Don’t Walk Away in Silence

I used to think staying neutral was the responsible choice.
But then I realized—neutrality in the face of injustice isn’t neutral. It’s alignment by omission.
So I stopped mistaking silence for integrity and started noticing who gets punished while others stay comfortable.
You don’t have to raise your voice to take a side.
Sometimes, all it takes is looking away.

I remember how still I was—wound tight like a spring, while simultaneously trying to blend into the background. A new boy had joined our school midway through the year, and within days, the same kids who had tormented me for almost two years had turned their attention to him. He was small, uncertain, a little too earnest. He hadn’t yet learned the code of survival: keep your head down, don’t speak too clearly, don’t want too much.

I wanted to help. My whole body burned with the desire to intervene. But fear held me tight. If I stepped forward, I knew they’d turn back on me—and I wasn’t sure I could survive it again. I’d only just escaped their notice. I had wounds still fresh, laughter that still stung. So I stayed quiet. I stayed still. I avoided his eyes as they scanned the room, pleading for someone to step in. I prayed he wouldn’t look at me. I couldn’t bear the recognition.

Afterward, I felt the sharp edge of guilt, the dull weight of shame. I tried, in small and private ways, to make it up to him—befriending him when no one was watching, offering a joke or kindness when it felt safe. But I knew what I hadn’t done. I knew what I’d chosen: safety over solidarity.

I told myself I’d do better next time. But next time came decades later.

By the time I was in my late thirties, I’d built a career inside a Fortune 50 company in the U.S., putting together a digital media business and climbing steadily through the ranks. I’d been a name-only supporter of the company’s LGBTQ+ affinity group—but my participation was limited to being on their listserv and an entry in the closely protected members' directory. Being a listed ally felt like enough. One day, I placed a small sticker on my office door—a discreet marker meant to signal that my office was a safe space. I didn’t think much of it. Another gesture that asked little, risked less.

Then someone I worked with—someone I would later come to think of as a big sister—asked to speak with me privately. She told me how hard it had been to come out at home, and how she still wasn’t fully out at work—only within the safety of the affinity group. She’d spent years carrying that fear quietly, unsure who she could trust. Her story rewired something in me—not just empathy, but recognition. I hadn’t feared retribution for who I loved, but I had known what it meant to live in fear. And suddenly, that sticker on my door felt like a thimble of water offered to someone walking through a desert.

So I began to speak. Not all at once, not with perfect fluency—but with steadiness. I took on a leadership role in the group, not just in name but in presence. I listened more. I learned the vocabulary of solidarity. And I recognized that as a straight, white man, I had a kind of built-in safety—one I could choose to use. So I did. I leveraged that privilege—my voice, my visibility, my proximity to power—not to center myself, but to help push for real, structural change. I advocated, loudly and publicly, for domestic partner benefits at the company. And when quiet requests didn’t work, we raised our voices.

We threatened to bring a resolution to the floor at the Annual General Meeting. That got their attention. Soon after, each of us perceived as a ringleader was summoned into corner offices—separately. The message was clear: if we stood down, the company might consider offering domestic partner benefits. But regardless of what we chose, our careers were effectively over. We had caused embarrassment, and that couldn’t go unpunished.

Eventually, the benefits were offered. But even then, they were partial, conditional. Excluded from coverage were the partners of recent retirees—a negligible cost to a Fortune 50 company, but a clear reminder of how half-hearted progress can be. A half-step dressed up as a leap.

I stayed, for a while. Not because I’d made peace with it, but because I didn’t yet have the freedom to leave. I was still on a work visa. It was a calculated silence this time—not born of fear, but of necessity. I wasn’t free yet. But I was getting closer.

The moment my green card came through and the company announced another round of voluntary buyouts, I didn’t hesitate. I stepped forward. I took the offer. And I walked.

What surprised me most wasn’t the relief. It was the rightness—a quiet alignment between who I was and what I was no longer willing to accept. That moment didn’t shatter me. It sculpted me. Like a sculptor removing the excess to reveal what had always been there, that experience chipped away at the parts of me still striving for corporate approval. The shine was gone. The shape of what mattered had begun to emerge.

Later, when I became the CEO of a small publicly traded startup, I encountered that same ugliness in new clothing—this time dressed in the sleek language of innovation and scale. As we moved beyond family and friends to seek institutional funding, I felt Wall Street’s shadow pressing in—not just measuring us, but demanding their pound of flesh up front. The investment bankers didn’t want to build anything with us—they wanted to extract value early and often. I’d shake hands with them and want to count my fingers afterward, just to make sure they were still there. We were pressured to expand too fast, take on debt we didn’t need, staff up before we had stability. It wasn’t about mission. It was about monetization. I didn’t want that either.

But amidst the noise, there were signals. Invitations that felt different. Through one partner, we worked closely with the Navajo Nation to explore how wireless technologies could support their communities. In another, we worked tirelessly to make sure that offerings included low-cost internet access for underserved neighborhoods in Orange County, California. These quiet, often overlooked moments felt more purposeful than any boardroom victory ever had. They reminded me that voice isn’t always about volume. Sometimes, it’s about direction.

I think often of that boy, eyes wide and searching, scanning a room full of faces that refused to meet his. I couldn’t help him then. But years later, when someone else sat across from me and shared her fears, I didn’t walk away.

The Cost of Saying Nothing

What I’ve learned is that silence isn’t neutral. It has weight, direction, and consequence. Sometimes it protects us. More often, it protects the systems that hurt us.

I don’t pretend to always get it right. But I’ve come to believe this: one voice—spoken with care, with conviction—can invite others to find their own. And once that begins, the silence thins. A new possibility enters the room.