This morning I was doing a leadership and dialogue DEI program with a group of high school students. We have been engaging with each other for a few weeks. The topic was race, racism, and bystander intervention. I asked if any of them had been having conversations about the Atlanta murders. One young man of Asian descent said he only had conversations with his family. His mother told them all to be careful, to be vigilant. I asked if any of his friends had reached out to him and he said no, but he wasn’t expecting that to happen, because “that’s not what guys are supposed to do.”

There is so much here to talk about and I can only bite off some of this for now. Our culture tells marginalized folks to “be careful” rather telling all of us to be respectful of each other, to value all human life. We tell marginalized folks to “be vigilant” rather than telling privileged folks to speak up and speak out about injustice. I don’t recall hearing very many white people publicly challenging all sorts of anti-Asian sentiments. I don’t recall hearing very many white people publicly condemning the massive uptick of anti-Asian violence in this country. And let’s be clear, it has always been there, alongside all the other racist violence that has always been here. That’s part of the glue that holds together white supremacy.

Vice President Harris, speaking at Emory University said, “racism is real in America, and it has always been.” Nothing new there, and thank you VP Harris, and yet, I don’t recall hearing any previous vice president saying such a thing. Hmm, I wonder what the difference is.

Later in the same speaking engagement, President Biden said, “silence is complicity… we have to speak out and act.” And then I think about what I heard this morning, “that’s not what guys are supposed to do.” Let’s work together to change that.

Working together to create change. In many ways, that’s what bystander intervention is truly about. It’s about engagement to make a better world. It’s about engaging with others by putting forth values to foster and support a caring community. I look forward to a time, perhaps after I am gone, when we say, “that’s what guys do.” “That’s what white people do.” Heterosexuals. Cisgender folks. Able bodied folks. And on and on. That’s what we do.