I haven’t decided whether I believe that it’s a result of hegemonic masculinity or some weird collective moral spiral, but I’ve found that, in this day and age, the giving and receiving of sympathy is becoming more and more taboo. On occasion, it’s understandable, especially with regard to the “little things.” Sometimes an expression of unprovoked annoyance gets under your skin just the right way, and, in relation to the war and other brutalities occurring throughout the world, domestic troubles tend to seem like cries for attention rather than legitimate problems. However, as difficult as it may be to shed a tear or two for a failed exam or a poor Internet connection, there are bigger, more pressing issues that we still consider trivial — issues that are less about minor discrepancies in the lives of privileged millennials.

When attitudes that accompany issues like rape culture or racism or homophobia are so institutionalized in the ways we behave and perceive the world, it’s easy to brush off the consequences with a flippant, “that’s just how it is” and think nothing else of it. Instead of considering the implications of our words or actions, we encourage victims of these harmful things we say and do to conform to the expectations that we’ve internalized against them. We are willfully ignorant to the point that the struggles of so many are recognized as nonissue, result of a failure to comply with some unwritten rule rather than a failure within the rule itself. We don’t want to deal with the problems we’re preserving, so we silence the voices of those who are afflicted by acting as if they’re the ones to blame.

Just think of the response against Brock Turner’s crime: the millions of those condemning his atrocities were accompanied by an alarming number of apologists, declaring that Turner’s victim should have dressed more appropriately or had less to drink, altogether ignoring the fact that he had taken complete advantage of her vulnerability and physically assaulted her. There’s instances like that of Kim Kardashian, who, despite literally being held hostage and robbed in her hotel, was accused of flaunting her wealth and being too careless with the platform that her fame gives her. On more of a macro scale, the murders of thousands of police brutality victims are brushed off as anomalies in an otherwise flawless system because of the color of their skin. Millions of Syrian refugees were denied asylum all across the Western world because they were seen as threats to our security rather than victims of war. People dealing with mental illness and addiction are dehumanized and stigmatized every day because of the intangibility of their troubles.

No matter who or what the case, there are those who, collectively and without fail, manage to find a way to circumvent the horrors that these people have experienced and reverse the guilt upon them. Being on the receiving end of such injustice is viewed as a sign of weakness or irresponsibility, and renouncing it is considered senseless anger, nothing more than an excuse to complain. It’s violently self-perpetuating, and it has real-world consequences; victims don’t speak up because they’re ashamed or afraid, and the rest of us don’t speak out because we fear backlash or disregard. It’s a problem that occurs across barriers of race and gender, of education level and socioeconomic status, and it brings a body count with it —when the matter isn’t discussed with the gravity it deserves, it keeps happening, and it only worsens.

Not all of it is caused by malice or spite; as prevalent and as harmful as victim blaming is, I don’t think it’s something we intend to do, and I genuinely believe it’s something we can overcome. Regardless of what we do and say on a mass scale, we, as individuals, haven’t lost our abilities to empathize with and feel compassion for our fellow man. The cycle we’re preserving must be broken from the bottom up — we can’t change others, but we can and should work to improve upon ourselves and speak out against the injustices that happen around us every day. Speak your piece, break the cycle, make the world a better place.