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I was biking home one night, and came to a busy intersection in the outskirts of Los Angeles. Six lanes of traffic each way. The light had been green for a while, so I knew I had to hurry to make it across the intersection. I biked past two rows of cars stopped for the red light, and in the lane closest to the curb was a car making a right turn on red. Except, the driver had seemingly forgotten the “after stop” part of the “right turn on red after stop”. He was speeding to get around the corner, and I was speeding to get across the street. This was not a good mix.
Luckily, I’ve bicycled long enough to know to watch out for cars just like that one. But I was annoyed. After all, you’re supposed to stop at a red light. Not stopping could kill someone. Someone like me. It’s abusive, entitled behavior. The laws don’t apply to you if they stop your own personal progress.
By the time the driver saw me and decided that maybe he would stop after all, he was halfway around the corner and the back half of his car covered the crosswalk. I didn’t swerve around his car, but bicycled straight up to his window and said “You’re supposed to stop at a red light.”
What did I hope to accomplish? I was hoping that maybe if I said something, the driver would just be a little more conscious next time. Maybe it was a mistake and maybe calling him out would make him think twice about his actions next time. This is 2017, after all. Isn’t that what people do—be brave enough to call out bad behavior?
Then the driver opened his car door and got out. Uh-oh. Not what I expected. There was a young boy in the back seat, I couldn’t tell whether the boy’s expression was fear or scorn. The driver was big. He told me to go f*ck myself.
At that moment…I really did think of all the other people who have tried to stand up to abuse and failed. I thought I must have felt like women and men everywhere—trying to do what is right, trying to say “No, I am not going to tolerate your behavior.” And then, standing in the crossroads, watching helplessly as cars go streaming past you while a bigger, more powerful guy who just broke the law but is still in control of the situation swears at you. “You should have stopped,” was all I wanted to say. I’ve felt exactly like I did on that intersection many times before. Far too many times.
It all ended fine—the light had turned green, he got back in his car. I walked my bike carefully the rest of the way across the street. I made sure he had driven far away before I started biking again. It was nothing, really.
And yet.
When DO we stand up for what is right?
If someone is engaging in abusive behavior, then guess what?
It will always be dangerous to stand up to them. You will always risk consequences for speaking out. Because that is what abusers do. They inflict consequences on anyone they think is getting in their way. And people who call out their abusive behavior are in their way.
If I can’t stop and tell someone they were wrong to run a red light, then I won’t be brave enough to tell someone they were wrong for sexually harassing people. I won’t be able to tell someone they are wrong to be racist. I want to be brave enough to say, “This must stop.”
Standing up to abuse takes practice. I might not have made an impact on the driver, but it made an impact on me.
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Photo: Getty Embed
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Well yes there’s a consequence for standing up for yourself. A person doesn’t risk consequence, because there WILL be consequences. There’s consequences for not excelling in something. There’s consequences when a person does excel at something. There’s consequences for things and events, good and bad. There’s consequences for EVERYTHING a person/group does or doesn’t do. Those consequences are paid subjective to a myriad of factors to the degree of activities that results from objective intent. More or less, that