How do you stand up to the evil in your midst? What do you do? How do you gain courage to do this?
It can be frightening to stand up to the evil in your midst? Yet, when you act sooner than later, you save a lot of people a lot of grief. Do the right thing.
I can remember a few times when I stood up to evil, and I can remember times when people stood up to my wrongdoing too.
I'll start with my own missteps. On two occasions in life when I misspoke. I made comments that were derogatory and hurtful. When I made the comments, I didn't understand how wrong those comments were, but the people around me recognized the error of my ways and they spoke up to me directly, harshly, and with my best interests in mind--I quickly learned my lesson, apologized and did not repeat the offense. To this day, I am so grateful for colleagues who were courageous enough to speak up to me and right my ways in a thoughtful, direct and efficient way, a way that saved me a lot of trouble later on while teaching me valuable life lessons.
On another occasion, a colleague spoke up against my less-than-positive behavior, again behavior not intended to hurt or harm, but behavior with hindsight that should have been different. Unlike the first experiences I shared, this colleague worked behind my back in a destructive way with others. Eventually my behavior was the focus of a serious administrative meeting, a meeting where I had a lawyer to defend me. Yes, I raised my voice in the situation. And yes, while I was raising my voice to defend students, I should have defended the student with the support of other colleagues, a calmer voice and a more prepared argument. Yet, what if my colleague had acted like the first two colleagues and directly spoke to me and helped me to see the error of my ways. If he had done that, I would have learned my lesson, and saved a lot of time and money for many. Despite the struggle involved, I learned a lesson and bettered my ways.
If we help people in honest, positive, courageous ways when they err at the early stages, we save them a lot of deeper, more hurtful trouble later on. It takes courage to help a person when they err, but it's always the right thing to do.
There were situations when I spoke up to help make a situation better too. On one occasion colleagues were ganging up on a teacher who was experiencing a bad time. I knew the teacher for a long time and was well aware of the oppression she faced in the work place throughout her tenure. Rarely if ever did people support this teacher's work or her position. She was more often than not isolated from a good, positive collegial community for many reasons. When the teachers ganged up on this individual, I spoke up and reminded the educators of their responsibility to support the educator at this turn. In the end, the teachers' support was not perfect, but it was much better than it would have been if the teachers who were ganging up on her got their way.
On another occasion, an administrator negotiated a health care deal where his friends got special attention and a better plan than the rest of the teachers. Many were willing to let this go and not bring attention to it. I had watched this administrator wager several unfair deals prior to this and I didn't think it was fair that some were getting special attention and a good deal while others had to pay more and get a worse deal in health care. I spoke up and encouraged others to speak up. The administrator walked back the unfair deal and a more just deal was negotiated instead.
It is difficult to notice unjust situations and it's difficult to be on any side of those situations if you are a person who believes in justice, but unjust situations will just worsen if we don't speak up early on--the earlier we speak up, the better we do for those perpetrating the injustice and those enduring the injustice too. We have to stand up to evil and injustice when it shows its ugly face, and it's best to do that early on with humanity, dignity, directness and sensitivity to all involved. We can do that.