Episode 98: Should You Speak Up?

Point Of View:

Should you speak up?   This is a challenging question. Speaking up can help others, help right wrongs, create good changes. 

But it can also be dangerous: people have been raped, beaten and murdered for speaking up. If someone or a group is doing something wrong, they rarely want someone blabbing about it!

It is  an important topic to consider. Whatever you decide-

Be brave AND safe, my friend!

#WomenEmpowerment, #WomenSupportingWomen,#WomenOver40, #FemaleEntrepreneur, #PerimenopausalWomen

Thanks for joining me!

Are you longing to change some aspect of your life? Is there something that you have always wanted to do but just haven't? Are you ready to accelerate your results - stretch beyond what you find comfortable?

There are 2 essential elements you need to change your life:
a proven method and personal support or coaching.

As a Life Transformation Expert, I provide both of these. Email me at coachlyndi@lyndihutchinson.com and we can schedule 30 minute free consultation to see how I can serve you. And visit my website: https://lyndihutchinson.com. 

See You Next Week!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Should you speak up? Welcome to the broadcast. This is June of twenty twenty-six and we've been talking about suffragettes. Men and women who've been speaking up throughout the ages, actually, and then in our recent history of the last 250 years in these these United States, men and women who put their life on the line and sometimes lost their life to speak up. This week I decided that our action our power word is action. When we see something that's wrong or something that's not fair, we want to speak up. But there are repercussions about speaking up. And for those of us who are older than probably 20 or 25, we've seen or maybe even experienced the repercussions that come from speaking up against kind of anything. People don't like you pointing stuff out to them, especially if it's illegal or immoral and should be stopped. At the time of this recording, there's a lot of tumult and problems going on because many are uh protesting the current administration in the White House. Should you speak up? Well, the suffragettes spoke up, and even though it may have cost them in terms of being beaten or starved or even murdered, they changed the world. They've made our life better. But it's a powerful question and it's something very, very personal. Now I got a picture off the internet. This is from Wikipedia. I am not paid by Wikipedia, but I do believe in giving credit to where it's due. And this picture was taken. Let me see if I can put it where you can see it. In April of 1985. I'll do it again. That was a little short. Okay, there's a lady, and she's actually hitting. No, he did not suffer terrible harm, but she took her purse and she hit a neo-Nazi protester guy. Uh this was in Sweden, 1985. And her name, if I probably pronounce it wrong, was um Danuta Danielson. Now I say was because she was only 38 years old. Excuse me, I'm sorry, uh, 38 years old when this picture was taken, and she did not expect the picture to be taken. That was a surprise, and she did not like her picture being taken because she was concerned about repercussions. And I there's not a lot written about her. This was a very personal issue. The neo-Nazis uh in Sweden, they had gotten a permit to stage a rally, and they did, and of course, there was a lot of uh commotion. Um her mom, uh Dan Yuta's mom, was a Holocaust survivor. Their ethnicity was Polish, and she and her husband moved to Poland as adults. So when this uh rally of neo-Nazis happened, she was affected to a point where she swung her purse at one of the guys, hit him. There's actually a video on YouTube. Uh the man there was no blood. I mean, he he kept walking. He he was like, Well, what was that? Young, healthy gentleman, he kept walking. Um, but these skin heads uh in this protest, of course, ignited in her this emotion. Uh, the thing that I found uh especially disturbing, and it according to Wikipedia, the way it's written, three years later she died uh because she had mental issues and she committed suicide by jumping off a water tower. Okay, so how she actually died, if she had a little help, we don't know, but she was fully aware that once her picture got out there, she was a target. And the fact that she died three years later for me, and this is a personal thing, uh, certainly puts kind of a question mark on that. Although the article is written that it was absolute suicide that she did by herself. We'll probably never know. The thing about it is that she unwittingly became an international superstar, and here is a picture of uh an artist created this statue, and um, I believe it's in uh Sweden. Danuta, the lady, well, was not particularly happy with that. Um, I can't remember if it was erected after she died. I know her son was a spokesperson and he wasn't particularly happy. It's one of those, yeah, it's nice that her bravery was