This is the last blog before my TED Talk tomorrow and I do not want to say too much and give away my whole speech since most of it is already on here. I am excited to talk tomorrow but a little nervous because of the content. Is anyone else as nervous as I am? I hope to reach everyone on a different level and somehow tie this speech into our class. I think i have covered the pathos, logos, etc. If not I will find out soon enough. I have wrote the speech up a few times and changed a few things each time but I think I am ready. I can't believe our class is coming to an end it went by SO fast! The whole point of my TED Talk is to get people to speak out when things do not seem right. I know this may seem like a hard task to accomplish judging by all the reasons to not act out; but if people at least give it extra thought the next time they see something wrong, I would be happy with that little progress. Okay I have said enough see you all tomorrow.

Here is my fourth blog, I find it very disturbing how easy it is to come up with situations to show you to get my point acrossed about people not speaking out.After watching the YouTube clip under these paragraphs, another question of not speaking out came to mind. What if the person in trouble looked like you? If you could relate to the person in trouble would you be more amped to help them. Do people take into consideration were they are when trouble arises, and what the person looks like that is in trouble or asking for help. Can these questions determine the bystander's next move. From a personal standpoint, I can remember as a child walking to the corner store and what I believed was a male prostitute asking me for money. His eyes were all swelled up and I can remember his nose running and him not having a coat on in the middle of winter. I ignored him and went into the store when I came out with my bag of potatoes chips and candy he was still outside begging for money. I have never forgotten that feeling and still look back on that day. If I gave him money, would he have blown it up his nose, or actually used the money for something to eat? A big reason why I kept walking and did not gave him anything was the fact that I was scared and by myself. (Or so I like to tell myself) My parents have always lectured me to mind my own business, not to look or talk to anyone while going to the store, and to come right home. I learned early on, what could happen to people who were vulnerable and not alert. I can completely understand why they drilled this in my head. I did not live in the greatest neighborhood and there where people like the young man at the store walking around every day. I often wonder why examples like the one still bother me today. I think a lot of this has to do with my personality and other situations relatable to this one. This is another reason why people often do not step in fear of something bad happening or not knowing what to do when they step in.
Another incident that happened last April was quite like a story I brought to your attention on my second blog; only this situation caught on tape, happened forty years after the prior one I talked about dealing with a young woman being stabbed and left to die. Here under the link for the step up program that I will talk about in my last blog, you will see a video of a homeless man stepping into help a woman mugged with a knife. The homeless man intervenes becoming the Good Samaritan and is then stabbed several times in the chest as the robber flees; the man lays on the ground dying as over a dozen people pass him by. Why did this happen? Some reasons for not stepping in could deal with the way he looks, the environment, the bystander effect and the diffusion theory. Anyone of those excuses will work for an explanation on why people did not step in. That being said, this sad epidemic still exists providing little good evidence why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSsPfbup0ac
http://blog.stepupprogram.org/?p=330