Active Bystander Awareness

1. Tools For Change:
How Bystanders Can Help Sustain
More Diverse and Inclusive
Environments
“In the end, we will remember not the words
of our enemies, but the silence of our
friends.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Facilitators:
Joshua J. Nelson
Zara H. Nizami

2. Agenda
Introduction: Warm-Up Exercise
Who is a bystander?
Why are we here?
Dimensions of Change
The Bystander Effect
Bystander Intervention
Bystander Strategies
Bystander role and me
Active Bystanders: A tool for change
Closing reflection

3. Introductions: Who is in the room?
Stand up if you…
Speak more than one language fluently
Grew up with grandparents living in your home
Have participated in a diversity training in the past
Have been known to watch: American Idol, Dancing with
the Stars, Real Housewives, or other reality shows
Played organized sports while growing up
Consider yourself an extrovert
Were the first person in your family to go to college
Grew up someplace other than Massachusetts
Consider yourself the majority

4. What is a Bystander?
- Anyone who witnesses offensive or hurtful behavior
- A person who is present at an event or incident but
does not take part

5. Why are we here?
“Mount Holyoke College reaffirms its commitment to
educating a diverse residential community of women
at the highest level of academic excellence and to
fostering the alliance of liberal arts education with a
purposeful engagement in the world.”

6. Dimensions Of Change
Interpersonal
Internal Relationship
Relationship with Between
yourself
individuals
MISSION
Institutional
Relationships Cultural
between decision Relationships
making and across cultures
resource and worldviews
allocation roles

7. Scenario…

8. The new Focus!
BYSTANDER
HARM- TARGET
DOER

9. A Bystander is/is not
• An active bystander is a(n).. • An active bystander is not
– Ally a(n)…
– Leaner – Judge
– Friend – Avenger
– Facilitator – Rescuer
– Humble questioner – Enforcer
– Stakeholder – Fixer
– Mediator – Hero/Heroine
– Concerned party – Final Authority
– Know-It-All
– Educator
– Activist

10. The Bystander Effect:
Kitty Genovese
Who is this woman?

11. The Bystander Effect:
Kitty Genovese
“The bystander effect or Genovese syndrome is a
phenomenon that refers to cases where individuals do
not offer any means of help in an emergency situation
to the victim when other people are present”

12. Bibb Latane and John Darley:
Bystander Intervention
Latane and Darley conducted an experiment in 1969
in which subjects were asked to fill out a
questionnaire and smoke started to fill the room…
Bystander Intervention Experiment

13. Typical Bystander Reaction
Diffusion of Responsibility
Fear
Loss of respect
Ease
Comradeship
Silent disapproval
Vulnerability
Overreaction
Uncertainty – FREEZE!

14. Bystander Strategies
Inclusion
Discovery
Cooling Things Down
Heating Things Up
Body Language/Signaling

15. Bystander Strategies: Inclusion
Invite someone to the conversation
Be an ally for someone taking a risk
Ask for the opinions of someone who has been quiet

16. Bystander Strategies: Discovery
Ask for clarification
Check assumptions
Suggest getting more info

17. Bystander Strategies: Cooling Things
Down
Ask for a break
Humor

18. Bystander Strategies: Heating Things
Up
Emotions surfacing
Expressing how the situation is making you feel
Point out the elephant in the room

19. Bystander Strategies: Body
Language/Signaling
Stand Up / Turn Away
Raise your hand
Laugh, lean forward, touch the table, interrupt the
flow
Say “ouch”

20. WWYD:
What Would YOU Do?
Racism In America
Fallen Customer?

21. The Bystander Role and Me
Reflect on a time when you….
Wish you had been an active bystander?
Wished that an active bystander had spoken up?
*Write down the scenario on an index card

22. Be An Active Bystander
Individually
Check in with parties “off-line”
Call ombuds office or other resources
Continue your work
Collectively
Work with employee affinity groups
Encourage participation and inclusivity
Attend additional training
Systematically
Change policies and practices
Add the bystander role not only to trainings but to
everyday conversations

23. What helps?
What helps you be a bystander?
What gets in the way?

24. Antidote to Bystander Apathy: Civil
Courage
Notice that a situation has happened
Interpret it as a situation where help is needed
Assume personal responsibility
Decide what to do
Just do it!!!

25. Closing Words: Speaking Out
“First they come for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they come for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Unionist
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me”
-Pastor Martin Niemoller