Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Stand up and say something

There was an interesting segment on ABC's Primetime on what we would do if confronted with an incident of racism. The set up was that of a Muslim woman at a convenience store whose store clerk would not serve her and proceeded to berate her with all kinds of racist comments. (Both the woman and clerk were actors.) Roughly an equal number of people stood up for and against the clerk's actions and some of those who stood up for the woman were quite emotional. Unfortunately, roughly three times as many people did nothing.

Why is this? Is this cultural, the way we are brought up (to avoid any kind of confrontation), or is this apathy or fear? I'm ashamed to say that I'd probably be in the group who did nothing.

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