Imagine, you are walking out of a party; laughing, joking, having fun with your friends. You had a good time, and now its time to head home. As you walk out, you hear screams, or maybe the voice of someone crying. You also hear male voices telling someone to shut up, or laughing, and slapping each other fives while this female voice continues to cry.
Does your stomach turn into knots? Does your heart beat faster? Do you begin to feel nervous or uncomfortable? You know something bad is happening, you know that whatever it is, it scares you. You look at your friends, your eyes asking for direction, what should be the next move?
Do you walk over to find out what is happening? Lets say you realize quickly that someone, a young girl is being hurt. She is maybe your age, maybe younger, and she is definitely outnumbered. Your friends say, "Lets get out of here." Or do they laugh and take out their cell phones to video tape a brutal 2 hour rape?
Thats what some students did at Richmond High School in California. When I heard this story, I was hesitant to even read the whole article. The case was so horrendous I couldn't even bare to really learn the details. I am still coping with the brutal beating death of Derrion Albert in Chicago. The death was so violent and unnecessary that I was honestly overcome with anger.
I don't know if anyone realizes it, but Derrion Albert could have been your brother or mine. He could've been your father or mine, your cousin or nephew, or best friend, or husband or boyfriend. It is impossible to draw lines and separate oneself from this vicious acts of violence. Usually we can say, "oh that person was involved in something I'm not...I don't need to worry." Don't deny it, we've all justified the murder or violent attack of someone with social, or maybe racial lines that divide us. Many black people just like me, do it all the time. We hear about a person being murdered in Newark or Camden or Paterson or Trenton or Irvington and
we say, "Oh I live in Maplewood," or "That wouldn't happ
en in Moorestown." We think if we stay in Suburban Wonderland everything will be fine.
we say, "Oh I live in Maplewood," or "That wouldn't happen in Moorestown." We think if we stay in Suburban Wonderland everything will be fine. We convince ourselves that we have nothing to worry about, so that we do not have to live with the fear and numbness that many people on the other side of the tracks have come to see as reality. We tell ourselves, "I'm not in a gang, I don't do drugs, I don't sell drugs, I don't know people like that.....this could never happen to me or someone I care about."
This should be our wake up call, Derrion Albert was an innocent bystander...an honor student trying to go home, and he was instead beaten brutally to death. People admitted stomping on his head as he tried to get up and move to safety. People have also admitted to hitting him with blocks of wood. Can you imagine the fear? Being all by yourself, surrounded by angry young men with lethal weapons. You look around for an escape, but your are trapped, your eyes fill up with tears, your stomach turns, maybe your face is hot.
You are all alone. Derrion was all alone.
The people who beat Derrion Albert to death aren't the only criminals here. The real criminals are the people who video taped this, the people who walked and drove by and did nothing. They told themselves that this was not their problem, or to mind their business, or to "stop snitching." They allowed cowardice, fear and selfishness to prevent them from immediately calling the police or running for help. They left Derrion alone to die.
I recognize, that what really sickened me is not so much the brutal murder, but the people who drove by and did nothing. What is wrong with us? Have we come to live in such an isolated, selfish society that we do not have enough courage and compassion to help someone when they are dying? Even a 16 year old boy.
So now the cameras are in Richmond High School in the Bay area of California. A 15 year old girl was brutally raped after her high school homecoming dance, for two hours. PAUSE. I want you to sit and count to 120. Just imagine that you or someone you love, maybe your little sister, your mother, your daughter, or your girlfriend was being raped for each second of those two minutes.
Now imagine that it went beyond that, that she was raped and beaten for 60 times that. Imagine the fear she felt, did she think she was going to die? Did she think about the pain? I really want us to imagine what was going through this young girls head.
But that is just one crime, and on the grand scale of things, when there over 200,000 rapes a year in the U.S. maybe it is easy for some of us to just brush it off, forget about it even. What we cannot brush off is the idea that if it had been anyone of us, no one would have done anything.
Just keep that in mind every time you are walking to your car at night, and every time you are waiting at a bus stop on campus alone. Its like that infamous horror movie line..."No one will hear you scream." The villain then lets out a bellowing chuckle. But this isn't a movie, its real life...and people might hear you scream, but no one will come and help you.
I was doing a little research, because I really want to understand what goes on in people's minds as they or maybe we allow something like this to happen? Is it because we have been taught to put ourselves first, or is it because we live in the ipod generation where no one even shares music, we listen to our own song in our own ears, that no one else can hear. Is it because we're afraid that if we speak up and yell "Stop it" or "Help!" we will become victims? Or have we been able to distance ourselves from others because we have reified them? Or maybe we really have allowed street codes like the most ignorant and disgusting of all "Stop Snitching" steal away our consciouses? I wish someone could explain this to me. I pray to God that if something like this would ever happen, I would speak up, I pray that I would call the police.
In my research, I came across the Bystander Effect. It makes perfect sense, we are creatures of habit, but I honestly thought humans were supposed to be smarter and more capable of making decisions than animals. Maybe I was wrong.
I'm not afraid of ghost, goons, goblins or witches this Halloween. I don't think you should be either. I think we should be afraid of being silent. Or maybe afraid that no one will hear you scream.
