Hi,
Today I was casually walking the city streets on my way home. I had my iPod on Beastie Boys' Ill Communications (good walking music, I might add).
Anyway, as I approached the corner of Mont-Royal and St. Urbain I saw a bit of a scuffle across the street. Some coked-up looking lady was trying to steal a purse. They fought a bit until the lawful purse owner shoved her off. Then the coked up lady ran barefoot across the busy street to my corner. She ran straight to a woman with a cell phone and grabbed for it. They fought for a moment when another man ran in yelling and tackled her. Then the woman ran off to cause more trouble as multiple onlookers phoned the police.
About a minute later as I was walking away from the scene a realization hit me, and it hit me hard. That woman who was being assaulted for her cell phone was about 2 meters away from me and I just stared. I did nothing. I watched as someone braver than me helped.
Why? Why did I do nothing? I consider myself to be brave, helpful, and right minded; it should have occured to me to assist the assaulted woman, but I didn't. It was as if the music in the background convinced me it wasn't real. As if it was TV, I just sat and watched. I feel so awful. Was I scared? Was I just too slow witted to react? Should I blame society and claim I was just desensitized to the chaotic scene? Was I too much of a priveleged white boy to get my hands dirty helping this poor woman? Why did I just stare?! Why did I do nothing?! Why?!
I don't know what to think. I have lost a lot of self respect today.
5 comments:
hey Gil, don't sweat it. I'd chalk it up to shock and surprise. I'm sure if anyone directly asked you for help, you'd run to their aid. Non?
I know this is a bit late, being 2 weeks ago, but it's a very common reaction. Sociological studies show that there are many conditions which cause hesitation in taking action when someone is in need. First, if there is more than one person the likelihood of helping is severely decreased. This is due to the idea of diffusion; that if there are other people to help, most people assume someone else will help them. People also observe others for clues as to whether the person does actually need your help. It's not that you're insensitive or a bad person - it happens all the time to practically everyone. We don't always know if someone needs/wants our help and if we should be the ones to do it. The most well known case is Kitty Genovese. She was stabbed twice and killed in a period of 30 minutes while 35 of her neighbors watched from their windows without calling the police. It wasn't that they didn't care, there are just certain social behaviors that people perform in these kinds of situations that seem as such. Hope that helps. If you want more info I wrote a paper about it last semester.
~Adrienne
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