Racism And Gender Roles in our Everyday Lives + Reasons for Being a Bystander (Crazy Bus Story Part II)

So this (very late) post (I'm sorry!) is going to explore motivations and influences - what may have influenced each person who was involved in the fight, what influenced me etc. (This is part II of Crazy Bus Story, find part I here )

Please note, I know very little about the people involved, there are so many factors that I have no access too - maybe "Bob" was having a bad day and would have reacted differently on another day etc.. So this is a look at things without the full picture. 

Race: 

When I talked to people about what had happened, some people were certain race played a role. I also definitively feel it was a factor. 

Would Bob have treated Bluebag with more courtesy had he been white? Would Bob have been made as angry by a white kid spitting in his direction? And here's something to ponder, what might the situation have turned into had BlueBag been Eastern Asian? 

Gender Roles:

I have to say that fight was some of the most stereotypical male behaviour I have ever come across. So I mention gender roles because I couldn't help but wonder if things would have ended up differently if there aren't so many voices telling males, especially young males, to be macho and violent. 

And really, the fact that "Bob" was the one that started the fight really surprised me. And I can't say if it was just him or if he wouldn't have acted so violently if gender roles weren't so big. 

I don't know if you noticed, but no women were

involved at all. The bus driver was male, Bluebag and Bob were male, the person that ended up stepping in was male. And it's not like there weren't many women on the bus, I'd say it was about half-half, there might even have been more women than men.

With gender roles we question what came first? Did how men and women act precede the expectation of how men and women act, or do men and women act the way they are expected to?

Is the difference between the way men and women act due to nature, or do we conform because that's what we're taught to be and we believe that's how we naturally are? 
  
As A Bystander: 

I can't speak for everyone who didn't act, but here were my reasons. I did absolutely nothing, and I felt awful about it, I'm taking a course called genocide and the whole thing is about "You gotta do something, you gotta do something" Yet I still didn't do a thing. 

Why was that?

Well... I was definitely afraid for myself, BlueBag was oozing aggression and this... sort of flippant disregard for others and for himself for that matter. So yeah there was some fear of him, of maybe becoming the focus of aggression if I did something. 

Though I want to be very clear I was NEVER fearful for my personal safety, never thought I'd be hurt. Me being the shy person I am, I did feel anxiety at the idea of speaking up - I guess that's another factor, the person's personality. 

Second, there was the fear of exacerbating the situation. Especially at the beginning, it didn't seem like it would be a big deal, and maybe it just seemed like the risk of making things worse was greater than the chance of making things better. 

Looking back on the situation that fear seems pretty legitimate. if several people had intervened, if I had been in BlueBag's shoes, I'd have felt ganged up on and that's never a good situation to create. 

I think the biggest thing that kept me from acting though, and this ties in with sexism and the Kyriarchy, was that I didn't feel like they'd listen to me. 

As a teenaged, Asian, female, I didn't feel like

Powerless ;)

these two men would take me seriously. In this case, I don't think the fact that I'm Asian would have played a big role. Mostly I thought they'd look at me and think "Pff, what does this kid know? Why should we listen to her?" paired with a "I don't take women seriously" sentiment as that's a pretty big thing in our society. 

While it was happening I felt very acutely how (and maybe this is just a perception of mine) women and young people's opinions aren't really valued, and that really weighed me down. 

Additional Points of View on Reasons For Being a Bystander: 

• When I discussed what happened with the friend that had witnessed the event with me, she expressed another sentiment that was probably widely held by the people on the bus: "You didn't feel like it was your place to intervene".
• Talking to another friend about what had happened, when I mentioned how I hadn't done anything, her reaction was "You don't want to get involved". This kind of ties in with my first point, there's chance that intervening would come back to bite you in the butt. 

Yelling to the Bus Driver: 

Authority Figure

The last thing I want to discuss is the way both Bluebag and Bob were yelling at the bus driver to control the other person.

I don't know how well I can describe why, but I just find the scenario really... curious. 

I guess it's just something about how they were both grown men, very capable of making their own decisions and resolving their own disputes, but the first thing they do is try to get someone else to make the other behave. It was just very reminiscent of children on the playground needing a teacher to settle the dispute

I guess since it happened on the bus, the bus driver counts as an authority figure, and if you've ever heard about The Milgram Experiment people are very inclined to obey an authority figure. 

This was kind of seeing that in action, not of how people tend to listen to an authority figure, but how people naturally default to an authority figure to try to make someone else listen. I think it's really interesting that it happens that way, not only do we tend to be obedient to authority, but we also know that people tend to listen to authority, without necessarily explicitly being told about it.

If you liked this post it would be amazing if you

Looks like this!

clicked that g+1 button at the bottom of the post, it recommends this post, which will boost my rep on google.

If you like my blog in general please be awesome and click the g+1 button at the top of the page, that's for recommending my blog in general. Please and thank you. it actually really helps.