by Fatou Gassama, London Project Lead
I was born in Paris and grew up in France. When I moved to the United Kingdom 26 years ago, I identified simply as French. When people asked where I was from, I told them. It felt like useful context to share, maybe even a point of pride.
Delivering Bystander training workshops over the last six months has been eye-opening. Not everyone shares my experience, for some people that feeling of being a ‘foreigner’ is quite inhibiting. Several workshop participants raised the same examples of being asked about their accent or their background, sometimes to the point that they felt like an outsider being assessed.
And thar raised the question; what does that do to your confidence to act when something goes wrong?
What this means for people who want to be active bystanders
The people who've come to do our Bystander training represent genuinely diverse backgrounds. In the sessions we cover why people do and don't intervene when they witness antisocial behaviour or criminal activity. We look at practical techniques, and explore concepts like microaggressions, those everyday interactions that, individually, might seem minor, but cumulatively carry real weight.
Bystander intervention depends on people feeling a sense of ownership over their shared spaces. It relies on people believing that they have both the right, and the responsibility, to act when something harmful happens nearby. Sharing uncomfortable feelings can be difficult for anyone, especially when they are hard to describe. But once they are spoken about openly and acknowledged, it can be the first step toward change. From there, it becomes easier to intervene, whether for yourself or in support of others.
But, if you are conditioned to keep your head down, to not draw attention, to avoid the kind of scrutiny that comes with being 'different,' stepping forward as a bystander carries a different kind of risk. That calculation to act can feel even more fraught. Will people listen to me? Will I be taken seriously? Will intervening expose me to more unwanted attention rather than less?
So, what can we do?
None of this means bystander intervention is impossible for people navigating these pressures. Quite the opposite in fact, many the most engaged and willing training participants had shared this experience. But building genuinely safe communities means we need to appreciate that some people carry an invisible extra burden when they consider speaking up.
Creating the conditions for effective bystander behaviour means creating communities where everyone feels they belong and where being seen as ‘different’ or ‘foreign’ is never a reason to stay silent.
13 March is national Bystander Awareness Day hosted by Communities Inc. Find out more about the Bystander Effect and Bystander training here.