Stand by or stand up. Decide who you are.
The epidemic of fatigue and apathy.
We may very well be living in an epidemic of fatigue which is leading us to apathy, complacency, and even fear. The news cycle burns fast and our outrage is whiplashed from one news clip to the next while our emotional capacity to absorb runs thin. It’s understandable to feel hopeless. To be exhausted by the sheer volume of voices—both of dissent and compliance. To question just how much one person can make a difference. To question the effectiveness of boycotting, of signing petitions, of calling and writing and marching when nothing seems to change and some things are rolled back.
“Your voice is meaningless right now.”
But to hear this being taunted by a man at the podium as a woman speaks out at a town hall triggers all my rage about being silenced, erased, and suppressed.
I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what my activism looks like in 2025, but the specific question I’m confronting with searing honesty today is this: will I be a bystander or an intervener? What would I have done if I was at that Idaho town hall where Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl was being restrained with zip ties and dragged out by unidentified security men for speaking her mind?
Without question, the younger version of myself would have linked arms with other women and formed a human chain around her. If she goes down, we all go down. My 20 year old self may have even been the one to initiate that human barricade. It’s easy to imagine when this version of myself spent weekends protesting the Gulf War, police brutality in the East Village, oil spills in our oceans. Emboldened with the brazenness of youth, I was unafraid of the consequences, of being handcuffed and thrown in a holding van, of challenging authority and looking it straight in the eye as I was being restrained.
I’d like to believe that the 2017 version of myself would have also acted on instinct and intervened. But in 2025? This version of myself feels exponentially more vulnerable with a body that is riddled with chronic pain—a weaker, older, tired version that has become more afraid of being a target. I am searching deep inside and feel ashamed to admit this out loud, let alone put it in writing where I can never retract it, that I am wobbling on whether I would have physically intervened. It’s easy to exclaim that YES, our protective instincts would kick in to stand up and fight, to get zip tied alongside her and dragged away, but if we found ourselves in this situation would we freeze or are we overestimating our ability to act in the moment?
“This little girl is afraid to leave. She spoke up and doesn’t want to suffer the consequences.”
The speaker on the podium continues his taunts as she is being pulled from her seat by two men.
Little girl.
Nasty women.
These are the derogatory terms that rip open the trauma of living in a patriarchal household where I was always on edge, ready to defend. You grow up around violence and it seeps into your being; you can never stop seeing the world through that lens.
Consequences. When you raise your eyes to meet the eyes of authority—even in your own home—you understand what consequences mean.
So this is personal.
But I also know that doing nothing shows who you are.
It showed us who everyone in that town hall was. On full display was the harm of the bystander effect, where by definition, witnesses feel powerless to act because they assume someone else will step in. But it wasn’t all bystander effect—not when there were cheers and not in a city known for its association with white supremacy.
We’ve reached long past the point where each of us needs to decide who we are in the face of these conflicts. And I say “past” because there’s an unsettling disparity in seeing the outrage explode while watching a white woman being restrained and forcibly removed that isn’t always reciprocated when a Black or Brown or marginalized woman is at the receiving end of that same violence.
Once again, as a woman who is neither Black nor white, I don’t know how I fit into these conversations that are flying back and forth, often in separate silos. I’m deeply uncomfortable with the white-adjacent label that often renders my race absent from these conversations. So I’m reflecting on this too. Maybe you’re outraged because it happened to someone who looks more like you, that you find yourself in disbelief that this is happening in America. Except it always has.
So we need to decide who we are before we’re confronted with this moment because inaction is a social cue that ripples outward and paralyzes everyone in a room. Apathy is contagious, but so is empathy.
Be prepared.
Know your rights.
Decide: will I speak up or intervene? Will I document?
Hold them accountable.
This won’t be the last time we’ll hear stories where dissent won’t be tolerated.
You begin to hold power when you come prepared and know what to expect.
A little check-in
A few weeks ago, on impulse, I reached out into the abyss not expecting anything, but was pleasantly surprised to have a nice time on Chat. Like a little private check-in. We all need human connections and sometimes social platforms don’t fill that need. I might do this again, maybe even every month.
A weekly roundup of links
To read:
This Shocking Moment at a GOP Town Hall in Idaho Is a Foreboding Sign (New Republic)
Not surprisingly, there isn’t too much mainstream news coverage.The 5Ds Of Bystander Intervention (Right to Be)
Distract, Delegate, Document, Delay, and Direct.
Chances are there are bystander trainings in your area, but if there isn’t, here’s a good primer.- ’s essay on privilege.
Read it. It made me think. How do I know young women are not OK? Their devastation over a doomed anglerfish (The Guardian)
I’m not on TikTok. I guess I’m missing some interesting stuff!How to see the humanity in anyone - Practising a form of ‘deep curiosity’ can help you connect with yourself and others, even if they’re on the ‘other side.’ (Psyche)
The author goes on a 12 month road trip to confront stereotypes and exercise the muscle of deep curiosity. At the end, a framework to a better “understanding that leads to connection and transformation.”
An exhibition worth seeing if you’re in Minneapolis:
A Monumental Collection of Slouching Figures Considers the Effects of Aging on the Body (This is Colossal)
Speaking of bodies, Nicole Havekost’s large anthropomorphic sculptures are speaking to me right now. Her entire catalog of work is an interesting progression of her fascination with bodies as she explores the beauty and repulsion of physical form through various materials.
Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art
To make and eat:
French Lentil Salad with Feta (Zestful Kitchen)
I’m on a pretty strict diet right now and constantly looking for recipes where I can add protein and texture. Feta is the one cheese where I’m allowing myself to cheat. More on this later, but I feel like I have a diet of a hamster.
Till next week,
–JP
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. That incident is just the beginning of much more and I hope those that can, will step up because they are coming for everyone. At the same time, whatever we can do at our local levels, be it educating people, attending community meetings real or virtual, sharing information, helping out people in our communities however we can will help.
At the same time, we need to be able to understand what's possible for us and other people to actually do. Dealing with the firehose of crap coming at us every day from this administration feels like a sledgehammer, which is the purpose. They want us confused, disoriented and cowed into silence. Not every action has to be big, but there has to be some kind of action to move things towards a positive outcome, no matter how small that action is.
Thanks for this thoughtful post. It’s important to remember that everyone has a different relationship to conflict (and especially physical conflict) which is why it is so important to create different ways for people to participate in movements, and to have honest conversations about our differences as we do.