Bystander Intervention Quotes

Don’t be a witness. Be an activist.

Be an active bystander because sooner or later you or someone you love could be a victim too.

The days are long, the weeks are long, the months are long, but the years are short—one day you look up and realize you’re on the precipice of the final year of a presidential term. You see the world in a different way, as if you could open a window and catch a glimpse of anything that is touched by the reach of the United States government. You can be a part of actions that shape these events—your voice in a meeting, your intervention on a budget line item, your role in crafting the words that a president speaks. You are also a bystander to crises that elude intervention, buffeted by the constant and contradictory demands made on an American president—by other American politicians; by the media; by advocacy organizations; by people around the world. You never know what is the one meeting, the one decision, the one word or phrase that will matter.

The mythic elements of the Genovese case prompt the quasi myth that in an emergency requiring brave intervention, the more people present, the less likely anyone is to help—“There’s lots of people here; someone else will step forward.” The bystander effect does occur in nondangerous situations, where the price of stepping forward is inconvenience. However, in dangerous situations, the more people present, the more likely individuals are to step forward.

To listen to children dissect one another in public and respond with weak words is not helpful. Wait for an opportunity, catch the malefactors in the act, and then label their behavior for what it is: “That’s cruel.” If it continues, you may have to stop the car and declare, “I have to ask you to stop talking about Isabel that way. It is unbearably cruel and I cannot tolerate it.” Your child and your child’s classmates should know that you do not condone their horrible treatment of one another and will not collude silently with it.