I recently realized that I am a bystander more often than I would like to admit.

The way the bystander effect was explained to me was that it occurs when you witness a tragic accident and instead of taking action, you stand around with everyone else because all of you are afraid to make the first move.

What I didn’t know at the time is that I could be a bystander in a lot of different situations.

I was at a party and someone made, what I found to be, an offensive sexual joke.

I sat there listening uncomfortably to people laugh, all seemingly in disbelief that the person would say such a thing. What I didn’t do at the time was call them out for making the offensive joke and I’m still beating myself up over it.

I realize that I was so afraid to seem like a buzz kill that I made the conscious decision to not speak out against something I wasn’t okay with. In this way, I was able to avoid backlash from anyone else at the party, but what I’m left with now is an overwhelming feeling of guilt.

Since this incident, I’ve realized that the normal thing to do in a situation in which someone makes an inappropriate comment is to do or to say something and to not be afraid of bringing down the mood or getting a negative reaction from the people around you. Even though this fear shouldn’t stop me from speaking up, I still continue to let it happen.

When someone says something offensive, and no one does anything to correct them, they’re giving them permission to continue to say rude and hurtful things because there were no repercussions for their actions.

Thinking back now, I can recall countless times when I didn’t do or say something in a situation that required action, because I was too much of a coward or I figured someone else would do something.

If I saw someone getting made fun of, my first instinct wouldn’t be to step in and speak up for the person because I would be too afraid to bring the bully’s attention to myself.

There was a time when I saw someone get hurt, and my first reaction, instead of going over to see if he or she was okay, was to find someone else doing something and then follow his or her lead because I was too nervous to make the first move.

This mentality is the kind of passive behavior I find myself participating in.

In theory, speaking up against something you don’t like should be easy. In practice, it’s a lot scarier than that butI don’t want to live my life like that anymore.

That’s why I signed up for the Bystander Intervention Training. The training session is intended to teach students how to intervene when they are witnessing violent and unsafe behavior.

For more information on Bystander Intervention Training and how to sign up, contact the Coordinator of Alcohol and Drug Education Services Jacqueline Ripepi at [email protected].

To contact the Ionian’s Taylor Brown, email her at [email protected].