What About Upstanding?

While being a bystander is helpful to protecting and spreading awareness of hate crimes against the Asian community, being an upstander can impact a situation, as well. However, what even is an upstander? According to Stanford's education team, an upstander is "someone who witnesses a behavior that could lead to something high risk or harmful, and makes the choice to intervene to make things better." Every bystander has the option to get involved and speak up or to leave the situation and turn the other way.

So, how can you become an upstander?

According to Kim Scott, founder of Candor Inc., one effective way "to push back on injustices like bullying is to confront the person with a 'you' statement, as in 'you need to stop speaking to them in that manner' or 'you need to stop.'" When being direct with an attacker or bully, you can teach them to back off and understand the circumstances and weight of their words in situations affecting the entire Asian community, even though the person is insulting one Asian person.

Additionally, from the same Stanford article, SARA (Sexual Assault & Relationship Abuse) Education team created a Venn Diagram known as the LIFE model to how to determine whether a situation is necessary and safe to intervene and protect the victims. Each letter has a given purpose, so let's talk about each:

Lead: Notice the situation

Identities: Interpret it as problematic

Feelings: Assume personal responsibility

Evaluation: Know what to do and intervene safely

Many of the strategies used with Right To Be's 5 D's trainings can actually be beneficial and useful to both bystanders and upstanders. While some frequently appear more on one than another, these 5 methods are ways to deescalate situations, protect victims, and influence others to act out.