commemorated. On the flip side, violence begins violence, even if it's just your handbag. But it does bring up some questions. Should you speak up? We know that Dan Yuta was speaking up because her mother fortunately survived, but her mother endured the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp. And we know that millions and millions and millions, over 13 million people, did not survive the Nazi regime. So her mother was one of the few. And you can imagine that she was filled with emotion when she acted and took a swing at the guy with a purse. But something I'd like you to um consider is the question, should you speak up? Right now, our government is in being there's a great deal of uh commotion because of the Epstein files. And there are not a couple, but over six million pieces of documents. And we know at this point the government has released only three million pieces, and even then they are heavily redacted, which to me is an admission of guilt. If you can't show someone something and what little you show them is all blacked out, uh you got something to hide. Now, when it comes to the survivors, we know, pardon me, we know that there were over a thousand, and those were just the ones documented. Uh human trafficking is a huge problem. It's another form of slavery, and unfortunately, it happens with young, vulnerable, and often uh economically uh depressed folks. So their options are few. So the question is if we see something, if we see something at work, if we're an eyewitness to something, if we suspect something, should we speak up? Well, it's a moral question, and it's one that you need to consider carefully because there are repercussions. We know that Dr. Martin Luther King spoke out very powerfully against uh the oppression of black Americans, and he paid for it. And he uh it wasn't a surprise. He was pretty certain that he would die a martyr, and unfortunately that was the truth. Now the good news is there's a lot of persons throughout history who have spoke spoken out against authorities, regimes, persons who were negative and had bad intent, and they lived. Um, some were beaten up, uh, many lost their jobs, uh there was a penalty for speaking up. Now the good news is we do live in a country, the the United States, where theoretically you have freeness of speech. Uh again, that's another question that's been brought up recently. But I would encourage, I've encouraged my children, and I hang with people, my friends, who are tend to be very vocal, not foolish. I'm not talking about doing foolish stuff, and I I would not recommend swinging a purse at somebody because it was a moment. She had uh she had a moment. There are ways of making your voice heard without uh perhaps with a minimum of threat to you, with a minimum of consequence. And one, you can do it in groups. You've we've seen on TV and videos, uh millions of people currently are in the streets protesting the current actions of the administration and things like with ICE that are unfair and uh many areas uh that need to be fixed. So there is safety in numbers. So if you feel so compelled, you can speak out in a group. There can be anonymous ways. Um ever so often you hear about someone who has sent some kind of document in the mail to uh an offending of an offending party to an authority that could handle it. But the question is, should you speak up? And the moral answer is yes, especially if children are being violated, if people are being hurt, yes. But you need to be aware that there are risks. The power word this week is action. And I've done my speaking out, and I paid for it, and I would pay happily again. I speak, I speak, I spoke out against an abusive marriage. No one wanted to hear about it or believe it, but I knew what it was true. And that is something I would do again. I would not want to do again, but I would definitely do again. Something that's wrong is wrong. It doesn't matter that it's not popular. It doesn't matter that people will disown you. But it's what you can live with. And also when you show courage, it's contagious, and that's wonderful. We've talked about all the men and women before who've opened doors, they tore down walls, figurative and literal, to give you and I a better life. And I am grateful for that. So this week, action. Should you take it? Should you speak up? Hopefully your answer will be yes, and you can do it as safely as you possibly can. So, George Burns, who passed away several years ago, uh uh a monumental figure in the world of comedy. George Burns says, you know you're old when you stoop down to tie your shoes and you look for something else to do while you're down there. If you're young, you probably don't appreciate that, but the day is coming, my friend. So have a great week. And again, I enjoy your company. It's my privilege to be with you. Keep building your dream, creating a life that you love because you deserve it, and you will impact in a wonderful, wonderful way. Take care. We'll see you next time.