Active Bystander Scenarios
SET #1
What impact will this scenario have on your colleague/team/community?
What potential impact would not disrupting the behaviour have?
How do you feel in the moment? What emotions might you feel in the scenario?
How might you be an active bystander in that moment?
(Groups 1, 2) You approach a supervisor for help with a problem you are having with a female co-worker. Your supervisor responds, “Don’t worry about it. She probably just gets upset when it’s her time of month.”
(Groups 3, 4) A new employee is sharing their story at an LABC community event about why they came to live in Canada. She talks about the anti-homosexuality legislation in her country. Someone interrupts and says, “You don’t look gay.”
(Groups 5, 6) During a team meeting you overhear a colleague talking about the anti-racism effort at LABC, referring to it as part of “the socialist agenda.” During the Q&A, the same colleague asks, “So, we’re all about diversity now and I feel like there is a contradiction. Let’s be honest, we don’t really want all kinds of diversity, right? I mean, I feel like we’re not allowed to have a diversity of opinions on diversity?”
(Groups 7, 8) You’re in a meeting with a group of your colleagues and several managers. In the middle of the meeting, a manager says a racial slur. Everyone falls silent and people exchange uncomfortable glances. The manager notices and asks “What? What did I do?”
(Groups 9, 10) You notice one of your managers avoids talking to an Asian colleague, preferring to communicate through text or e-mail. If they have to talk, they stand a few feet away from them to talk. They sanitize their hands immediately afterwards. They don’t do this to any of your other non-Asian colleagues. After a meeting ends, this manager says to you that they blame their Asian colleagues for “starting the pandemic in the first place.”
SET #2
How do you feel in the moment? What emotions does the scenario trigger?
How might you be an active bystander in that moment?
(Groups 1, 2) Your supervisor wants to address diversity in the workplace. In meetings, when the topic emerges, they look at your colleague, the only individual who identifies as an Indigenous person on your team. You notice that your colleague shifts uncomfortably and averts their gaze when the topic emerges.
(Groups 3, 4) During an online meeting between you, your supervisor, and two other colleagues, there are questions around LABC’s plans to provide specific support to Black and Indigenous communities. One of your colleagues seems exasperated and says, “I still really feel like this is favouritism. White people are being hit by COVID just as bad. Maybe this is unpopular right now, but I’m of the school that all lives matter.” One of your colleagues who is a member of one of those communities falls silent.
(Groups 5, 6) Your colleague is hiring at LABC. They have received resumes for a new position and are supposed to call the top three candidates to set up interview times. They say they’re not going to call the first name on the list. “I’ll pretend I couldn’t get her and I’ll call someone else.” When you ask why, they state, “I can tell from her name she’s not going to be a good fit there.”
(Groups 7, 8) A meeting is winding up and as people are leaving, you overhear a conversation between two colleagues. Colleague A makes a discriminatory comment. Colleague B, who is a person of colour, gives Colleague A feedback on their comments but A tells B that they are being overly sensitive and “Everything is political these days!” This is not the first time that Colleague A has received feedback on their offensive comment.
(Groups 9, 10) A Supervisor says a transphobic slur during a meeting. A colleague speaks up about it but the Director brushes it off and says “It was just a joke. Besides, I’m not hurting anyone since nobody from the LGBTQ+ community is here anyway.”