Tanzina Vega: You're listening to The Takeaway, I'm Tanzina Vega. The recent surge in harassment and violent attacks against Asian Americans has a lot of people asking what they can do if they witness such attacks? Some social justice organizations across the country use a method called bystander intervention.
Cat Shieh: Let's say there is a situation of harassment or an escalated scenario in which you notice that there are some tension, there is conflict. You as the bystander, you as the witness are going to intervene and ensure that you're going to be able to deescalate the situation and/or be able to protect the person who is harassed in some way, shape or form.
Tanzina Vega: That's Cat Shieh, the Anti-Hate Training Coordinator at Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Chicago, and her organization partners with Hollaback, a non-profit focused on ending street harassment that teaches people how to deescalate situations they may encounter on the street, in the workplace and more. Cat says, these interventions include directly responding to a harasser, but also more indirect strategies, too.
Cat Shieh: They can range from making sure that you're getting footage of the scenario happening to checking in with and on the person who was harassed, to even creating some loud sound or loud interaction to shift that attention and energy away from the situation. If you see something, it means that you are needed.
Tanzina Vega: Cat, why is it important for people to intervene if they see something happen in public?
Cat Shieh: The first reason as to why someone needs to intervene is because I think for some folks, there is a sense of pride in where we live, whether we're a Chicagoan or a New Yorker, there's pride in being a part of our communities, and I think part of being prideful of your community is to protect your community. That sense of belonging, I think, is deserving for all people.
Then also, on the other hand, thinking about intervention, if you want to think about it in a more disaster sense, for lack of a better word, I think it's important for us to think about if someone does not intervene, what are the consequences to this? How much is there going to be mental health issues, built-up anger, more isolation, more segregation, right? We know that there's really no positive outcomes to being harassed or being attacked in any other way.
Tanzina Vega: How should people, particularly people of privilege, particularly white people in this country, be thinking about their fellow community members of color and others who might be under attack by various types of people in this time?
Cat Shieh: I think internally there's a lot of reflection to be done and I know since the social unrest and racial uprisings from last year, a lot of people are joining the book clubs and going to Zoom webinars and whatnot, but I also want to highlight how many white folks are in white only industries. Then even thinking, reflecting on where people live, white folks are the most segregated racial group in America, or even thinking about our social circles.
Maybe white folks do have friends of color, but how many of them are best friends? How many of our BIPOC friends and friends of color are actually talking to white people about the real talk, their own struggles with identity, their scenarios and situations of harassment? If you, as a white person, are not being entrusted in those kinds of discussions, then I ask that you really think about, in what ways are you perpetuating whiteness to the people that you say are your friends and in the industries you say you belong in?
Tanzina Vega: Who are the people who are taking these bystander intervention trainings? Are they largely white folks? Are they men? Are they women? Are there other people of color who are trying to know, understand what to do when they witness something like that?
Cat Shieh: I will tell you that there is a huge range in age, there's a huge range in racial communities and racial identities that are coming in as well as sexual orientation, those with disabilities, but I will say I do consistently have trouble getting white men to come to my trainings.
Tanzina Vega: Why do you think that is?
Cat Shieh: I'm not really sure because I don't have that perspective, but it does make me wonder how much segregation there is from their experience to maybe someone like mines. I wonder how much of it is proximity to the actual issue or proximity to being harassed, to having those kinds of situations.
Tanzina Vega: Cat, you've actually been attacked yourself in public and you told us that you were okay talking about that experience, so did anyone come to your aid or intervene when this happened to you?
Cat Shieh: This was about three years ago. I was in Oakland. It was a Saturday morning. It was sunny. It was the middle of the day. It was crowded, and I'm going in to refill my Clipper card so I can take the BART train into San Francisco and a man asks me for a dollar. I tell him no, go about my way, but he doesn't move and that's when the alarm bells were ringing in my head.
He continues to ask me for a dollar. I continue to say, no, I don't have cash. He keeps asking me in an elevated fashion and then he swings his fist back and says, "If you don't give me a dollar, I'll punch you." I say the same thing, "Sorry, sir, don't have cash." He punches me, knocks me over and I fall to the ground. He's punching me and I'm just curled up into a ball because I'm not really sure what I should do.
I hear him running away and he yells, "If you call the cops, I will find you and I will kill you," and so I just lay there for about a minute to make sure that he's not around. I slowly get up and I look around and everyone is just going about their day, and I walk very quickly into the nearest bakery to just catch my breath and then call a Lyft into San Francisco instead of taking the train.
It wasn't until I had reported it to the BART police later, that I found out that there were three people who had actually called on my behalf, which I think was very relieving after the fact but I really needed someone to just console me in the moment. I felt very unseen.
Tanzina Vega: What are those limits of bystander intervention?
Cat Shieh: I think that's almost an impossible question because there are an unlimited amount of possibilities of what harassment could look like on the street. What I can say is this, those limitations are going to look different for everyone depending on what is considered safe or unsafe, dependent on what is somebody's identity as a bystander wanting to intervene, depending on the bystanders' experiences with harassment.
My level of tolerance and calculated risk and safety is a very different perception than let's say my spouse. Every situation is very different and everybody interprets the situation in a different way.
Tanzina Vega: Is there something that you would recommend our listeners or people to do to stay focused on this issue and also how to continue to be an effective bystander intervener?
Cat Shieh: Definitely take a bystander intervention training. That's what I get paid the big bucks to do, obviously, but otherwise, I think it is always a really good reminder that not only do we have to care about this issue beyond what the news cycle will do when it comes to covering harassment, but we also have to remember that stopping AAPI hate is not the only issue amongst Asian-Americans.
Immigration is a huge issue, language access, voter registration, poverty, especially in places like New York City, gentrifying Chinatowns. There are a number of issues that are happening within the Asian American community that I would hope that when people are really reflecting and having more conversations about race, that we do not flatten communities of colors experience down to only one issue.
Those in the Black community are not defined by police violence. Those in the native American community are not defined by oil pipelines and missing indigenous women. We are more than just one issue and we are also more than just victims in our own stories. I hope people will be able to really think about the fact that Asian Americans, let alone other communities of color and other identities, there are so much more that we need to fight for. This is only the beginning.
Tanzina Vega: Cat Shieh is the Anti-Hate Training Coordinator at Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Chicago. Cat, thanks so much for joining us.
Cat Shieh: Thank you so much.
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