GUEST COLUMNIST: A confusing cry for help from a victim

Dana Catanese, Guest Columnist Dana Catanese, Guest Columnist You watch my situation from a distance. You walk a block behind me, returning from the same off-campus party on 43rd Street -- the off-limits parameters freshman mothers set. Two men, one wearing a Penn sweatshirt, the other wearing a black T-shirt, step from the shadows. "Nice legs," one says. "Where ya going?" asks the other, as he reaches out to touch me. You watch as I'm pulled, behind a building. A few moments later someone yells, "FIRE, FIRE!" But this only complicates the situation, adding ambiguity to an already vague situation. First, it's unclear if I knew the men -- they were after all wearing Penn paraphernalia. Maybe they were friends, maybe a boyfriend. Second, it looked like I was being aggravated, and possibly accosted. But then I yelled, "Fire!" In your state -- and we ought to consider it -- I may have completely confused any grasp you had on reality, diminishing my chances of receiving help. Since the '60s, social psychologists have been intrigued by emergency preventative. Our own University President Judith Rodin, while a graduate student at Columbia, experimented on the after effects of the Kitty Genovese murder that stunned the New York metropolitan area in 1964. Over a 35-minute period, Genovese was stabbed three times, while her assailant fled and came back. The shocking fact is at least 37 neighbors witnessed the stabbing and not one called the police, until after Genovese was dead. Interviewing the bystanders, revealed their confusion. It was ambiguous whether Genovese knew her attacker, if it was a lovers quarrel, or an actual emergency. For innate social reasons, we are unlikely to interfere in a lovers' quarrel, because, "It's personal." Likewise if the situation is unclear, we don't want to embarrass ourselves, by stepping in the middle of a boyfriend's jealous tirade. So we look to what everyone else is doing, and judge the "emergency factor" by our social influence. Logically the more bystanders there are, the increased probability of being assisted. Yet, when was the last time you stopped to assist a broken-down El Camino on the side of the freeway? I always assume someone else will stop. So does everyone else. If you've ever driven cross-country, you'll stop to help anyone in the middle of Arizona, because you're the only two people not flying to Los Angeles. When culpability is divided among bystanders it affects large populations inversely. In a city like Philadelphia, this news is frightening. Bittenbinder's popular "fire" tactic is comparable to Aesop's fable: "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," -- our desperate pleas ignored. His reasoning however (both the boy's and Bittenbinder's) is accurate: "draw attention to the situation." It's just the application that's impractical. You go out on a run at night -- because you have class all day; you're walking back from Furness at midnight; you're stumbling back from Smoke's or doing the "walk of shame" early Saturday morning. Someone accosts you. How do you get attention, and ultimately help? The all important rape whistle? Never mind, that just brings us back to crying wolf. Trip a blue-light phone? Wonderful if you can get to it while in a scuffle, especially since the University nearly doubled their presence on campus. What about the obvious? Yell, "HELP!" This direct command clarifies a potentially ambiguous situation, and demands the bystander's action. Other blatant variations on a tested theme, "Help! I'm being mugged/raped/beaten! Call the police!" Even better if you can single someone out of the crowd, and this pertains more to a date-rape/public lovers' quarrel. Pleading for "Matt's" help confronts him with the responsibility. He is more apt to act because he knows you are relying on his assistance. Hopefully "Matt" was raised to follow Bittenbinder's Golden Rule, a variation on a traditional and utopian fundamental principle: "The Golden Rule" -- help one another.