Are you? You know, the kind that just sits and watches things happen to people? Bad things, without saying a word? Without getting involved? Without coming to their aid or rescue? The ABC show What Would You Do has drawn attention to what social scientists have long known: that people are largely bystanders even when really bad things happen. Apathetic, uninvolved bystanders who tend to stay on the sidelines and watch even when there is something we can do. Even when there is no guarantee that any help we can offer can make a difference. We just don’t even try. There is a reason God gave us voices, and frontal lobes, and the ability to make judgments and decisions. You can speak out against injustice. It’s nothing more than a decision. A choice.
I want to rally all of my people no matter the color of your skin. I am appealing to the content of your hearts, your character. Are you going to sit idly by and watch citizens be attacked, marginalized, dehumanized, disenfranchised, and cast aside by a system of racism that continues to trickle down? Or are you going to use your voice, the power of your pen, and the impact of your vote to make a difference? Too many of you who are my personal or business connections have been silent about all of the injustice, inhumanity, and prejudice being espoused by those minorities who happen to occupy the White House. Too many of you sit by and watch people of color be bullied at work, passed over for promotions year after year, be locked out of opportunities and chances that others get just because. You’ve seen it. Watched it. Heard your friends of color complain and scream and cry about it. It maybe they just suffered in silence. But you’ve watched. And maybe you didn’t quite know what to day, and so you’ve said nothing. And when the race word is brought up, the quick and convenient thought was, ‘I’m not so sure it’s that.’ Here’s a newsflash darlings: it ain’t always that, but there are an awful lot of times it is.
When you CHOOSE to remain an observer, you choose to be an unwitting participant. When you remain silent about what you see, you become complicit. I have seen and felt and experienced this complicity firsthand. And when you do this, you become one of them.
Now is not the time to remain silent. Silence equals death. We’ve already lost one brave soul. But at least she made a choice, and yes, she is now magnified. And glorified. I hope you choose as wisely as she.
Be well.
Dr. Nik
#BlackLivesMatter #mentalhealth #endracism #speakout #silenceequalsdeath
Dr. Nik 