Last weekend I was walking unsuspectingly near the Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam when I was yelled at by a few young guys. “Cancer gay” they shouted and some raw eggs followed at my head. I was covered in scrub. There was no trace of the perpetrators at that time. Nobody intervened. Why not?
It happened very quickly: an egg against my coat and one against my bag. I watched in astonishment as the boys ran away. Eventually something like ‘hey… dude’ came out, but that wasn’t much. About ten pairs of eyes saw it happen. Nobody responded. On the way home, I called my friend and asked, “Why doesn’t anyone ever do anything?”
It’s not the first time something like this has happened. Much more often, car windows are rolled down and then called ‘cancer cousin’. Except for close friends, no one ever intervened. The question: ‘why not?’ Still haunts me a few days later.
The bystander effect
Many researchers have studied situations where many bystanders see something happen, but no one does anything. This is called the bystander effect. Opinions of researchers differ. One says it exists, the other says it doesn’t. To get an answer to my question, I call behavioral biologist Patrick van Veen. He indicates that the bystander effect exists, but also that it is complicated.
“In situations like this, it’s better to be with only one person. In a large group, people no longer pay attention to the victim, but only to each other. So the bystanders. After such an incident, bystanders immediately investigate why no one responds, which causes them to doubt themselves. “Did I see it right?” “Why isn’t anyone responding?”
“What follows is a collective paralysis. Nobody does anything anymore. If only one person is there, they cannot see how other bystanders react. So they immediately focus on the victim.”
What is wrong with you?
Actually, I have another question: what happens to guests who start throwing eggs at me, a young gay man of 24, on a Sunday evening? Van Veen also has an explanation for this. According to him, people form their own identity by reacting against other identities.
“I will explain it through an example. If I am for Ajax, I can wear shirts with Ajax on them. Put on a scarf. Put up posters. Then I’m a fan. But to get a real identity I have to express what I don’t want to be: a Feyenoord fan. Then I will oppose Feyenoorders and my identity as an Ajax player will become stronger. That’s how it works with discrimination too.”
declaration
I have decided to call the police for advice. Does it make sense to report? And then what happens? They will call me back in the next two days through people who specialize in this. It is not clear how many reports of homophobia are made in Amsterdam. The numbers were not available to the police.
I’m definitely not alone. According to figures from Emancipator as many as a quarter of all gay men have experienced negative reactions in public spaces in the past year. This does not always lead to a declaration: “For some it is a lot of hassle, other people are afraid that nothing will be done with it. It is true that we have to make choices based on capacity, but we never discourage reporting We are then informed and if there is a trend we can take action,” said Amsterdam police.