Will You Practice What You Preach? Essay example

If you happen to be the bystander, your success comes from knowing not to get involved or not to get too involved, lest you yourself become an actual bully or a victim. You may even be blessed with the cherished gift of self-denial, and in such case, you are able to dismiss any vague notions that your inaction makes you complicit in the bully's trespass. Still you are human: you have an opinion, you have feelings about the matter. Maybe you sympathize with one of the sides. Maybe you wish you had the guts to be that way. Maybe you're just afraid you'll get hurt. Maybe you have something to lose; maybe that something is so valuable you're not willing to gamble it. Maybe you simply feel guilty for not getting involved. Or, maybe all you feel is relief -- relief that it's not you. Makes no difference, the bystander just stands there. Hence the name. Oh, you may be emotionally conflicted, but being a bystander is really the safest place to be. Consequently, bystanders often opt to remain bystanders.

People may not realize it, but bystanders play a huge role in bullying. By not stepping in or telling someone about it, they are making the problem worse. A bystander intervening could stop someone from getting hurt, and even prevent bullying from happening in the future. If a bystander does not say or do anything about it, they are contributing to the issue. There are more bystanders than there are bullies, so it is their choice to help or hurt the situation.

The bully is normally very well known; someone who is just as, if not more, guilty is nearly undetectable. This person is a bystander, and according to Tales of Bullying, being a bystander is just as bad as bullying. Bystanders just join in on the laughing. They don’t even help; they just watch bullying like it’s some sort of comedy show. Bystanders can also be people who are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They can just as easily turn into a person who stands up to bullies, but they don’t. In the end bystanders are just as, if not more, guilty than the

In 2010, Alfred Tate-Yax, a 31 year old homeless man, in Queens, New York bled to death as more than 20 people ignored him for nearly an hour before emergency services arrived. Alfred was brutally stabbed several times after saving a woman, who fled the scene before he collapsed, from being mugged. One man even rolled him over to see his bleeding wound but walked away and acted as if he didn’t see anything. Although he ultimately risked and sacrificed his life to save a stranger his kindness wasn’t returned by any of the approximately 20 indifferent bystanders who passed or even made contact with him. Surely, if someone would’ve called the police sooner this heroic man might still be alive. How was it really that difficult

"What hurts the victim the most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander," says famous author, Elie Wiesel. According to "verywell.com," people have been bullied for their religion, skin color, and beliefs. This can cause kids to have poor self-esteem and become a bully themselves. Some kids, called bystanders, decide to sit and watch. But what's worse, bullies or bystanders? Bystanders are worse than bullies because they choose not to do anything, encourage the bully, can suffer from guilt, and face consequences for not helping.

If we watched something that endangered someone´s life, is it our job to speak up and say something and will we be guilty if we had not said anything or done anything? In the Ruling of the Scottsboro Case, Sam Lebowitz stood up and fought for those 9 boys that were accused of rape, also in Wiesel´s Nobel Prize Acceptance Wiesel stood up and spoke about the suffering that he and the other went through, and To Kill a Mockingbird Atticus fought for the innocence of Tom Robinson. They all stood up and said something because if they didn´t, they would be guilty because they did not say anything when they can help them out. If we are bystanders, we cannot stay silent because it is our job to help out those in need even if it endangers our life.

My mother whispered, “It is okay girls, we will keep you safe.” I kept her words close to my heart, until my heart was broken.

Chapter three - How people can prevent bullying from happening. What can you do if you are the Bystander?

not come forward due to the fact that they will most likely not receive help but rather be charged

    As humans, we can be happy, but not content. Mildred is one main example of this in Fahrenheit 541. She spends her days smiling and laughing with her “family”, but she takes sleeping pills and tries to kill herself. In the real world, we see this with people like Robin Williams, who was a comedian, attending parties, laughing and joking around, just days before he killed himself. Just like there are people who are happy but not content, there

If only one person, just one, had dialed police and reported the crime scene, Catherine “kitty” Genovese would have had more years to live. But biggest mystery is, why did non even a one of the thirty-eight witnesses make the phone call? It was not a small number of people which became a huge question not only to police and reporters, but to the society as well. As we read or watched this news, most of us probably had a thought, “If I had been there, had witnessed the crime, I would make the call right away.” That is what I thought too, but would really make the phone call if you were one of the witnesses? Because it is easier to say it out loud rather than actually to do it.

So, why is that? John Darley and Bibb Latane explain exactly why people just walk by without helping in their essay titled, “Why People Don’t Help in a Crisis.” Darley and Latane describe what feelings people have when they pass a

their life. However, in today’s popular culture, the media wants us to believe that happiness and

The case of twelve year old Rebecca Sedwick, who leapt to her death is a prime example of what bullying leads to when there is not enough done to stop the bullying nor stiff enough penalties to make sure it is prevented from going this far. She was bullied relentlessly at school, on her phone, and through social media by two young girls. Her mother was left to bury her daughter out of her own pocket even though she took all the necessary steps to protect her daughter. With schools and social media becoming a breeding ground for vicious verbal and sometimes physical attacks, who is responsible for such antics that lead to many victims taking their own lives or having to relocate? With no clear cut on who is financially or criminally responsible, the victim’s family is often left to deal with the unexpected finances and no way of having any closure or piece of mind knowing the responsible party was held accountable. Interventions, financial restitution, and criminal charges should all be mandated if it is found that the school system or parents of the bully did little to nothing to stop the bullying.

This illustrates that as long as we are not in calamitous jeopardy of being harmed or threatened, we have a moral obligation to help out others. The essay question contains the word “morality”; defined by the Black’s Law Dictionary as “pertaining or relating to the conscience or moral sense or to the general principles of right conduct”. Morals may be based on each perspective and their conscience, thus one may argue that their state of mind and their moral upbringing does not conform to those of others thus they see it as no moral obligation to assist other human beings; whether in the same country or not. But it should be realized that we live in a world that contains so many life threatening circumstances and other events that require assistance from others; therefore as human beings, we cannot sit back and watch as these negative circumstances continue to rapidly unfold.