Some of you may want to believe you were “just bystanders.”
That you were innocent observers of what’s happened to me.
But that’s not true, is it?
You talked. You repeated the lies. You added little details to make them juicier. You leaned into whisper when you thought I couldn’t hear.
You took rumors – born out of spite, resentment and ignorance – and you carried them from hallway to hallway, unit to unit. You gave them legs. You gave them credibility. And in doing so, you became part of the attack.
You might think it’s harmless. That I “deserved it.” That you were “just passing it along.”
But lies don’t stay small. They spread. They harden. They stain. And once they’ve destroyed one person’s name, they don’t stop there.
One day it won’t be me. It will be your mother.
Your father.
Your child.
And when it’s their turn to be cornered by whispers, to have strangers look at them with contempt they don’t understand, will you still think it was just harmless chatter?
Harassment doesn’t need fists to do damage. It needs people willing to trade in someone else’s pain for a moment of feeling important. And many of you have done exactly that.
I hope you never find out what it feels like to be on the receiving end of the poison you helped spread. But if you do, you’ll remember this: you were not an innocent bystander. You were holding the can of gasoline.
You weren’t just a bystander – you were the wind that kept the flames alive.
