seat between them. For all to see. But nobody reacted. After a while, he stood up and simply strolled past her, muttering the words, “deport them all!” While she was scared out of her mind and decided there and then to take off her hijab forever for the first time ever since she chose to wear it, nobody else seemed to even notice what had just happened.
Right after Thanksgiving, a Delta Airlines passenger went on a cuss-rant because he believed the plane had some ‘Hillary bitches on here!’ and that it was time to somehow enforce respect for the President-Elect. According to the reports, he went on for fifteen minutes. Nobody spoke up. Not even the flight crew. Am I insane or have people been questioned and kicked off planes for doing math while being foreigner, and for uttering greetings or ‘Thank you, God’ in a foreign language? And yet, not a word of caution to this guy by anyone.
This same Thanksgiving weekend also gave us a 10-minute video of a customer having a public meltdown at a Chicago-area Michael's craft store. The lady, another Trump voter, and we know this because she declared on camera for all to hear, can be seen screaming at everyone including a toddler that she accused of stealing (I won’t even…). Apparently, she was reacting to what she believed to be discriminatory behavior against her by the store clerk - who just happened to be an African American. There were no cops to interfere at the scene even though they'd been called multiple times to deescalate the situation.
The only other similarity among these incidents, besides being hate-charged, is the lack of concern or inaction by the majority of people who were present at the scene but were neither the victim nor the abuser.
This is reportedly a major concern.
Victims have often wondered why nobody interfered either during or after the fact. Is it that they didn’t notice? Didn’t want to be involved? Didn’t realize what was going on until it had already happened? Or did they think the victim deserved it? Thought it was normal for someone to publicly ridicule someone else?
The part that unnerves me is that these incidents can be part of anyone's life because that's the kind of world we live in now.
What if something similar was to happen at, say, your local grocery store that you visit daily, where you witness someone being targeted for whatever reason the abuser deemed fit - religion, race, ethnicity, gender…how would you react? Will you even consider stopping the abuse? If you react, what will you do?
There seems to be a great need to learn to interfere in the right ways to let people know that they can't harass strangers based on their own xenophobia and ignorance. Experts in intervention and deescalation tactics and survival techniques have agreed upon at least four such strategies they call the 4 D’s:
Direct Intervention - you engage the abuser directly and tell them to stop. Do this only if you can sucker punch your way out if you have to.
Distract - you engage the victim, strike up a random conversation with them, and ignore the abuser to the point that they leave.
Delegate - you find a person of authority and power, cop/manager/supervisor/grandma/Rebel Alliance, and ask them to help the victim escape the abuse.
Delay - you wait until the abuser leaves, then, go over to the victim to make sure they’re okay or if they need help and do your best to alleviate the pain of a bad experience.
I’d like to add the Great Power of the Social Media to the mix here. In the incident of cray-cray woman at Michael’s, a bystander filmed the entire episode on her phone. That’s all she did. She didn’t actively employ any of the 4 D’s but just stood there filming the incident, later posted it to her social media profile from where it got picked up and went viral enough to make headlines. [Please, see note at the end of the piece for updated information on this incident]. Another woman did the same with the Delta Airlines passenger.
THAT was a powerful way of countering discrimination and bad behavior, and at times, that’s all we can do.
In fact, I’d suggest that to the victims too. Film the bastards! Catch them on camera and yes, they’ll be brave about it - oh sure film me, I’m not scared - but that’s not the point of it. Of course, they’re not scared. They’re ignorant xenophobes and bigots, and the point is to expose them as exactly that. Call them out. Put their behavior/comments/faces on display for everyone to see. And why not? If they choose to make a spectacle of their hatred by terrorizing innocent people, then, let’s help them go big with it. Only, on your own terms.
Also, get creative. Keep a list of some hefty cuss words and zingers handy to shoot at will when the occasion calls for it. You can get a lot of help from comments off Donald Trump’s twitter posts. He’s ticked off every nation on the planet, hence, the diversity of insults on his Twitter timeline is quite unpresidented. Feel free to take notes and reuse.
Most of my friends are huge believers of love trumps hate. I believe these are the people who make this world go round and make it a better place for the rest of us to live in. It is for their sake and your sake and mine that I hope we can all be there for each other in positive ways when the time calls for it. And if you’re a person coming from a place of privilege, use that power to benefit someone being crushed by someone else misusing that same privilege.
Be safe. Be joyful. Be useful. May this season, and every season, this New Year, and every year be your best ever and more.
Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Holidays!
EDIT UPDATE: The lady who filmed the incident at Chicago Michael’s was kind enough to reach out for a comment. She had this to say, “The only thing I wanted to point out is that what was DIFFERENT about the Michael's situation is that so many people did speak up and we all waited for the police. The video starts with a white man calling her out. Multiple customers spoke up. I said what I could without getting drawn further into her nonsense & refused to leave until the cops arrived. I figured if she was focused on me she'd stop attacking the employees for at least a minute or two. I only posted 10 minutes of a 45 minute ordeal. There wasn't a lot I could do with a toddler there. There wasn't anything the employees or security could do when she stepped into the atrium except wait for the police. I keep reading that no one did anything, but there was a group of people standing inside the doorway by the manager. She said this happens all the time but it was the first time people spoke up. We told the woman to stop, we called the police (again & again), it wasn't our place to speak over the manager. We left our info for the manager, we called the store and corporate to follow up & got the neighborhood involved. (There was a $32,000 gofundme for the manager). I was lucky in that situation to be surrounded by a great group of people in a diverse neighborhood who weren't going to let this happen. There's a lot that you don't see in the video, but the main thing is that it only takes one person to say something and others will follow. But we should all put your suggestion into plan. It's easy to panic and not know what to do.”
I am extremely grateful to the lady for helping us get an accurate picture of the situation and, personally, for helping me report facts properly. I think it was wonderful to find out that there were many brave and conscientious people who knew to do the right thing and spoke up and took a stand for someone else. We should learn from them! Stay blessed :)