Personally, I agree with Buckley. The amount of people that choose to not speak up is much larger than the population that likes to speak their mind. In a way it is probably better that more people on this planet actually possess a filter, or else we would probably be undergoing our fifth world war by now.
Just like Buckley, I am not accustomed to speaking up by "taking an initiative". I also figure that these small annoyances will eventually be resolved and it isn't necessary to storm over and make something into a bigger deal than it should be. For example if the temperature on an airplane is terribly cold I will miserably put on more layers of clothing, rather than be THAT PERSON who rudely complains. I will then sit and hope that either another passenger or a flight attendant will finally notice that the cabin has reached the temperature equivalent to Alaska and actually do something about it. Though this seems to be a common occurrence on my international flights to visit family in Asia, each time it happens I never regret being the one to stay quiet.
However there have been multiple occasions when I wished I had the nerve to speak up when there are people standing directly next to me talking about me in Chinese, not realizing that I actually understand every last word they are saying. I can only imagine the shock and embarrassment that would soon follow if I ever spoke up. But yet each time I pay no attention and pretend that I actually am the oblivious white girl they think I am. Yet I still think that nothing positive would have come out of revealing my true identity to these people. Times that call for people to complain are when something helpful could actually result from it. Sometimes people just need to speak up dammit!
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