The Battalion I 3.11.15
4
The Green Dot program
Green Dot, an intervention program designed for
bystanders, is combating violence with awareness.
Tanner Garza —THE BATTALION
Students attending a Green Dot workshop in February learn how to become an active bystander in a dangerous situation.
Green Dot encourages L=iJ
students to intervene 'What would I do differently?'
By Jennifer Reiley
jfe*. Direct, distract, delegate —“the three Ds”
^ that have the potential to diffuse danger
ous situations, as taught through Texas A&M’s
Green Dot bystander intervention program.
Green Dot is a, program to help reduce
situations of power-based violence on and
off campus. While an aspect of the program
involves sexual assault scenarios, other power-
based problems — such as stalking and domes
tic violence — are included.
Carol Binzer, Green Dot facilitator and di
rector of Administrative and Support Services
for the Department of Residence Life, said the
purpose of Green Dot is to show participants
that everyone has the capability of being help
ful. People are trained to be “Green Dots” to
help in a situation involving a “Red Dot,” a
person with malicious intent.
“So Green Dots, just like on a green light,
that notion of go, and Red Dots are moments
of bad decisions or somebody who wants to
do harm whether it’s premeditated or spur of
a moment,” Binzer said.
Angela Winkler, assistant director of Stu
dent Assistance Services and Green Dot facili
tator, said along with teaching participants the
skills they need to act in dangerous situations,
Green Dot empowers them to start conversa
tions on these difficult topics.
“Not that I want people going around talk
ing about depressing topics, because I don’t,”
Winkler said. “However, I think that these
topics are important and deserve a little bit
more conversation than they’re getting be
cause an awareness of the fact that you can do
something is a new concept to some people.”
Jesse Hernandez, educational administra
tion graduate student, attended Green Dot
training in Febmary. He said discussions over
each of the three key issues were enlightening
for him.
“Relationship violence, sexual assault and
stalking are topics that can be difficult to dis
cuss at times,” Hernandez said. “The Green
Dot training helped make conversations
around these topics seem less daunting.”
Scenarios in the program range from peer
pressure-induced drinking at a party to paying
attention to situations that may lead to sexual
violence. Many of the scenarios are intention
ally gender neutral, Winkler said.
“It is a very natural assumption that the
perpetrator is the guy, the victim’s the girl,”
Winkler said. “It’s very easy to jump there ...
Hearing some of the assumptions that were
happening, which happens with every group.
It’s not just women who do that, it’s not just
men, it’s everybody.”
Relating the courses to Aggie values reso
nates with participants, especially the reputa
tion that Aggies seek to take care of each other.
Binzer said it may be easier to spread awareness
about the presence of sexual violence.
“On college campuses, there’s not an overt
acknowledgement that sexual violence is
there,” Binzer said. “We’re vulnerable to that,
particularly our newest student women. The
notion is that we’re sort of all both aware of
that and interested in protecting everybody.”
By creating Green Dots, Binzer said there
is a wider web of people with the knowledge
to assist in abusive situations. She likened this
to vaccinations.
“A number of people are inoculated so that
People are bad bystanders, which is why Green Dot exists
"We walk
through the world
living with the assumption
that we would speak up in
timeof need, would step
forward and do what must
be done. Most of us are
if there’s an outbreak, a number of people are
prepared or immune and have the wherewith
al to do what they need,” Binzer said. “The
thinking behind Green Dot is there is many
more Green Dots, good folks, then- there are
people who are targeting others for violence
or whatever.”
After attending a bystander training
course, Chris Nygren, oceanog
raphy graduate student, said
the program taught him >
multiple options, both A
direct and indirect,
for preventing
abuse in situa- ^
tions.
Sonia Ma-
habir, assistant
coordinator
in the Wom
en’s Resource
Center, said
there are 80
people regis
tered for the full
bystander train
ing. The numbers of
attendants are slowly
rising, and Binzer said this " lll i|l|
may be due to the shortening
of the full bystander training. The
course used to take about eight hours, which
could be divided up over two days. Now, the
course has been shortened to one three-and-
a-half-hour day.
Winkler said the Green Dot training
program is customizable for students
and staff who cannot attend one of
the courses.
