Depending on the victim, I have either helped the victim who is being discriminated against, supported the discriminators, be neutral and watch, or pity the victim but not do anything.
Some people help the victim because the victim happens to be a friend, the discriminators happen to be an enemy, the discrimination is extremely unreasonable or a combination of these factors. These are natural reactions - if it was a friend, you may want to protect the friendship, or you understand your friend very well and feel that these discriminations are not valid. If the discriminator is an enemy, one would naturally be opposed to whatever that person does and if the discrimination is unreasonable, a person may protect the victim because he has been through a similar experience. Similarly, people remain neutral and watch because of the lack of these factors - they do not know either parties well and do not want to interrupt as they will miss a good show.
What I would like to emphasise on, however, are that some people support the discriminators or watch what is happening with pity. People do not want to be outcasts of a group, even if they want to stand out, it is merely to gain popularity and fame and thus, be more accepted into a certain group. Due to the fact that people do not want to be outcasts, when they see someone being discriminated, they would rather join the group of discriminators and be socially accepted instead of helping the discriminated, who is apparently the outcast of the socially popular group. Thus, even if a person pities the victim, he may not help because he does not want to be like victim and be rejected by the group. Everyone has a natural desire to want to have emotional security, to be accepted and to not be rejected, thus, people would naturally want to help the majority than the minority since the majority also holds more power. However, I regret the times when I did this. I should have just helped the victim, after all, the situation and context of discrimination is not as serious as in other countries, and especially not in relatively good school. You do not get rejected from a group of people in school just because you oppose one of the things they do. Thus, I feel that the next time I see discrimination taking place, I would not just stand aside and ignore the incident, instead I would step in and help the victim.
Dear Kai En,
ReplyDeleteAlthough I agree with you about the factors that will make a person interfere with discrimination, I feel that you have not covered thoroughly the factors on why a person will not interfere.
To me, not all people are sadistic to the point of not interfering because they do not want to miss a good show. I feel that the reason why most peple do not interfere is because of a kind of sedentary mindset, that is, they cannot be bothered to interfere. Either that, or they consider the discrimination not worth interfering with. For example, if a person disliked both the perpetrator and the victim, he would naturally turn away because he does not want to be seen as helping either of them. That is the reason why some students would not interfere if a new kid in school was picked on by the school bully. They do not want to be associated with either the new kid in school or the school bully.
Consider that sometimes people who are or feel marginalised form groups themselves, and then discriminate against the mainstream groups. You can see this in teenage gangs. They often comprise teenagers who feel a need to belong and band together with others so that they can fulfill this need.
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