Should I Speak Out When I Overhear a Person Saying Something Hateful?
Should I Speak Out When I Overhear a Person Saying Something Hateful? I was in a barbershop in a town west of the Mississippi and east of the Rockies.
I didn’t hear what had been said before or what came after, but I suddenly heard another customer (quite calmly) say, “I just wish all homosexuals would be obliterated.” I’m gay and have had nightmares about being in a concentration camp because of my sexuality.
Hearing those words said out loud froze my blood. I didn’t make a scene, just sat and pondered it all for a minute, then got up and walked out.
I didn’t want to knowingly breathe the same air as someone speaking the language of Nazis. Should I have spoken out? — Name Withheld From the Ethicist: Some years ago, I was in Budapest at one of those “ruin bars” that pop up there in odd corners, and one of my drinking companions — a person with intertwined literary and civil rights careers — suddenly stood up and made his way over to a table of young men.
