When Aaron Teo witnessed a racist and violent attack against an Asian man, he intervened.
"The immediate concern was to de-escalate and put some sort of physical distance between the aggressor and the victim. Thankfully after stepping in, there were a few other people who gathered around and helped to stand in the way of the perpetrator,” he said.
Most people imagine they would do the same, but research says otherwise.
Professor Kevin Dunn from Western Sydney University is an expert on bystander action. He said there's a gap between people's ambitions and their actual actions.
"When you ask people in surveys whether they would take action, it's in the 70 percent, high 60s. You ask the same people if they've ever taken any such action, then you get ... below 30 percent.”
People often don’t intervene due to a fear of becoming a target themselves, lack of knowledge about what to do and lack of certainty about whether the event is racist.
Professor Dunn said the gap between our ambition and our actions is "untapped potential that is out there for us to leverage for anti-racist purposes, if we can get people to understand ... the different forms of action they can take".
This episode of Understanding Hate looks at how we can safely step in if we witness harassment or hate.
