Forbidden City Essay Two ways people respond to systems of oppressions is by being an upstander or a bystander. An upstander is a person who helps the victim by standing up to the person. A bystander is a person who witnesses a form of oppression, but does nothing about it, encouraging the oppressor to continue his acts. A victim is a person being used or exploited by the oppressor or oppressors for their own personal gain. People accept oppression because it is easy for the oppressors to believe in dominant messages and deny seeing their privilege and deny that others are being oppressed. One way people respond to systems of oppressions is by being an upstander. The film, Pigeon takes place in Remies, France, 1941, during WWII. A Jewish man saves a pigeon from two boys, who were about to kill it with …show more content…
A stranger witnesses this act and repays the Jewish man by saving his life when he was confronted by Nazi soldiers for his identification papers. In the book, the Forbidden City by William Bell, the main character, Alex, was an upstander, as he was willing to help Xin-hua and China by smuggling illegal videotapes that contained the tape of the Tiananmen Square massacre, to Canada and broadcast it to the world. “ Sure” Alex said. “ I would have done that anyway,” ( Bell 146 ). Another way people respond to systems of oppression is by being a bystander. Two examples of bystanders are Martin Niemoller who wrote the poem ‘First They Came For’ and Maurice Ogden who wrote ‘The Hangman.’ In the poem, ‘First They Came For’ the poet said that the Nazis came for socialists, trade unionists, and the Jews; he said he had not spoken to any of them. “ Then