Writing Prompt 2/300: Have you ever spoken up when you saw something going on that was wrong? Were you scared? What ended up happening?

And the writing continues…

Writing Prompt 2/300: Have you ever spoken up when you saw something going on that was wrong? Were you scared? What ended up happening?

I’d say that I am pretty good at observing subtle dynamics within groups of people that are often innate and yet when you really stop to think about it are blatantly wrong! This has come up a few times for me where I am in a situation and I seriously wish I had a video camera to record what happened and play it back as a way to explain what I just observed.

There is one example that sticks out for me. I won’t go into details of exactly what happened but it was an honest to goodness capture of a culture that presents itself as totally “normal” behaviour. None of the people in the moment were at all disturbed by the subtle power dynamics or relational jabs happening right in front of their faces. And perhaps I only picked up on it because I am not really a core member of this community and so the dance happening before my eyes was new. But everyone involved seemed to move along as if this was a choreographed dance they had done a thousand times before.

Like I was sitting in the audience of a theatre and our velvet chairs were side by side watching the dancers flit across the stage. I leaned over to a friend and whispered, “did you notice that?” and he sort of shrugged – he had seen the dance before and so it wasn’t unusual to him.

I left feeling a big icky but really didn’t say anything. I don’t know that saying anything then would have made a difference. The dancers were too enthralled in the dance moves to have even noticed the audience.

I didn’t step up to make a statement then, but I think of that dance often and it is my inspiration to keep using those observations to fuel my work and to change the dance.

 

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