“I mean, we can do an overview i
speech in 10 minutes — it’s not go- I
ing to be great, but we can do it,” 1
Winkler said. “Or we could do one
in two hours. The full bystander
training is three to three and half
hours. But even within that we can
customize it for their group.”
In the course, Winkler said she stressed
that learning the skills doesn’t mean partici
pants are suddenly able to diffuse any situation.
Due to personal barriers or the circumstances,
people may not be able to be Green Dots
all the time, and Winkler said that
is okay.
While Binzer said the
program does not turn
someone into a super
hero, “cape includ
ed,” it does make ^ ’llilfllM
people at A&M
more aware ot
the part they can
play in help
ing others out,
without placing
themselves in
danger.
Students, fac
ulty and staff inter
ested in attending
can find registration
information at http://
greendot.tamu.edu/.
The next bystander training
course is from 8:30 a.m. to noon
on March 16.
lying."
Mark Dore
@Mark_Dore
When I was younger— 12 or
13, I can’t remember — I went
to an Astros game with the men
in my family. On the way back
to the car, we saw a couple
. arguing. The man had the
k passenger door open and he
wanted the woman to get
in and shut her door and
her mouth. She wanted
no part.
We stood about 20
feet away, the only oth
er people on the block.
My family held a frantic
conference, unsure what
to do. I ran to signal a
mounted police officer.
W When I returned, breathless,
the officer’s horse clopping
behind, I saw the man drag the
woman into the car by her hair.
Her still-open door scraped the
sidewalk as he peeled out. Black
paint streaked the curb.
The officer did noth
ing. I did nothing.
^ My family did
nothing.
I’ve since
lived with
the ques
tion, “What
would I do
differently?”
The two
polite, suit
ably energetic
women who
led my Green
Dot training in
February spread can
dy across the tables be
fore we arrived. It was a nice
gesture and it said, to me, “Yon
signed up for violence preven
tion training on a Friday
morning and we’ll do
anything it takes to
keep you alert,
even if it means
T. ' blowing $25
'-'i- ' Tfj'i. of our budget
BHIi on Sxiiaities
and fun-size
fli chocolates.”
The at
mosphere at
Green Dot
— with about
15 students,
mostly women,
yawning sleep
from their voices
— held a delicate
balance. It had to be
comfortable enough to
let our guard down, upbeat
enough to prevent the informa
tion from washing over us and
intimate enough to allow genu
ine dialog.
People are bad bystanders. We
walk through the world living
with the assumption that we
would speak up in time of need,
would step forward and do what
must be done. Most of us are
lying-
The more people present in
a given situation, the less likely
someone will react to calls for
help or take action to diffuse it.
The purpose of Green Dot
isn’t to create experts in the
realm of crisis response or pre
vention. It’s just to make us bet
ter bystanders, better observers,
better neighbors and friends.
Nuanced training with com
plex strategies wouldn’t help the
average student better prevent
situations of violence, or “Red
Dots.” Instead we’re tasked with
being “Green Dots,” beacons
of sense and security in a world
awash with violence — inten
tional or otherwise. The class
lasted about three hours, and
it didn’t change my world. It
wasn’t meant to.
“We’re not asking for party
police, we’re asking for your
spidey sense and awareness,” one
of the facilitators said.
“No one has to do everything,
but everyone has to do some
thing,” said the other.
The catchphrases come off as
cliche because they are. Because
they’re needed. This is square
one. As humans we’ve demon
strated we’re easily overwhelmed
in bystander situations. Green
Dot does everything it can to
strip away the complexity.
In a video, a woman — one of
the few to take action to stop a
staged, hidden-camera argument
— said she once watched an act
of violence and did nothing to
stop it. The memory haunted
her. She pledged never to watch
passively again.
In her I saw my younger self
with an Astros hat, baseball glove
and hollow pit in my stomach.
Even then, I knew I had an obli
gation to help, and I didn’t.
My morning at Green Dot
training in no way guarantees I’ll
react with conviction and cour
age the next time I happen on
a situation I know needs fixing.
I might clam up, look the other
way, say it’s none of my business.
Or I might not.