Why You Should Keep Walking Past An Injured Person
Rightwingers are sharing a photo from yesterday’s attack in London. In it, a woman wearing a headscarf walks past someone lying injured on the pavement, while six white people kneel around them. You can see the photo, and others of injured people, here.
What Twitter racists are saying this proves is that Muslims aren’t compassionate as Christians (read: white people) are. A lot of people are pointing out other passers-by who didn’t help, suggesting it’s opportunistic to single out a Muslim woman who passed by on the other side.
I have a different reaction. I don’t think the outrage is in good faith, of course—as has been pointed out, no white person would be treated like this—but in her position, I’d have walked past without stopping as well: not out of selfishness, but because it’s the responsible move.
When someone on the pavement is being taken care of—when someone else is at their side and aid is on its way—then unless you’re a medic or you’re asked to stop, the best thing you can do is keep walking. Kneeling over them concernedly won’t help matters; it may make things worse.
When paramedics find a person lying in the street, they start by dispersing the crowd. Often, someone stands nearby and tells people not to stop. In the photo, it’s not the woman walking past who’s putting the injured person at risk—it’s the six people leaning over them.
Crowding round someone in the street like that is several kinds of dangerous. It can make them panic or stop them from moving when they need to. It makes things harder for paramedics. It can result in further injuries, especially if people walk in the road to get past.
I don’t know why the woman in the headscarf didn’t stop, or how she was feeling or if she cared. I don’t know what made her glance at her phone. None of those things matter to me. What matters is that she’s the person doing the right thing, and that the racist outcry is bullshit.
